The things we focus on… the things we pay attention to… are the things that become most prominent in our lives.

I think we all probably know this already.
Let’s say… you want to bake cookies. So that is where you put your attention…. your energy. You go to the grocery and buy the chocolate chips, and brown sugar, and such. You come home, get out the recipe for Tollhouse Bars… and mix away. Then you put that concoction in the oven… and guess what. All that energy you directed toward baking cookies… ACTUALLY BECOMES COOKIES.

Oh the other hand.. if you wish you could bake cookies… and then go play your tuba for three hours… you probably won’t have any cookies to show for it.

I think we can apply this very same and simple principle to any area of our lives we choose.

Whatever we begin to envision, and put our focus on… will eventually manifest itself to us.

This next story is a true one….
There was a guy named James Otis Jr. He was some sort of famous American Revolutionary. He was powerful in the political arena too. He invented the famous phrase “Taxation without representation is tyranny,” which became one of the rallying cries of the revolutionaries.

This guy….Otis Jr. was a solid, level-headed individual… save for one little thing. He always insisted that a bolt of lightning would eventually kill him. He repeated this belief… a whole bunch… to a lot of people. So much in fact… . that it became something of a joking point with those that knew him.

Well. Apparently…. the thunder gods were listening.
On May 23, 1783, our pal James Otis Jr. was standing in a doorway of a friend’s house when a lightning suddenly struck the chimney. That bolt came through the house…. killing him instantly without leaving a mark. Strangely, no one else was harmed there. And no further lightning bolts…. or, for that matter, any other storm clouds… were seen.

So… as the old saying goes… be careful what you wish for…. For you will surely get it. And if you wish for cookies… you better turn on the oven.

“The energy of the mind is the essence of life.” – Aristotle