Thinking and doing are coincident. An action never takes place without the preceding, predominant, or simultaneous thought. I am what I am because of my thinking; I do what I do because of my thinking, and taking action teaches me. This feels like an invisible hand at one time smacking me and the next moment applauding  me.

The reason we don't "do" what we want is because we don't think about, visualize before the event. Manifesting thought, attracting results are not new concepts. We're built this way (I don't think we evolved this way; I think we're designed this way.); there's no unique discovery in the "power of attraction".  Understanding how concepts create or instigate reality takes energy, commitment, and action.

The laws of this universe ("Laws of Attraction") are the laws of love: love for self, love for neighbors, love for family…love for all and everything. Within the expansive embrace of love is the gift of work, the gift of task that evokes joyful delights where time becomes irrelevant and no aspect of your work is tedious. Every expression of your gift is an act of graceful worship.

Never succumb to the lie that you lack gifts given in love so that you may act in love. Experience shakes us out of fearful stupor. During these moments we change.  A friend says, "I act, and my faith makes me whole."

Steve Jobs elaborates, "I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."

Many of us live "quiet lives of desperation" because we don't lay claim to what we want." Moments string together unfulfilled desire, incomplete projects , trips imagined, but never taken… hopes without commitment. Complaining undermines confidence. Blaming parents, bosses, the economy, the hidden mysteries of the universe, or your spouse diminishes responsibility. We  control our decisions. The choices we make don't confine us; we pivot on each choice until we dance with confidence and affirmation.    

Decisions provoke results and at times, the results are not so good. When disappointing failures diffuse your energy, it's time to figure out if you're doing the right thing. If convinced, despite the frustrations and rejections, then keep at it. Struggle to hone, develop, improve, and shine. Apple Computer fired Steve Jobs  from the company he created. Here's what he thinks about that event. "I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life."

Here is the real test, does the work you are doing bring you joy despite the rejection? After completing your project or task, do you feel a mysterious euphoric delight, even laughter? To me, this is the fundamental glory of completing a task you are made to do. 

Steve Jobs said, "Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

If money is meager, provoke the dream with enduring delight, and keep at it. You never know when recognition arrives; the time when success introduces a different array of complexities. Steve Jobs explains in his Stanford University commencement speech, "You've got to find what you love" (June 14, 2005).

The Internet landscape with miles of HTML and acres of websites awaits you.

My next post teaches you how to use a time-saving, idea-making, and writer’s cramp-breaking writer’s tool.

See larger image Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life (Paperback) By (author) Gregg Michael Levoy List Price: $14.95 USD New From: $7.70 In Stock Used from: $1.07 In Stock Release date September 8, 1998.

Jill Bolte Taylor is a neuroanatomist. One day she had a stroke. You’d be foolish to avoid this 20 minute Ted Talk about what she learned. Best of all, you will learn that you have a choice about who you are. You will discover that you are more than you understand.

Words matter…style matters…courtesy matters…people matter.

Article writing should embrace style and, reveal courtesy with appropriate grammar and correct spelling. Why? Because people (your readers) matter. Learning the skill of careful writing takes time. Each article may have a flaws. The flaws decrease with the more you write.

“Results increase as efforts decrease over extended rehearsals” My undergraduate Greek professor said this over and over again. Thirty years later, his mantra rings in my ears and motivates me.

Heading to an interview in a wrinkled shirt and scuffed shoes means you don’t care or you’re lazy. Lazy work means you’ve lost your incentive to serve.

When someone meets you the first time, you have seven seconds to make a good impression. Get past seven seconds and you make a new friend or client.

Article titles are your first impression. This is your personal appearance. Your first meeting. After you open your mouth with your pen, your visitor chooses to stay or leave in seconds. Dress right and impress; write well and impress.

Article titles are the first impression you present to readers. This rudimentary lesson is learned by 1rst graders. Many authors forgot these basic rules, or they just get lazy. Worse, they don’t think their readers care.

These rules may guide you.

1. An article title should be in bold letters
2. Keep your article title brief. Limit the title to five or seven words.
3. Punctuation in an article title is not necessary. If you write a title with parenthetical phrases, you’ll lose your reader. Less is best when writing a title.
4. Don’t ask a question in your title. Do that in your opening paragraph.
5. Capitalize the first word of each word unless you use words similar to “of…and…or….”
6. Make your title interesting or instructive.
7. Test your title using Google search. Has another author used the same title? Is there a spin you can put on your article title to distinguish your article?

There’s nothing fascinating about the title I wrote for this blog entry. All I want to do is offer suggestions.

Bob Bly makes these suggestions in The Copywriter’s Handbook.
• “Who is my customer?” Article writers ask, “Who is my reader?”
• “What are the important features of the product?” Article writers ask, “What are the important points of my article?”
• “Why will the customer want to buy the product?” Article writers ask, “Why will anyone want to read this article?”

Always write your article a few days before submitting to an article directory. Even 24 hours later will help you rewrite and correct. All writing is in the editing, I think. E.B. White agrees. He edited “Once More To The Lake” for 30 years. Most article writers don’t spend 30 seconds.

Which of these is the better article title?

“The Reason Why We Swore Away Zit Medications”

“The reason why We Swore away Zits Medications”

“Three Reasons I Gave Up on Acne Medication”

Here’s an example of an author’s submission to Echievements.com.

“Enjoying is wherever a peron (sic) wagers some thing which has material worth on situations whose outcomes aren’t particular but their principal wish would be to win added stuff goods for example funds or other valuable items. Enjoying is normally discouraged in society by every the religious and political leadership. That is being a consequence on the adverse implications it has concerning the welfare of culture.”

The writer claims, in his resource box comments, that he’s been submitting his gibberish on the Internet for two (2) years.

My thoughts and action: he’s banned as an author submitting to Echievements.com.

Really? Who in the world can make sense of this? What is the point of such writing? Do people buy a service or product from this illiterate buffoon?

He could have tried harder. Damn, he could have just tried.

The longer Echievements.com is on line, the worse the articles become. Lately, I’ve banned 4/5 authors.

This is just one example of my frustration.

Every day, I approve five articles for Echievements, The Writer’s Community.

Every day, the same stuff. Titles in lower case, no information in the resource box, spelling errors (Good grief! Spell check tools are every where), and empty-minded drivel.

Many writers think an article directory is for their advertisements. I reject those articles with a note: “Advertise in your local newspaper.”

Some writers think inserting their company name as a key word is effective. Key words are about the subject of the article.

Every day, I’ll begin to reference a well-written article, and a poorly written article. Of course, this is all my opinion about writing.

Kindergarten children learn about sharing. Cute little guys, away from mom and dad for the first time, share toys, graham crackers, and “circle-time” space with new classmates. Every now and then, kindergarten teachers remind their knee-high charges “to be nice and share.”

The folks at “Men With Pens” learned well.

The article, “Do You Have To Have All the Answers?” encourages us to find answers to our questions. Everyone has questions. Librarians love the question and the adventure of answers.

Of course, answers often bounce like misdirected tennis balls careening in unpredictable paths. We seldom arrive at absolute conclusions, but we do find workable solutions for a given-moment.

Our creativity, drive to search for new ideas, and interest in subjects outside mercantile and monetary interests goes away quickly. Books, libraries, and online research tools get by us; most people have little time or energy to resarch (gave that up in high school or college).

Arousing curiosity and applying basic instincts to ask questions makes a more interesting life.

Sir Kenneth Robinson tells a story about a little girl drawing a picture in school. The teacher asks, “What are you drawing?” This aspiring artist said, “A picture of God.”

The teacher quickly pointed out, “No one knows what God looks like.” Without hesitating the little girl said, “They will in a minute.”

You don’t have to have all the answers, just an adventurous curiosity with a good dose of “how to think” (most of us are born with thinking skill, but we forget how to use it).

This writer did not:
Do You Have To Have All The Answers?.

My daughter and I climbed Mt. Washington with 8 other dads and their daughters.

Most of the dads know something about each other. We talked while watching our daughter’s high school events.

Three of my daughter’s closest friends climbed the school bus steps for the first time on the same day. At the eighth grade graduation, three played a flute trio, three played varsity field hockey, two played varsity basketbal and lacrosse, one ran cross-country, and each is a member of the National Honor Society.

Dads don’t know every event in their daughter’s life (nor should we); the ones we know please us most of the time.

As dads, we are fortunate. These young women are smart, funny, and friends. They contribute, manage their lives, share with each other, and care about each other. They don’t lean too heavily on their dads, but every now and then rest their heads on their dad’s shoulder; a reassuring moment for every dad.

I’ve gone for walks in the conservation trust land near our home, walked from Brooklyn to SoHo, and climbed Mt. Monadnock. Nothing compares with climbing rocks and paths for 6,000 feet with about 50 pounds on my back.

Here’s what I learned.

1. I was the slowest climber.

A few minutes of rest would get my hiking mo jo going, and sometimes I had to just persist. My daughter stayed with me (as did others). As one dad said, “That is so sweet of her to stay with you.” She did all the way to the Lake of the Clouds hut. When she saw the hut, my daughter sprinted the last 100 feet to catch up with her friends.

Lesson: Persistence pays off. After five hours of climbing in the rain and cold, I reached my destination. Never abandon writing; discipline and persistence bring you to new heights.

2. I had a coach and a guide. A friend wore yellow rain pants to the hut. I followed his rainpants. I told him, “Your rain gear is my yellow brick road.” He was my guide. My daughter coached me with encouragement. She always asked, “Are you OK, dad?” I answered, ‘If I can talk, I’m fine.”

Lesson: Coaches, guides, and mentors matter. Look around you; they’re nearby on the writing trail. Look inward and close by; you may find your inner voice, your purpose, your calling, and you may find a voice of encouragement just around the corner or in the next room.

3. I followed the trail.

Stay on the trail. Hiking trail markers, known as cairns, keep hikers on the beaten path without wandering and damaging vegetation. Trail-blazers piled rock pyramids every 100 feet or so to keep hikers on the trail. When walking in the clouds, cairns are the landmarks on your hiking map.

Lesson: Grammar, spelling, syntax, vocabulary, and creative thinking are the cairns of writing. For most writers it’s best to stay on the blazed trail. I think E.B. White and Zinzer understood this better than most of us.

4. I learned that conditioning matters. The organizing dad (every group needs one) warned us in January to start conditioning. I thought, “OK…my exercise routine works, my body fat is low, my endurance…well, should be just fine.”

Lesson: This lesson is simple: I wasn’t ready; I over-packed, I was out of condition.
Writing demands conditioning too. Push daily…make your mind work…don’t excuse yourself, demand personal discipline so that the rigors of writing get you to the summit.

When above the tree line, I looked for turkeys. Not a one in sight, but I saw eagles.

5. I learned that my daughter loves me. Not that I didn’t know she loves me. She showed me her love. At every rest stop on the climb to the summit of Mt. Washington, she checked on me. She’s always checked on me. “Dad, are you OK?”

Lesson: There is a circle of life. Writing, working, social networks, Twitter, Facebook, and neighbors create ripples on the edges. The inner waves and center of the circle is all about family. Never loose sight of your family along the writing trail.

Looking at the last date of an entry to The Echievements Writer’s Bin makes me wonder, “How come you’ve not been writing?”

Part of me says, “I’m tired and have too much to do.”

To that my schizoid mind replies, “Well, you could write instead of falling asleep on the couch.”

There’s a better reason. Sometimes my imagination walks “over broken glass.” I feel formless and empty. (Read T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men).

Sir Kenneth Robinson understands imagination, education, and the unique shapes, colors, forms, and gestures of our imagination.

The Echievements Writer’s Community is an archive of online articles. Only a few, a very few, express imagination by format, content, or recommendation. Every author might benefit from Robinson’s thoughts, and some of us should stop writing and start dancing.

See Ted Talks, “Ideas Worth Spreading

Kindergartner’s do it, and high school students do it. When they do, there’s talking, laughter, and critique about technique, method, and style. At times, everyone does it with quiet concentration.

Creation is the epoch moment when nothing becomes something.

Creating something from nothing affirms personality, the artifacts of our tribe, and the design of culture. We live to create, to change, to motivate, to affect.

Creative moments lighten our darkness while absolving our anonymity.

Creation and passion infuse a couples love and affectionate embrace. Silly, passionate, and profound stories could be told by couples who understand creative expression as they celebrate one of life’s “pop factors”.

Wrestlers pretend animosity as their opponent gets slammed to the mat. Wrestlers call these moments the “sound and force” of “pop factors”. Passionate couples empathize.

Artists articulate empathy with aesthetic “pop factors”; an artist wows audiences with slams on the visual landscape.

Two articles, “Working with Monumental Sculpture” and “Claes Oldenburg: Objects into Art” published by Scholastic Art, March 2002 confirm these observations.

Oldenburg creates large scale visual shapes for park and city landscapes. Oldenburg astounds. He says, “I like to take an object and completely deprive it of its function, so as to use it only as a motive for creating art…My aim is to give existence to fantasy.”

Writers “do it” too. Gabriel García Márquez seeks “the magic in commonplace events,” the moments with “sound and force” and living “pop factors”.

Internet words and language pop-up on monitors without “sound and force.” Not because of technique. Not because those of us mangling words and blaring messages do not care. We care, but the work, the joy, the impact, the compulsion to deliver creative thought takes work.

“Doing it” is not a “wam, bam,thank you mam” moment. “Doing it” compels the creative moment, when nothing becomes something.