Gandhi's personal mission statement

Sometimes a personal slap upside the head comes in the most unexpected places.

After dabbling around the edges and not using my Franklin Planner to, well, plan, this morning I thought I'd review some of the instruction sections and get serious about using this little device that I spend 40-50 bucks a year on. There's more to using a planner than just keeping track of your appointments, doncha know.

My eyes had started glazing over -- prioritize, urgent/non-urgent, plan weekly, plan daily, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then I came across several examples of "personal mission statements." There, they included Mahatma Gandhi's "Resolution," which I recognized from deep in my long-ago memory. It's a thought that would well serve anyone who wants to do something useful with his/her life:

Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day:

* I shall not fear anyone on Earth.

* I shall fear only God.

* I shall not bear ill will toward anyone.

* I shall not submit to injustice from anyone.

* I shall conquer untruth by truth.

* And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.

That's one darn complete personal mission statement, especially that last line, because if you set out to fearlessly stand for truth and refuse to submit to injustice while bearing no ill will toward anyone (which includes those who perpetrate injustice), you'd better steel yourself for it to hurt a little.

The time since I last encountered Gandhi's "Resolution" can be measured in decades. I'm going to use the wonder of modern technology, e.g., my handy-dandy computer printer, to ensure that I encounter these words on a daily basis. I see just the spot on my wall for it.