Sophistication: Vitamins for the Mind

“Sophistication is understanding the difference between trinkets and treasures.”

“Sophisticated people don’t leave early. The man says, ‘Yeah, but I want to beat the traffic.’ Isn’t that a great skill to have - beating the traffic!”

“Money doesn’t make you sophisticated. Only study and practice make you sophisticated. Even people of modest means can become sophisticated because it is within study and practice. How much is a night out at the symphony? About thirty dollars. You say, ‘Poor people can’t afford thirty dollars to go to the symphony.’ Yes, they can. It’s only thirty Hershey bars!”

“We must teach our children not to spend their money a dollar at a time. If you spend your money a dollar at a time, you’ll wind up with trinkets instead of treasures. You can’t buy much of value a dollar at a time.”

Enterprise is Better Than Ease by Jim Rohn

If we are involved in a project, how hard should we work at it? How much time should we put in?

Our philosophy about activity and our attitude about hard work will affect the quality of our lives. What we decide about the rightful ratio of labor to rest will establish a certain work ethic. That work ethic–our attitude about the amount of labor we are willing to commit to future fortune–will determine how substantial or how meager that fortune turns out to be.

Enterprise is always better than ease. Every time we choose to do less than we could, this error in judgment has an effect on our self-confidence. Repeated every day, we soon find ourselves not only doing less than we should, but also being less than we could. The accumulative effect of this error in judgment can be devastating. Fortunately, it is easy to reverse the process.

Any day we choose we can develop a new discipline of doing rather than neglecting. Every time we choose action over ease or labor over rest, we develop an increasing level of self-worth, self-respect and self-confidence. In the final analysis, it is how we feel about ourselves that provides the greatest reward from any activity.

It is not what we get that makes us valuable; it is what we become in the process of doing that brings value into our lives. It is activity that converts human dreams into human reality, and that conversion from idea into actuality gives us a personal value that can come from no other source.

So feel free to not only engage in enterprise, but also to enjoy to its fullest along with all the benefits that are soon to come.