| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: talk of genius--it is nothing but this, that a man knows what he can do
best, and does it, and nothing else. Waldo," she said, knitting her little
fingers closer among his, "I wish I could help you; I wish I could make you
see that you must decide what you will be and do. It does not matter what
you choose--be a farmer, businessman, artist, what you will--but know your
aim, and live for that one thing. We have only one life. The secret of
success is concentration; wherever there has been a great life, or a great
work, that has gone before. Taste everything a little, look at everything
a little; but live for one thing. Anything is possible to a man who knows
his end and moves straight for it, and for it alone. I will show you what
I mean," she said, concisely; "words are gas till you condense them into
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: general faith in his having behaved well, and I had once, in
London, taken Mrs. Paraday down to dinner. He now turned to speak
to the maid, who offered him, on a tray, some card or note, while,
agitated, excited, I wandered to the end of the precinct. The idea
of his security became supremely dear to me, and I asked myself if
I were the same young man who had come down a few days before to
scatter him to the four winds. When I retraced my steps he had
gone into the house, and the woman - the second London post had
come in - had placed my letters and a newspaper on a bench. I sat
down there to the letters, which were a brief business, and then,
without heeding the address, took the paper from its envelope. It
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Glinda of Oz by L. Frank Baum: "Now, my wife, Rora Flathead, having four cans of
brains, had become a wonderful witch, and fish being
brain food, she loved to eat fish better than any one
of us. So she vowed she would destroy every fish in the
lake, unless the Skeezers let us catch what we wanted.
They defied us, so Rora prepared a kettleful of magic
poison and went down to the lake one night to dump it
all in the water and poison the fish. It was a clever
idea, quite worthy of my dear wife, but the Skeezer
Queen -- a young lady named Coo-ee-oh -- hid on the
bank of the lake and taking Rora unawares, transformed
Glinda of Oz |
