Lead a Successful Life There Are Two

¶ … Lead a Successful Life There are two different ways to go about approaching life. One approach is to sit back and let life take its course, accepting what is offered to you, and waiting to find out the answers to questions. The other approach is asking questions and questioning the world around you. The questioning method seems to be the better option for being successful at life.

As Earlene Larson Jenks says, "Have the courage to act instead of react." Humans are not born knowing how to lead a successful life. That is taught by physical and mental experience. Physical experiences create knowledge by providing evidence that is combined what has previously been learned to create mental knowledge. Clarence Day says that "Information's pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience." When Humans are born, they lack past experiences, but they do have instincts and by nature are curious.

Aristotle says "All men by nature desire to know." Baby's lack knowledge, therefore they are curious about everything around them. That is why they touch, taste and examine anything that they are around, no matter if it is a human finger, a hot dog or a toy. It is also a proven fact that their quest for knowledge and curiousness over sound is why they imitate and subsequently learn language, and even foreign languages.

Babies imitate because they still lack the knowledge to communicate like adults, adult words have no meaning for them until they are taught to what that word corresponds. Eventually, babies learn from their elders how to use language and the meanings of words. Even then, a person does not stop learning. John Plomb once said: "You know that children are growing up when they start asking questions that have answers." There is so much information in the world, that it is nearly impossible to know everything.

Therefore, each person knows some of the information. At one point, someone recognized this difficulty and was quoted as saying "Knowledge is boundless but the capacity of one man is limited." Therefore, if a person is curious or needs to know a specific piece of information it is necessary to find an individual who already knows that information. Adults, at least most of them, are not mind readers. Therefore for them to learn a specific piece of information from another person, it is necessary to ask questions.

Some people live with the mindset that they can coast through life and survive simply on the knowledge and opportunities that are offered to them. However, it seems that this method proves unsuccessful, if the sentiments of pervious generations is used as evidence for this idea. There are various sayings in the English language regarding these mindsets. Some have even been linked with a specific company or person. However, the general consensus seems to be that a proactive approach to life is necessary.

For example, the quote "Things come to those who wait" is very popular because it gives the idea that we don't have to do anything for things to happen. However, what most people miss is that, that is only part of the quote; the full quote is "Things come to those who wait, but only those things that are left by those who hustle." Therefore, what Abraham Lincoln meant when he said this is actually completely opposite to what the meaning of the partial quote.

"The early bird gets the worm" is another popular one. What would happen if not only the bird wasn't early, but it didn't bother to leave its nest? It is very doubtful that the worm would work its way up a tree just to drop into the bird's nest.

Iyanla Vanzant often says: "without a test you cannot have a testimony." How can there be a test if there is no action that would cause a challenge? Another popular saying for not doing anything proactive is that a person is "waiting for my ship to come in." Someone once had the guts to challenged that with: "It is no use to wait for your ship to come in, unless you have sent one out" Therefore, its great to wait for things, but unless a person has done something to make something else occur, the chance of it happening is pretty low.

It seems that these tidbits of knowledge, created from the past experiences of.