“In life, the winds of circumstances blow on us all in an unending flow that touches each of our lives. It’s one thing to create change. It’s another thing—often unavoidable—to have change foisted upon you when you don’t expect it.
We all experience the blowing winds of change. Yet some of us still manage to reach our intended destinations. What guides us to different shores is determined by the way we have chosen to set our sails. The way that each of us thinks makes the major difference in where each of us arrives.
Unforeseen circumstances happen to us all. We have disappointments and challenges. We all have reversals and those moments when, in spite of our best plans and efforts, things just seem to fall apart.
In the final analysis, it is not what happens that determines the quality of our lives, it is what we choose to do when we discover that the wind has changed directions.
When things change, we must change. We must struggle to our feet again and reset the sail to steer us toward the destination of our own deliberate choosing.
The set of the sail—how we think and how we respond—has a far greater capacity to alter our lives than any challenges we face. How quickly and responsibly we react to adversity is far more important than the adversity itself. Once we discipline ourselves to understand this, we will finally and willingly conclude that the great challenge of life is to control the process of our thinking.
– Jim Rohn