1- Going for the Sun This is the straight path to success. It is the path of initiative,forward-thinking,and focus. Being on this path means not to look back too often. It means not to let yourself get distracted or preoccupied by what other people are doing and saying. You might make a mistake in your efforts, but when you do, you do not let it stop you. Instead, you remedy your mistake by engaging in even more work and renewing your efforts. You do not let discussion and debate get so excessive that you let it stop you in your tracks. It is related about one of our pious predecessors that an idle man with nothing to do wanted to stop him from the work he was doing to talk with him. He said to the idle man: "Go for the Sun." [ This is attributed to Amir bn Qays. see: Ibn al-Jawzi, al-Tabsirah 2/315] Life is short. You need to maximize the investment on the days that you have by engaging in as much productive work as possible. This does not mean you should be arrogant about it, or hold yourself aloof from the criticism of others. It certainly does not mean that you are perfect. Far from it. Other people have the right to criticize your efforts and to rectify your mistakes. At the same time,you do not need to stop and reply every time someone disagrees with you. You do not need the unanimous agreement of everyone around you for your work to be something important. Say what you have to say and let others say what they have to. Time will tell whose opinions bear the best fruit. Many ideas and suggestions, in the course of time, prove to be ineffectual, and all the debate that accrued around those ideas are exposed as a wasted effort. Some issues are only seem important under particular circumstances and show themselves to be irrelevant once those circumstances change- an historical dead-end. Going for the Sun means keeping yourself focused on the path ahead, to always think about what more you can accomplish, and to seek out new opportunities. It means to minimize as much as possible the tendency to discuss the same things over and over again, or to seek clarifications on clarifications. Sometimes, time has to be allowed to tell whether something is right or not. To be continued.......................
Posted on: Sun, 08 Sep 2013 01:27:43 +0000
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