Be a Dreamer

Be a dreamer.... this is what I learned from my experience of trying to make a go of a multi-level marketing program.  The program promised riches beyond measure, and for many people it worked.  This post is not about the good, the bad and the ugly of these types of programs, but rather, for me, what I learned from it all.  For me it was the positive thinking that we were taught. Much of it was from books, and the books that I depict are still, in my estimation, great books to read.

I learned such things as, "As a man thinketh; so is he"  What you think about regularly is what you will become. 

I've also learned much from philosophers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.  I believe everyone should read Emerson's essay, "Self Reliance" One passage that I read in 1967 profoundly changed my life.

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Out upon your guarded lips! Sew them up with packthread, do. Else, if you would be a man, speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon balls, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. Ah, then, exclaim the aged ladies, you shall be sure to be misunderstood. Misunderstood! It is a right fool's word. Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."

During this time of my life I was searching for my identity.  I knew I was a bit different, or as Thoureau would say, I marched to the beat of my own drummer. 

I recommend that you go to your local bookstore and pick up these books and give it a go.  Still terrific reading.