Persistently…The Choice Maker Chooses Again
by Russell T. Williams
“The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.”
Napoleon Hill
Napoleon Hill’s classic book, Think and Grow Rich, helped to define the mindset of men from the Greatest Generation who made their transition from soldiers to entrepreneurs in the bustling 1950’s. My dad, a Navy man, was one who used Hill’s book to counsel himself and ultimately his kids on the creation of the new plans always in play in the life of the Choice Maker.
From the perspective of fifty-plus years, Hill was the pioneering voice of what became known in the second half of 20th century as pop psychology publications. One core theme defines this genre: How do I think?
How one thinks is at the center of character development. Every adult, who mentors kids, knows that the internal work of character rests on the premise that thoughts shape habitual attitudes and behavior. Said differently, what we think on the inside shows up on the outside as behavior.
The Lesson of Choice is the pearl of great price in understanding the power of thought. Authentic thinking embraces the mental habit of choice-making. Authentic thinking acts from a center of constant and ceaseless choice making. Kids of Character do become emotionally and mentally healthy human beings as they habitually stand at the center of choice-making’s ever-present new thoughts, feelings and actions.
Is there one fundamental persistence lesson for mentors to communicate to kids? Absolutely, emphatically YES! The persistence lesson is: Today, I choose what I am thinking. Today, I stand on the sacred ground of the choices I make now. No one, no circumstance chooses for me. Yesterday’s choice can define, but not dictate, today’s choice.
Lasting, positive results occur in a kid who is doggedly presented this prized cornerstone life information. The child who learns to live habitually and nobly as a choice maker finds the courage and clarity not to wallow in life’s victimization gutter. Doing so requires the understanding that choice making happens in every day, in every interaction, in every decision. Ultimately, the child who becomes a teen who becomes an adult using the persistence lesson, I Choose, discovers the capacity to defeat the ugliest, most destructive mental habit that controls the lives of most people: victimization.
Persisting as the Choice Maker… is the noblest work of character development.
