Mr. Achievement – Stanley F. Bronstein – Personal Development BlogPersonal Development Blog of the Founder of the Achievement IQ Movement and Creator of the Laws of Positioning

Law #95

Position Yourself To Be Useful

Quote #1 – The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Quote #2 – The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons. (Aristotle)

Quote #1 – Definitions

Purpose – The reason for which something exists or is done, made, used, etc..

Life – A corresponding state, existence, or principle of existence conceived of as belonging to the soul. See Law #1 – Position Yourself To Be Alive.

Happy – Delighted, pleased, or glad, as over a particular thing. Characterized by or indicative of pleasure, contentment, or joy. See Law #45 – Position Yourself To Be Happy.

Useful – Being of use or service; serving some purpose; advantageous, helpful, or of good effect. Of practical use, as for doing work; producing material results; supplying common need.

Honor / Honorable – In accordance with or characterized by principles of honor; upright. Worthy of honor and high respect; estimable; creditable. Honesty, fairness, or integrity in one’s beliefs and actions. A source of credit or distinction. See Law #54 – Position Yourself To Have Integrity.

Compassion / Compassionate – Having or showing compassion. A feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering. See Law #59 – Position Yourself To Be Kind.

Make A Difference – To make a significant change in or effect on a situation.

Lived Well – To have lived comfortably and for good reasons and purposes.

Source: Dictionary.com

Quote #1 – What Does It Suggest?

Ralph Waldo Emerson evidently did a lot of thinking on the subject of usefulness, as I ran into a few quotes from him on the subject. This one stood out the most to me.

To me it talks about the need for balance between happiness and usefulness.

So many people go through life and their sole mission is to be happy. Was I happy at the moment? Did I have fun? Was that enjoyable? That’s not what life is all about.

Please don’t misunderstand me. There is nothing wrong with happiness and with being happy. In fact, Law #45 is all about the subject.

Where we run into problems is if we put our happiness ahead of everybody else.

That’s where usefulness comes in. By being useful; by doing something productive with our lives; not only can we do something that makes us happy, but we can also do something that provides value to others and to society as a whole.

That’s the difference. Like all things in life, that is why we must have a balance. See Law #4 – Position Yourself To Be Balanced.

Quote #2 – Definitions

Greatest – Most notable; most remarkable; exceptionally outstanding. Important; highly significant or consequential. Highest in quality.

Virtue(s) – Moral excellence; goodness; righteousness. Conformity of one’s life and conduct to moral and ethical principles; uprightness; rectitude. See Law #32 – Position Yourself To Be Ethical.

Most – In the greatest quantity, amount, measure, degree, or number.

Useful – Being of use or service; serving some purpose; advantageous, helpful, or of good effect. Of practical use, as for doing work; producing material results; supplying common need.

Other Person(s) – Persons other than yourself. Someone else; not you.

Source: Dictionary.com

Quote #2 – What Does It Suggest?

Once again, Aristotle, just like Ralph Waldo Emerson, was suggesting that the best way one can live their life is NOT by putting their own needs first, but by putting the needs of others ahead of your own.

In other words, the best thing you can do with your life is to be useful to others.

If You’re Always Helping Others, What’s Left For You?

This is where the whole concept of balance comes back into the picture.

You can’t think of your time and energy as a pie and that every time you give away a piece, there’s less of it left for you to eat.  It doesn’t work that way.

Instead, when you give away a piece of your pie, it is helping others and they in turn will use that to help others; and so on and so on.

In other words, giving away a piece of your pie helps create a bigger pie for everyone !

Also, when you do something that is useful for others and for society, you will gain pleasure from doing so.

Benefits will come back to you, in ways, times and places when you least expect it.  That’s just the way the universe works.

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