Happy New Year To My Readers!!!

I would like to wish all of you who read this blog from time to time a very happy and productive New Year.  I have not posted on this venue in several  months and yet, somehow, the three largest months of readership in the history of the blog have been the past three months.  I have reasoned from that fact that some of the things I have said have been pertinent and interesting to my regular readers and, more importantly, to individuals who have not been regular readers.  Without having fresh posts to read, even those who have been most impressed by the content or writing would not return repeatedly to peruse it over and over.  I am not deluded into believing that it is great writing.  It has to be the content, the things I say, the stories I tell, the views I express, the culture I try to protect and propagate.  I have also been very heavily involved in a relatively new consignment auction business over the past several months which roughly coincides with the lengthy gap in my blogging.  I recently found a quote in the Bible which I must have read numerous times but never grasped before:

Ecclesiastes 9:10 states "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest."

While I read the Bible regularly and generally read it cover to cover at least twice a year, I almost never quote it and read it more as an exercise in self discipline than as a religious act.  But this quote applies so thoroughly to both my auction business and to this blog that I had to take it to heart.  To use a frequently used, abused, and overused term, I am "rededicating my life" to try to practice the wisdom contained in the verse.  If we all apply that concept to our works and our lives, we will find that we have produced far more in any given time period than if we had not done so. I will work to write on this blog more regularly and to make my business more productive by first being more productive myself.  At times, I have been able to hold two jobs and work 75 hours a week for more than two consecutive years.  I also completed two college degrees while working full time and driving two hundred miles a day to and from work.  Productivity, whether in physical or intellectual labor, is rooted in a mindset.  With the right mindset, most of us are capable of "doing it with our might" as the verse says.  It is simply a matter of seven day a week productivity at the rate of about 12-18 hours a day.  It does not require brilliance, great physical ability, or divine purpose.  It requires work on a daily basis.  I will try to invest some of that work in this blog in the year to come.  And let me say that I have never made a practice of making new year's resolutions and this is not one.  It is simply a decision prompted by a pertinent piece of writing which I happened to grasp near the end of the previous year.  Happy New Year, and please consider coming back to read more of this blog from time to time.