Looking for a gorgeous house near downtown with a real sense of community? Look no further! Austin homes encompass soaring ceilings, spacious kitchens, and incredible covered backyard patios! Real estate in Austin will make your home-owning dreams a reality. You will have the perks of being close by to the downtown scene, and being in a gated, safe community as well!
NOTE: As a thank you for reading this blog post, we are providing you with a free excerpt from Dan Castro’s book CRITICAL CHOICES THAT CHANGE LIVES.
“Imagination is the real and eternal world
of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow . . .
the eternal body of man is the imagination:
that is God himself, the Divine body . . .”
William Blake
Einstein and all of the great inventors, including Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and Benjamin Franklin saw what no one else saw because they chose to exercise the power of their imagination. They understood that our imagination is usually four or five steps ahead of the reach of our knowledge and experience. But through hard work, determination, and creative experimenting, our reality is usually able to find a way to catch up to our imagination.
Keep chasing your dreams. You will eventually catch them. Henry David Thoreau said, “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
Man’s walk on the moon started as “castles in the air” until man built the foundation under them. Now trips to the moon and beyond are routine. One of my favorite quotes comes from the movie Toy Story, in which the action figure Buzz Lightyear exclaims, “To infinity and beyond!” I have a Buzz Lightyear action figure in my office to remind me of this motto. Let this become your life’s motto and there may be no end to what you can accomplish.
On a recent trip to the beautiful island of Maui, I went for a long walk along the beach just in time to see the last light of sunset. The sun had just slipped under the horizon. The horizon was still glowing a red-orange hue beneath a deep blue sky. A crescent moon, thin as a hair, winked at me from the southwest. I sat down to watch the orange glow on the horizon melt into the night. After dark, on the way back I found a hammock strung between two coconut trees and laid down in it. The coconut trees must have been at least 60 feet tall.
I began to imagine how ancient man, with little or no tools, must have looked up one day and prayed for a way to get to the tops of the coconut trees in order to get to the coconuts. Coconut trees get thinner as they get taller and they have no branches except at the very top. To primitive man, it must have seemed an impossible feat to get to the top. As I stared at the coconuts, the stars in the night sky beyond the coconuts were quietly smiling at me. I hadn’t noticed them at first because I was too busy thinking about the coconuts. When I finally started focusing on the stars, they seemed to be shouting, “Hey! We’re up here!” Then I imagined how, just a few short years ago, modern man might have finally started praying for a way to reach the stars!
I realized in my own life, too often I pray for a way to reach the tops of the coconut trees when I should be praying to reach the stars. It’s a matter of perspective. When we look up, we can either focus on the coconuts or look beyond the coconuts to the stars. Before we can seriously consider the stars, we have to expand the parameters of our minds. Behavioral scientists teach us that we tend to see only what we are focusing on and not what is really there. Similarly, history teaches that man usually reaches the level of his expectations and no more.
As I contemplated this phenomenon, it occurred to me that when we pray, we should remember who it is we are asking. The name by which we call him is irrelevant. The point is – are we praying to the God of the universe or the God of the coconuts? When we remember who it is we are asking, the realm of realistic possibilities is expanded by a quantum leap. God is not limited by anything. But what we can expect from God is limited by what we focus on. Therefore, we should make a conscious decision to focus on the stars. The stars are a reminder of who it is we are asking and how big He is, and therefore, how big the realm of possibilities is. Let the earth-dwellers have the coconuts.
No matter what you have achieved in the past, you’ve only just begun. No matter how great your victories have been in the past, they serve only as evidence of what you could accomplish in the future. Don’t ever be satisfied with last year’s victories. Last year’s victories don’t pay today’s bills. Last years victories don’t fulfill tomorrow’s dreams. Keep on dreaming. Keep on reaching for the stars. Eventually, you’ll catch them.
But it all starts with a decision. Like every hero in this book, you have the power to choose what you will focus on. What you focus on, determines what you believe. What you believe determines what you expect. What you expect determines what you see. What you see determines what options are available to you. You have the power to choose what to focus on no matter what is going on in the world around you.
Put this book down now, and do something. Make something happen. Do something out of the ordinary. Put down the map you have been following and look at the trail you are on. Read the soil, the crushed grass, the twigs, and the fallen leaves. Reach down to feel the soil and the soft grass. Sit down for a while. Take time to look around. Study each individual branch in the trees above you. Then lie down on your back and look up. Look way up . . . beyond the trees and focus on the stars . . .
Perhaps they’re trying to tell you something.
The Decision Behind the Decision
Heroes learn to see stars beyond coconuts.
Remember, if you are buying or selling real estate in Austin, please call Rose Castro at Austin Options Realty.
Comments(0)