SMALL HABITS ARE LOUDER THAN BIG PLANS

 



“Live a life as a monument to your soul.”

Ayn Rand

 

One of the highly motivational books, which I had read over and over again, was Dr. Robert Schuller’s ‘Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do.” Dr. Schuller had convincingly sold his ‘success philosophy’ to his readers as ‘Possibility Thinking’...

Please note: Dr. Schuller was drilling into our heads, that only Positive Thinking wouldn’t take us anywhere... We needed to be practical, by applying ‘Possibility Thinking.”

And, in his bestselling book - ‘Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do’, Dr. Schuller graphically narrated to us the story of building his dream project – ‘The Crystal Cathedral’ in Garden Grove, California... Yes, how a smalltime, countryside Pastor conceived and achieved a mammoth dream through his practical philosophy – ‘Possibility Thinking.”




Crystal Cathedral (now Christ Cathedra), Garden Grove, California


It was the early eighties... Here, in the city of Mumbai, I was a newcomer - a nobody from nowhere. And, I was dreaming to build my own ‘Crystal Cathedral’. Thus, apart from Napolean Hill, Dale Carnegie, Norman Vincent Peale and many other ‘success evangelists’, I had found this real evangelist – the pastor-turned-spiritual Mughal... and, I was chanting his success mantra, breathlessly...

To be honest, it hardly matters by what name you baptize your success philosophy; what really matters is, that you need to burn with the desire to achieve what you really want to achieve – be it a Crystal Cathedral in America, a Burj Khalifa in Dubai, a Taj Mahal in India, or the Great Wall in China...

They are built in the same furnace – of burning desire!

I mean – all materialistic achievements... all monuments...

Dr. Schuller thought, he would house Jesus Christ in that world’s largest all-glass cathedral costing millions of dollars. But, Jesus was born in a manger, lived all His life as a wanderer... So, was that extravagant monument needed? Just after a few decades, Dr. Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral went bankrupt...

You see, even tough people never last!

Shah Jahan built the all-marble monument for his beloved Mumtaz... But, then, does Love need a Taj Mahal?

The other day, when missiles fell near Burj Khalifa, a shiver must’ve run through the spines of millionaires, who thought they had invested in the finest real-estate in the world...

No Sir, the dynasties that built the Great Wall of China are no longer ruling their kingdom... I ask: Is a gigantic wall enough to safeguard a nation?




Frankly, for mortals like you and me, worship, love, joy and security should lie in our small, daily habits... As Greg McKeown says, “They are louder than the biggest plans.”




 

GERALD D’CUNHA

 

Pic’s: 1. pixabay Bankj   2. ar.inspiredpencil.com 

Video: Reflections of Life

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