C2 extra reading for week 4

The key to success? Personal responsibility

Creator of ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ says his 64 principles are a guarantee to reaching goals. Here’s an excerpt

Principle One
Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life

You must take personal responsibility. You cannot
change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind,
but you can change yourself.
Jim Rohn
America’s foremost business philosopher

One of the most pervasive myths in the American culture today is that we are entitled to a great life — that somehow, somewhere, someone (certainly not us) is responsible for filling our lives with continual happiness, exciting career options, nurturing family time, and blissful personal relationships simply because we exist.

But the real truth — and the one lesson this whole book is based on — is that there is only one person responsible for the quality of the life you live.

That person is you.

If you want to be successful, you have to take 100% responsibility for everything that you experience in your life. This includes the level of your achievements, the results you produce, the quality of your relationships, the state of your health and physical fitness, your income, your debts, your feelings — everything!

This is not easy.

In fact, most of us have been conditioned to blame something outside of ourselves for the parts of our life we don't like. We blame our parents, our bosses, our friends, the media, our coworkers, our clients, our spouse, the weather, the economy, our astrological chart, our lack of money — anyone or anything we can pin the blame on. We never want to look at where the real problem is — ourselves.

There is a wonderful story told about a man who is out walking one night and comes upon another man down on his knees looking for something under a streetlamp. The passerby inquires as to what the other man is looking for. He answers that he is looking for his lost key. The passerby offers to help and gets down on his knees and helps him search for the key. After an hour of fruitless searching, he says, "We've looked everywhere for it and we haven't found it. Are you sure that you lost it here?"

The other man replies, "No, I lost it in my house, but there is more light out here under the streetlamp."

It is time to stop looking outside yourself for the answers to why you haven't created the life and results you want, for it is you who creates the quality of the life you lead and the results you produce.

You — no one else!

To achieve major success in life — to achieve those things that are most important to you — you must assume 100% responsibility for your life. Nothing less will do.

One Hundred Percent Responsibility For Everything
As I mentioned in the introduction, back in 1969 — only one year out of graduate school — I had the good fortune to work for W. Clement Stone. He was a self-made multimillionaire worth $600 million at the time — and that was long before all the dot-com millionaires came along in the '90s. Stone was also America's premier success guru. He was the publisher of Success Magazine, author of The Success System That Never Fails, and coauthor with Napoleon Hill of Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude.

When I was completing my first week's orientation, Mr. Stone asked me if I took 100% responsibility for my life.

"I think so," I responded.

"This is a yes or no question, young man. You either do or you don't."

"Well, I guess I'm not sure."

"Have you ever blamed anyone for any circumstance in your life? Have you ever complained about anything?"

"Uh ... yeah ... I guess I have."

"Don't guess. Think."

"Yes, I have."

"Okay, then. That means you don't take one hundred percent responsibility for your life. Taking one hundred percent responsibility means you acknowledge that you create everything that happens to you. It means you understand that you are the cause of all of your experience. If you want to be really successful, and I know you do, then you will have to give up blaming and complaining and take total responsibility for your life — that means all your results, both your successes and your failures. That is the prerequisite for creating a life of success. It is only by acknowledging that you have created everything up until now that you can take charge of creating the future you want.

"You see, Jack, if you realize that you have created your current conditions, then you can uncreate them and re-create them at will. Do you understand that?"

"Yes, sir, I do."

"Are you willing to take one hundred percent responsibility for your life?"

"Yes, sir, I am!"

And I did.

You Have to Give Up All Your Excuses

Ninety-nine percent of all failures come from
people who have a habit of making excuses.

George Washington Carver
Chemist who discovered over 325 uses for the peanut

If you want to create the life of your dreams, then you are going to have to take 100% responsibility for your life as well. That means giving up all your excuses, all your victim stories, all the reasons why you can't and why you haven't up until now, and all your blaming of outside circumstances. You have to give them all up forever.

You have to take the position that you have always had the power to make it different, to get it right, to produce the desired result. For whatever reason — ignorance, lack of awareness, fear, needing to be right, the need to feel safe — you chose not to exercise that power. Who knows why? It doesn't matter. The past is the past. All that matters now is that from this point forward you choose — that's right, it's a choice — you choose to act as if (that's all that's required — to act as if ) you are 100% responsible for everything that does or doesn't happen to you.

Poem of the day October 22

After Apple-Picking
by Robert Frost
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree Toward heaven still, And there's a barrel that I didn't fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I didn't pick upon some bough. But I am done with apple-picking now. Essence of winter sleep is on the night, The scent of apples: I am drowsing off. I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight I got from looking through a pane of glass I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough And held against the world of hoary grass. It melted, and I let it fall and break. But I was well Upon my way to sleep before it fell, And I could tell What form my dreaming was about to take. Magnified apples appear and disappear, Stem end and blossom end, And every fleck of russet showing clear. My instep arch not only keeps the ache, It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round. I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend. And I keep hearing from the cellar bin The rumbling sound Of load on load of apples coming in. For I have had too much Of apple-picking: I am overtired Of the great harvest I myself desired. There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall. For all That struck the earth, No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, Went surely to the cider-apple heap As of no worth. One can see what will trouble This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is. Were he not gone, The woodchuck could say whether it's like his Long sleep, as I describe its coming on, Or just some human sleep.

Homework for week 3 listening/speaking C3

Hey there guys, here is a little activity where you can listen about spiders. You should listen for the first time without help, then go through the vocabulary down below, and if you want to make sure you understood everything you can download the entire script on the right side. Also, does anyone have any ideas of songs that they would like to hear and go through next week?

weekend homework - C2

Shanghai


read the story and answer the following questions
1- how is china similar to America? 2- what is the most frustrating part about China? 3- why do Chinese people follow some rules but not others?


My time here in China has been an opportunity to learn about a culture very different from my own. I’ve learned to appreciate the apparent chaotic lifestyle of average China that, although it seems crazy to an American, has successfully created the fastest growing economy in the world. Living in Shanghai, away from the usual tourist spots, with a Chinese roommate has helped accelerate the process of getting to know this country better, while learning to appreciate what this great country has to offer.

China has been both enlightening and frustrating. Enlightening because the experiences here are amazing; frustrating because the cultural differences are sometimes difficult to understand. It has struck me as a place of strict rules, yet greater freedom. On the one hand, people religiously obey the ‘do not walk’ signs at crosswalks; on the other, seatbelts are rarely, if ever used, and certainly not in backseats. If a sign says ‘wait in line here’ everyone will wait there, whether or not it really makes sense; in a grocery store trying to get your vegetables weighed is a very difficult because the concept of waiting in line is often ignored. People regularly stroll the streets with open containers. People say that China has the greatest potential of any nation in the coming years. Here in the middle of everything, however, things look a bit chaotic.
If one word in Chinese could sum up my experience thus far, it would be weishenme? Why? Sometimes things make sense: stopping at the crosswalk and being so adamant about it makes sense because drivers have the right of way. In contrast, backseat seatbelts are usually tucked away and inaccessible. Here more than many places you probably wish you could use them. It’s these sorts of actions that seem to typify at China. When there are rules in place and enforcement to back them up, those rules are rarely broken. If there aren’t rules, or not necessarily strong enforcement, then just about anything is allowed. At times it seems like we have more freedom here than in the States, at least down on the street. But as foreigners we have to be careful what we do. Big Brother is never far away.

When we first arrived, I thought ‘this isn’t that different.’ In fact, Shanghai with all its western influence is not extremely different. But in subtle ways, it can be very different. Take for example, how people here tend to walk very closely to one another; how pushing and shoving in crowded areas are considered normal; haggling to get a good price for just about anything you buy is common. It was these types of behaviors that, to me at least, were all quite strange. But making changes to these sorts of differences has all been part of the learning process. As a specific example, haggling for prices has helped in terms of dealing with people, learning to recognize how far you can be obstinate, what you can or can’t do when negotiating with someone. Gaining that ability should, even if just in a small way, help me negotiate with people in general.

word of the day October 7

burgeon

verb:

1.

To grow or develop quickly; flourish.

2.

To begin to grow or blossom.

If you listen to NPR everyday your mind will flourish and your politics will be decidedly liberal.

homework C2 October 6

what are your impressions of London? What do you think would be the advantages and disadvantages of living there? Add a comment, or a question, a story, or a fact.

word of the day October 6

Esurient
ih-SUR-ee-uhnt
adjective

greedy; hungry

I am an ensurient book reader; I finish a new book every week.

C2 - homework for October 5

hey campers!
So get your imaginary passports ready! tonight on the internet try to find out some more information about a place where you would like to have a homestay. Where would you stay? How expensive is the city (what is the cost of living?) What kind of things would you like to see? please have information ready because tomorrow we will learn about paragraphs and you will want information to make a paragraph with.