I mentioned a couple days ago that Chapter 1 of my book needs rewriting.  Though this is the case, the points in it will be retained but how it is written will be changed.

The chapter opens with, of course, the duckling story which will be kept intact, but goes into the story of Nightingale-Conant's humble beginnings and what Earl Nightingale asked a prominent psychologist one day in the 1950s.

If you've not read my post about the ducklings, you should.  There is a fine lesson there.  It's just a couple posts back from this one...

Upon rereading the first chapter, a section of it, past the story, looks to be salvageable.  Below it, it appears to be overdone.  I don't want my work to look polished which is what it looks like below.  I've retained part of the writing after the duckling story and it begins here...

The One Most-Destructive Element that Guarantees Mediocrity

I've known this lesson from what I have learned from such people as Earl Nightingale but this beautiful scene - the duck and her six gray ducklings following her everywhere she went - not only gave me a glimpse of Nature as she works her wonders which nobody else nearby seemed to take any notice...

Even in the world of ducks there seems to be "non-conformists" of sorts. Even though the last duckling overcame the obstacle spontaneously, it left an impression on me. The duckling spells out the same lesson Mark Joyner has in his Simpleology 101 Course. To get where you want or need to go, take the shortest possible path to get there - a straight line. I call it making a "bee-line" to the target.

It were as if Nature was telling me, go forward...keep on going.

The vast majority of people are doing exactly what the first five ducklings did. Why? What makes people do this? In spite of the consequences that are really, plain to see, a very large percentage of people will live out their lives in dedicating most of it to someone else's cause and then going to their grave broke and full of regrets. What makes people pass their eyes over over the fact that there are better ways to spend their time and energy and yet they willfully give these valuable commodities away for such pitifully small returns?

My #1 answer to these questions...conformity.

Albeit there are people out there who, no matter what they learn about these important facts, will continue to do them. They will continue to be led to the slaughter blindfolded. They will have it no other way.

There are those of you who won't.

FINIS

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Next time I will delve into what kind of conformity is bad for you.  We must all conform to some degree with various aspects of life.  In fact, education is all about conforming to the discipline being taught.  Conformity is not a bad thing overall.  What is bad are the things we conform to...