I took this picture when I was out for my walk today. These geese hang out at a pond not too far from my house, and I see this little family every day. Actually, I guess you could say I live between two ponds. Throughout the day, the adult geese fly back and forth between the ponds, and my house is right below their flight pattern. It is the coolest thing to actually hear the flap of their wings when they fly overhead.
They say that when geese fly together, the honk they make is done to cheer the lead goose on, encouraging them keep it up. I’m not sure if that’s true, but it’s a pretty neat idea.
Years ago, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale wrote,
Jesus said, “Everything is possible to one who has faith” (Mk. 9:24). This is one of the greatest laws in the universe. , fervently do I wish I had discovered it as a very young man. It dawned upon me much later in life, and I have found it to be one of my greatest – if not greatest- discovery, outside of my relationship to God… The great law briefly and simply stated is that if you think in negative terms, you will get negative results. If you think in positive terms, you will achieve positive results. “That is the simple fact,” he went on to say,”which is the basis of an astonishing law of prosperity and success. In three words: Believe and Succeed.”
William Shakespeare put it this way: “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”
I think there’s a lot of wisdom in positive thinking. When I hear those geese fly overhead, I’m always struck by the fact that it’s only been in the last 100 or so years that we have been able to fly. Now, most of us take it for granted. But a lot of failures took place prior to that first successful flight. Those failures never stopped the Wright brothers, and countless others before them, from trying. They believed it would happen one day. And on December 17, 1903, it did.
What possibilities are you thinking about? What dreams do you have?
One reply on “Believe and Succeed”
On Mother’s Day Rob took Cher to the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. I got to tag along. In their garden is a large pond. I have a strikingly similar photo as yours of a family of geese. I assumed the goslings were born there, but I learned from an article in the Times a few days later that the family of geese walked through the streets and stopped traffic along the way until they got to the front door of the museum. The museum staff tried to usher the geese around the side of the building where they could enter the garden via a side entrance, but their efforts failed. The staff then posted guards in front of the galleries on either side of the lobby. They then opened the front door and the back door leading to the garden. The geese went happily through the museum lobby to the garden and pond. Were the geese optimists? Did they have faith that they would succeed? I don’t know, but it is incredible what some animals can accomplish.