TOLLS

Success never comes for free. The summit is never reached by chance. Anyone who wants to scale the heights must be prepared to pay the price to do so.


The natural price is work, effort, and sacrifice. The price is keeping the faith, steadying the will, creating space, and stretching out time. But sometimes you also have to pay a toll as well. The citizens of civilizations of antiquity knew this well; in the interest of prosperity, fertility, and fortune they offered the gods animal, or even human, sacrifices -tolls of a magnitude of cruelty that shock us today.


It is well known that the road to success is strewn with thorns. Difficulties of every kind and stupid unexplained incidents occur in the form of handicaps that might seem intended to deflate the winning spirit or at least test its mettle. These are all tolls; if the striver is truly a winner, not only will he not be deterred from his endeavor, but he will see in this levies a new challenge to be overcome, and the experience will be stimulating. Because overcoming these impediments is another way of generating positive energy, which serves to reinforce the cause and produce the desired effect.


Overcoming obstacles large and small, reasonable and absurd, with energy and in good spirits is another great generator of positive energy -that is, luck.