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Complacency: Break-out in the New Year…
Well folks, it’s here, another year has faded, and another year has struck. It’s that time of year that resolutions let loose with hopes of weight loss, fitness, relationships and money. It’s that time of year we resolve to break the familiar patterns that occupy our lives; it’s that time of year we resolve to break-out of complacency.
Complacency, that killer of dreams and ambitions, that killer of a purpose-driven life, is the reason that many of us achieve not what we set out to achieve. It’s a creeping cancer that grows upon us, while stealing our vigor and confiscating our fortitude, (see Fortitude and the Wherewithal to Carry On…). And the breeding ground in which complacency thrives is success, for complacency is not born of hardship, but of comfort, the comfort that success brings.
We set out on the road of life with lofty aims and goals, with hard work, diligence, and self-discipline, we achieve; we succeed. Success begets riches, and riches beget comfort, and therein lay the dilemma: the more comfort we achieve, the more relaxed we are, and the more relaxed we are, the more complacent we become – where urgency once reined, leisure now rules.
American actor and newspaper columnist Will Rogers (1879-1935) said, “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” In other words, complacency kills when we stop moving. Life is a dynamic affair, not a static one. Change is the only constant, and it’s not only incumbent upon us to recognize this, but to also act upon it.
Nothing stands still, nothing ever will. And yet down through the ages human nature has a tendency to become complacent. Whether individuals, companies, nations and empires, throughout history we’ve fallen victim to it.
Witness Kodak’s bankruptcy when digital pictures became the norm and film development a relic of the past (even though Kodak invented the digital camera!). Witness the decline of a nation or empire, and complacency is the culprit that rears its ugly head. Comfort sets in, and what was once viewed as essential, becomes nothing but a nuisance, a hollow promise. What is today will be tomorrow is the common logic, albeit a bankrupt one.
Unbeknownst we continue on a path of complacency until one day the rude awakening occurs. In shock we conjure excuses and blame everything and everyone for the debacle we encounter. “Life is not fair,” we scream. “We don’t deserve this,” we complain.
But the few, the few who understand the dynamic that life is, succumb not to the victim-hood of the many, but understand that complacency is the slayer of all that makes life worthwhile. And it’s this understanding that garners the strength to overcome its nasty claws when it sets upon them, as we must too.
So as we embark upon this New Year, let’s make our resolutions, but even more so, let’s make it a point to throw complacency to the winds, exactly where it belongs…
Happy New Year and may your 2016 be complacency-free!
For more, check out The C.A.T. Principle: Change, Action, Trust – Words to Live By, a Global Ebook Awards GOLD Winner for Best Self-Help Non-Fiction Ebook of 2014, available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. See the latest Amazon reviews here. Now revised and expanded, and a Nominee for the Best Self-Help Non-Fiction Ebook of the 2015 Global Ebook Awards.
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A 2014 Global Ebook Awards GOLD Winner for Best Non-Fiction Self-Help Ebook.
2015 Global Ebook Awards Nominee for Best Non-Fiction Self-Help Ebook