The inspiration for this piece was from a man who was in one of my audiences. After the program, he said, “I hope the guy on the white horse gets here soon because I need help. I gently explained that if his problems were going to be solved he’d have to do it himself because the “guy on the white horse” is nonexistent.
My Declaration is in two of the books I’ve written. Dr. Robert H. Schuller asked me to use it in one of his best sellers. Other authors have used it in their books.
Og Mandino, who wrote the worlds best selling. “The Greatest Salesman in the World,” framed a copy of my Declaration and hung it above his desk. He told me he read it every morning before he started writing. His favorite paragraph was the next to the last one that begins “With Personal growth comes a fear of the unknown…”
I’d love to hear which one is your favorite.
My Declaration follows this letter. May I challenge you to write your own Declaration?
Higher up and farther on! The best is yet to be!
Danny Cox
Declaration of Personal Responsibility
By Danny Cox
By Danny Cox
I currently possess everything I've truly wanted and deserved. This is based on what I have handed out to date. My possessions, my savings and my lifestyle are an exact mirror of me, my efforts and my contribution to society. What I give, I get. If I am unhappy with what I have received it is because, as yet, I have not paid the required price. I have lingered too long in the "quibbling stage."
I fully understand that time becomes a burden to me only when it is empty. The past is mine and at this very moment I am purchasing another twenty-four hours of it. The future quickly becomes the past at a control point called the present moment. I not only truly live at that point, but I have full responsibility for the highest and best use of the irreplaceable now.
I accept full responsibility for both the successes and failures in my life. If I am not what I desire to be at this point, what I am is my compromise. I no longer choose to compromise with my undeveloped potential.
I am the sum total of the choices I have made and I continue to choose daily. What I now put under close scrutiny is the value of each up-coming choice. Therein lies the quality of my future lifestyle.
Will my future belong to the "old me" or the "new me"? The answer depends on my attitude toward personal growth at this very moment. What time is left is all that counts and that remaining time is my responsibility. With a newfound maturity I accept full responsibility for how good I can become at what is most important to me.
With personal growth comes a fear of the unknown and new problems. Those problems are nothing more than the expanding shadow of my personal growth. I now turn my very real fear, with God’s help, into a very real adventure.
My life now expands to meet my newfound destiny. "Old me" meet the "new me."
Copyright 1984
