“Success demands singleness of purpose.”
–Vince Lombardi
One of the books I am reading recently is a never-before-released Napoleon Hill book titled, “Outwitting the Devil.” It is considered a controversial book in the “New Thought” realm, and in fact he and then his wife and later nephew’s did not want to publish it for this exact reason. It wasn’t until the nephew’s wife died that it was then published in 2011, approximately 73 years later.
Those that know me well know that a belief in a physical devil, red-skinned, horned, and pitched forked does not at all exist in my world of reality. And Hill I feel rides the fence here and is perhaps purposely ambiguous, perhaps to be heard/understood by all parties. One could read this book as religious, spiritual, or psychological, and all three I find challenge by beliefs and understandings up until now…which is exactly what appeals to me. I find the parallels of ideas in Steven Pressfield‘s, ” The War of Art” to be striking, which is significant to me personally since I just “happened upon” both of these books.
I’m not going to give a full on book report or dissertation, but want to note something specific that struck me. In this book, he states how “definiteness of purpose” is the key to being a “non-drifter,” how to succeed in one’s life. He defines “hypnotic rhythm” as a natural law, which is then how the majority (he states 98%) fall into the habits of “drifters” because of their indefiniteness, and how the other 2% of the population uses this law in collaboration with their definiteness of purpose to habitually live the life of the “non-drifter.” You can easily know which you are currently (although you could be moving towards one or the other either by conscious decision and commitment) by taking a look at your life: your finances, your health, your relationships, how you feel about your work, etc. To be in the population of the 2% non-drifters, all areas of one’s life must contain the through line of one’s purpose. The reason that there is such a large percentage of drifters is because most don’t consciously know or ask themselves (or believe that they can/are allowed) what their purpose is. The truth, however, is that every single person has their own individualized purpose and that this purpose can be easily accessed; all one really has to do is do that 2nd grade mantra: “Stop, Look, and Listen.”
I bring this up now not because this is new information to me, but because an “aha!” light went on this morning when pondering these concepts. I was inspired to pull out the book I created from the Intentions Retreat I went on in 2010. I flipped to the page of my “purpose statement” and reread what I wrote, comparing it with my current 2012 Intentions journal. I’m not going to share what I wrote in 2010 here, as I am realizing there is power for me in keeping it to myself (much like one would in acting out a scene in theatre; there is often more power in the unsaid and in the doing). But I want to note that even at that time, there was a word in my statement that came to me, but looking back I get that it was too big for me to grasp and accept at the time (or better said, so I thought). I remember battling with this word, bringing it up in the group, and even embarrassed and feeling that I was being completely brazen for even suggesting it (as in a “who am I kidding or trying to fool”). I scratched the word out and changed it more than once (even in the final copy of my book). In my 2011 and 2012 books, that word didn’t come back, and suddenly this morning while reading all of this I GOT IT. And I don’t know how quite to explain, other than in perhaps acting terms. The purpose of one’s life is like their intention. When you have a play, you have all kinds of beats, scenes, acts; you can look at the whole of the play and you can break it up into these smaller and smaller chunks. Each chunk can have its individualized tactic, but during the entirety of the play your character is going after one big SPECIFIC centralized intention/objective. And it’s always about doing/action and it’s always about in order to affect outside of oneself. Living one’s passion alone (with the focus on “what I will get from it”) will never lead to enduring success. I focus on the word enduring because obviously it is possible to reach temporary success on passion alone, as we have seen with so many. But only those who find and ground themselves in their purpose will be able to stay there. For enduring success the focus must be on one’s purpose, which allows the freedom to continuously live out the passions. The purpose is the intention of one’s life; the passion is the chosen method of joy in how this purpose is achieved (I say “chosen” although in truth the passion almost always “chooses” us). While often the passion is what is initially ignited and then opens one’s eyes to their purpose (although if they access their life, they will usually see how they were already unconsciously living it), it is the purpose, not the passion, that must be so alive in a person that the stakes are then raised so high that they are then free in the faith of said purpose. This leads to the willingness to risk their full vulnerability(giving-ness) of self in the how of their tactic(s)/passion(s).
I probably could actually write an entire dissertation on this and go on and on and on (you know, like I just did), but for now I’m going to leave it at that. I get that this understanding has come to light in conjunction with all of the recent action I have been taking in my life. And now I get, as in GET get that Master Key that keeps that flame burning. It was a question that had been rolling around in my brain for so long in frustration because I was only obtaining grasps of the answer in a very generalized way.
“The price of anything is the amount of life you
exchange for it.”
–Henry David Thoreau
Related articles
- Steven Pressfield quotes on the Courage and the Creative Process (compassioninpolitics.wordpress.com)
- 13 Secrets of Napoleon Hill (jimmyfit.wordpress.com)
The Search for my Treasure 