I actually started this scroll during a really great time, two months ago. I had just finished a month of no eating out, which was both liberating and confidence-building. I was starting to work on some real estate deals, and had just put in my very first offer on a house. Then I went to visit my parents for a day or two and see my nephew in the local high school musical–and while I was there, Mom invited me to come to Hawaii with her. She and my brother’s family had been planning their vacation to Hawaii for over a year. Mom had convinced Dad to come along with her, and then–while I was visiting–Dad suddenly changed his mind and decided not to. Mom didn’t want to go by herself–she wanted a pal to hang around with. So she invited me. It was very last-minute, and we had to buy some extra clothes (since, when I had packed, I hadn’t been planning to be gone for more than two days, and I was now going to be gone for over two weeks), but off I went with Mom, my brother, his wife, and their five kids.

While I was in Hawaii, I finished my 30 days with Scroll IV, and I was just fine with that. But then I started Scroll V, and it just rubbed me the wrong way. So much so, that I only listened to/read it about three times while we were there and then gave it up. It somehow manages to make me feel more discouraged than encouraged–something I have not experienced with any of the other scrolls. I love the message it contains; in fact, it is that theme that I very much want to make my life’s ambition. But, somehow, it seems to make me feel hopeless more often than hopeful.

And that’s why I’m on Day 60, and counting.

After returning from Hawaii, I finally starting reading the scroll again. But that onlylasted about two weeks before I let it slip into oblivion again. Then I started again, and got almost finished with my 30 days–and then, last week, I once again let it all fall away.

Yesterday, though, I had an epiphany at church. I got thinking that perhaps the greatest feat of all is not living life so perfectly and never giving up–but that perhaps it’s even greater to see oneself in all one’s miserable failure, and to still try again. Put another way, it becomes a cliche about always getting back up on the horse when you fall down–but I’m starting to think that this really is the greatest thing we can do in life: to recognize our own imperfection, our own ineptitude, our own complete failure–and yet, to try it one more time.

So, starting today, I’m trying again. And not just with Scroll V, but with daily scripture study and prayer, with getting up early and going to bed composed, with living my life the way I want to live it.

But, as Og says, “I was brought forth with a purpose, and that purpose is to grow into a mountain.”

Today I started, in earnest, calling people about buying their houses, as I start a career in real estate investment. I found it daunting in the beginning, but as I really pushed myself, reminding myself that I am nature’s greatest miracle, and that I can accomplish anything, I found it exhilirating and empowering. And, in 11 calls, I found about 5 people who are open to working with me on an owner-financing basis. Of those, I set an appointment to see one townhouse tomorrow, and I am emailing with another family about their condo. I will also be seeing an old (1888) fixer-upper house that I might be able to wholesale to another investor. That’s three–count ‘em, three–leads, just from one hour of sitting down and talking to people on the phone. If I can do that in one hour, imagine what I can accomplish in a lifteime! It’s awe-inspiring.

And I’m having the strangest sense of deja-vu right now, like I already typed that second-to-last sentence before. I’ll have to check my back-logs and find out.

I attend the same church as my sister, with whom I am currently living. I agreed, before we left for church, that I would drive my own car and then trade cars after church and take her kids home, so that she could stay for a leadership meeting she needed to attend. I was about 10 minutes later than her and her children in leaving, and when I went outside, the only other person still here was my 14-year-old niece, who was staying home sick.

I got into the car, started up, and pulled out. And promptly got myself stuck in a snow-bank. I tried what I knew to do — basically, rocking the car back and forth between Reverse and Drive — and that only seemed to make it worse. By this time, church had already started, so I knew I was going to be late no matter what. I looked around for anything I could think of that would give me some traction, but my mind was blank, and the few things I could think of we didn’t have. I nearly gave up, I felt so helpless and lost. But I came back inside and called my dad, who gave me some more suggestions. Then I tried texting my sister — with little hope, again, knowing that she usually leaves her cell phone at home during church — to let her know why I was so late.

After that, I sat on my bed for a few minutes, trying to decide what to do next. I considered sitting down and watching some TV. Just for a half hour, just to get my mind off of things. It wouldn’t make me that much later, and I would still at least get there in time to trade cars with my sister. But I knew that if I did that, I would just be avoiding my problem instead of solving it — and that the longer I avoided it, the more I would want to. That was not the answer.

I decided to try again with the car. In fact, when I got out there, the car was running. At first I thought maybe I had left it running the whole time I had been inside. But then I realized that I probably had accidentally turned it on with the remote entry button. Either way, it felt like a sign.

I found a snow shovel and dug out around the back tires a little (the front weren’t “stuck,” per se, they were just on really slick ice), and then I realized that I could use some of the rock gravel from the driveway to provide traction. So I sprinkled some in front of the front tires, and then I got back in the car and tried again. Still didn’t work.

Once again, I almost gave up. I could see that the biggest problem was a big pile of snow the body of the car was resting on, near the passenger-side rear tire. But I couldn’t figure out any way to get rid of that. The snow shovel I was using was too big to get into the restricted space, and I didn’t have a very good angle on it, either, because of the way the snow was piled up around it. So I stood staring at it, feeling the sweat run down my carefully-makeupped face from my carefully coiffed hair. It just didn’t seem like there was any way to solve this problem once and for all. At least not all by myself.

And then, almost subconsciously, the thought came: “I will persist until I succeed.” Oddly, my first reaction to that was: “Wait, that’s not right. I’m already done with that scroll.” So then I repeated to myself, more consciously, the lesson from my current scroll: “I am nature’s greatest miracle.” It took only a split second for those lessons to sink in.

I picked myself up, metaphorically speaking, and went back into the garage to look for something else I could use to destroy that snow bank under my car. Lo and behold, there was a broom just leaning up against the wall like it had been waiting its whole life for me. I took it with me and used the handle to knock away as much snow as I could, and then put some more gravel rocks in front of both rear tires. And then I tried one more thing.

This time, when I got into the car, I said a quick, little, one-line prayer: “Please, Heavenly Father — please let this work.”

And it did. I had persisted long enough, and I had won. Because I am nature’s greatest miracle — especially with the Creator of the Universe on my side.

I am nature’s greatest miracle.

Og explains that I am the greatest miracle in nature, buecause I am entirely and completely unique. No one in history has ever had the same eyes, brain, heart, hair, or hands that I do. That makes me rare.

And all rarity has value. Therefore I am valuable.

Not only that, but this uniqueness is a great asset to me in my business. Since no one is exactly the same as I am, no one can sell exactly the same way that I can. That is an advantage I can leverage to my benefit.

But in the afternoon, I decided to work anyway. I pulled out some things I had been needing to get done, and I worked away at them. Only later did I recall some of Og’s words from the scroll I have been reading:

I will avoid despair, but if this disease of the mind should infect me, then I will work on in despair.

It was another of those experiences where  I fould myself subconsciouly reacting to life in exactly the manner that the scrolls tell me to, and I didn’t even consciouly realize it until later. And you know what? I felt much better afterward. I felt like life was still worth living, and like I could go on, and like there were important things to do and I could do them.

It also reminded me of something that Bob Snyder once said. He was speaking at a business meeting about the power of affirmations, and he told us that one he has often used, and still does, goes like this: “I love life, and life loves me!”

In fact, the weekend when he told us about that particular affirmation was really significant for me. I had been away from home for the whole weekend, attending this meeting out of town with hundreds of others who are also in my same line of work. The energy there was incredible! I felt so good when we left, and I just wanted to go out and conquer the world!

And then I went home.

When I woke up the next morning, on a Sunday, I felt much like I did this morning. “Uughhhh …. Do I really have to get up? Do I have to face life, again? Earrrrgh…” So as I lay there, I decided to apply what I learned the day before. I said to myself, “I love life. And life loves me. I love life! And life loves me! I love life, and life loves me!!” I repeated it over and over, maybe five or six times. And as I did, I could almost tangibly feel my subconscios mind shifting. All of a sudden it seemed to start saying, “I do? I love life? Yeah, that’s right. I love life. Huh. Well, if I love life so much, then what am I doing lying here? It’s time to get up!” So I did. And you know what? It was a wonderful day!

I’ve been truly amazed at the power of positive affirmations, including Og.

Thus will I plant the seed of tomorrow’s success.

By reminding myself right before bed that I am excited about life and that “if I persist long enough, I will win” — or whatever other true principles I am reading that night — I plant that seed in my mind. Then, while I’m sleeping, that seed grows in my subconscious mind. Before I know it, it’s morning, and I’m ready to take on life!

Og also promises, in Scroll I, that while using these scrolls “I will begin to awaken each day with a vitality I had not previously known.” I think about that a lot. It reminds me of a speaker I heard about ten years ago who said that he loved life so much that he leapt out of bed each morning. The audience sort of chuckled, and he insisted, “I really do. My wife worries about me.” I remember thinking at that time how incredible that sounded — and how much I wanted it for myself. I believe that with Og, I have found part of the solution to that problem, and I’m already beginning to see the fruits.

“Never will I allow any day to end with a failure.”

That kept coming back to me again and again. So I made an effort to have some real victories. And I did. I opened my mail, even though I knew it was not good news (my driver’s license has been suspended … always pay your speeding tickets on time, folks!), and I called another company to have something cancelled so that I wouldn’t have to pay for the service anymore (which I wasn’t using anyway). Those felt good. They were important conquests.

Most of the day was not particularly productive, but after those victories in the morning, I vowed to myself that I would go to a meeting tonight, no matter what. It’s a weekly meeting for the work I’m now doing, and I really should be bringing guests, but I decided that I’ve got to go to them every week, even if I don’t have anyone coming with me. I guess, for one thing, I figure that if I go every week, it will start to motivate me (either through guilt or through excitement) to be inviting more and more people. But I also knew that I just needed to associate with some other people in the company and remind myself of why I am doing this and what I love about it.

Well, I went. Even though I didn’t particularly feel like it, and even though I had no guests coming. I thought about Og again while I was dressing:

“If I feel inferior, I will dress in new garments.” (Scroll VI)

That quote is actually from a much later scroll, one that I haven’t started reading yet, but I read through it once, several months ago, and that quote has stuck with me ever since. I don’t always have new clothes to dress in, but I do try more these days to dress nicely, especially when I am feeling a bit down on myself. So last night, I dressed in one of my favorite professional outfits, and threw on some jewelry to complete it. It really did help, and by the time I got back from the meeting, four hours later, I felt much happier about my work and more motivated to get going.

I ended the day on a victory, and it did, indeed, “plant the seed of tomorrow’s success.”

“Today I begin a new life.” (Scroll I)

And a new scroll. :)

That’s right, today I have started Scroll III. (In case anyone is wondering, I went a week longer with Scroll II, just because I felt like I needed it.)

Scroll III is all about persistence:

“I will persist until I succeed.”

This is a hugely important principle for me, and I am excited to start working on doing it in my life. I am highly prone to give up, especially if I fail once, regardless of the task. But, as Og points out, according to the law of averages, each failure I encounter brings me one step closer to success.

“Always will I take another step. If that is to no avail, I will take another, and yet another. And, in truth, one step at a time is not too difficult.”

Always will I dig for reasons to applaud; never will I scratch for excuses to gossip.

I think it’s interesting that he says you have to dig for reasons to prasie people, but to gossip, you don’t have to work very hard. I’m sure that the wording there is not a coincidence. I also find that it’s very true — negative things come easily to mind, and I have to work much harder to always find good things about people (including myself).

We left the mall and then went over to Target, at my request. But by this time, the traffic had gotten even worse, if possible. So we sat there for a good ten or fifteen minutes, in the middle of the road, trying to make a left turn into the Target parking lot. Mom kept complaining, and I kept getting ready to make some critical remark to her about her driving skills, or her negative attitude, or … any number of other things that were annoying me. Somehow, though, I found myself biting my tongue, without even thinking about it, keeping back those remarks. And then, suddenly, I remembered these words from Sroll II:

Always will I dig for reasons to applaud; never will I scratch for excuses to gossip. When I am tempted to criticize I will bite on my tongue; when I am moved to praise I will shout from the roofs.

I managed to keep back all of the critical comments that were on the tip of my tongue (wearing a near-permanent groove in my tongue), and after we got to Target, things got much better. I found myself able to release any negative energy that had been festering inside, and to create positive energy instead–which then seeped over into Mom’s attitude as well. From that point on, although the night wasn’t a raving success, we both enjoyed our outing more and made it home with energy to spare for the other projects we had going on.

As I write this post, I can’t help also thinking about a passage from Scroll I:

Eventually I will find myself reacting to all situations which confront me as I was commanded in the scrolls to react, and soon those actions and reactions will become easy to perform, for any act with practice becomes easy.

What amazes me in this experience is that I was literally biting my tongue to keep from criticizing–and really, what good would that have done, anyway?–just as the scrolls command me to do, without even consciously deciding to do so.