At a news conference in December, the Nobel Prize winners gave away their secret strategies for winning the prestigious, $1.5 million award: Don’t try!
One man, who shared the Physics award, said that winning “requires creativity, humour and patience, with little aspiration to actually win”. The other man added, “It’s definitely extremely detrimental to think that you can win the Nobel Prize; then it basically occupies your mind… if you think and deliberately try to win the Nobel Prize there is something wrong”.
The winner of the Chemistry award agreed saying, “I did not plan it, or try to do it, it just came by itself”.
The winner of the Economics prize summed up his approach by saying, “Anyone who’s engaged in creative life – whether they’re a scientist, economist, writer or artist – has many ‘aha’ moments, many moments to discovery, otherwise they would not be doing it… they do not do it with some golden prize at the end”.
Their philosophy may be summed up by saying, “Focus on the important stuff and success will come.”
I think that is good advice for life in general. You cannot aim at “Happiness” or at “A good life”. Those things are not goals. Rather they are by-products of a life that is lived with “the important stuff” at the center.
When people do make “my own happiness” the goal, the results are often disastrous. How many lives have you seen derailed because people are living only for themselves? How many marriages are “blown up” each year simply because someone decided to “search for happiness” elsewhere? It seems that much of our trouble is caused by our own inability to get out of our own way.
Jesus, though, in many contexts and with many applications, taught us to think differently.
“If you grasp and cling to life on your terms, you'll lose it, but if you let that life go, you'll get life on God's terms” (Luke 17:33, The Message).
“If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last and the servant of all” (Mark 9:35).
What if the key is to get the focus off of me? What if the things I truly need (such as peace, joy, love and forgiveness) cannot be aimed at but, rather, come as by-product of a life lived for God and for others?
That could be the greatest discovery of all. It is certainly worth a try.
“I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows)” – Jesus’ words from John 10:9 (The Amplified Bible).
One man, who shared the Physics award, said that winning “requires creativity, humour and patience, with little aspiration to actually win”. The other man added, “It’s definitely extremely detrimental to think that you can win the Nobel Prize; then it basically occupies your mind… if you think and deliberately try to win the Nobel Prize there is something wrong”.
The winner of the Chemistry award agreed saying, “I did not plan it, or try to do it, it just came by itself”.
The winner of the Economics prize summed up his approach by saying, “Anyone who’s engaged in creative life – whether they’re a scientist, economist, writer or artist – has many ‘aha’ moments, many moments to discovery, otherwise they would not be doing it… they do not do it with some golden prize at the end”.
Their philosophy may be summed up by saying, “Focus on the important stuff and success will come.”
I think that is good advice for life in general. You cannot aim at “Happiness” or at “A good life”. Those things are not goals. Rather they are by-products of a life that is lived with “the important stuff” at the center.
When people do make “my own happiness” the goal, the results are often disastrous. How many lives have you seen derailed because people are living only for themselves? How many marriages are “blown up” each year simply because someone decided to “search for happiness” elsewhere? It seems that much of our trouble is caused by our own inability to get out of our own way.
Jesus, though, in many contexts and with many applications, taught us to think differently.
“If you grasp and cling to life on your terms, you'll lose it, but if you let that life go, you'll get life on God's terms” (Luke 17:33, The Message).
“If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last and the servant of all” (Mark 9:35).
What if the key is to get the focus off of me? What if the things I truly need (such as peace, joy, love and forgiveness) cannot be aimed at but, rather, come as by-product of a life lived for God and for others?
That could be the greatest discovery of all. It is certainly worth a try.
“I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows)” – Jesus’ words from John 10:9 (The Amplified Bible).
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