"Success – not by working harder . . . ."

My main qualification for taking this talk is that having been 56 years in the workforce I have made most of the stupid mistakes that it's possible to make. For example, it's a mistake to think that the future takes care of itself, I used to think that. The fact is of course, that the future is today's judgment day. It's today that moulds and shapes the future. And then I thought that there's always plenty of time, but that's not true either. The average person lives about 25,000 days, but a third of them are spent in sleep. A third of life asleep, another third for earning bread and butter, and a sixth for social obligations as well as washing and eating and so on; that leaves you very little free time.

It may help us to realise that the first 20 years is the longest half of anybody's life. Even if you live to be a hundred, the first 20 years will be the longest half. You only have to think back as to how long those years were in your experience and in your memory and compare them with the last 20, and you'll see the truth of this. And so that's another stupid mistake that's easy to make, that there's plenty of time.

And then there's the error that it's the product that counts not the producer, or it's whether you can do the job, not how much you know. Today every book on success warns us against these follies, because it's what I am that determines the product in the long run. And since 1957 and the Sputnik we live in an information age. Karl Marx's stress on labour force has been replaced by information force. The importance of the Russian Sputnik in 1957 wasn't that we might experience space travel. No, it was that the world had moved into an information era which satellite communication made possible. So it's not the job we can do, it's how much we know. Seventeen percent of the workforce was blue-collar workers in 1956, today over 80% are in the information industries - lawyers, physicians, accountants and so on. So our world has changed drastically, and it is very important what we know, far more important than what we think we can do.

Most of the books on success talk about these mistakes, but they also give an overruling dual principle that's meant to protect us from such follies. The principle of "priortization", the other side of which is limitation.

It is a great revelation to learn that 80% of the things we do in life only has 20% of importance. And 20% of the things we do in life has 80% importance. Genius lies in discriminating which is the 80 and which is the 20. But woe to the person that does not learn to apply this principle by putting first first. Now, I didn't say first things first, because maybe things aren't first at all.

Limitation goes along with "priortization", and by limitation we mean this: that genius is intensity, digression is as dangerous as stagnation; the person that chases two hares catches neither. The secret of success is focusing one's attention on a topic until we've burnt a hole in it, like a magnifying glass taking the sun's rays and burning a hole in paper. It's only when the water of the river stays within its banks that it creates power; it's only when electricity, instead of being diffused like lightning it is confined to a slender wire, that it has power. Limitation means concentration, remembering that mastery is the result of resolved limitation. Ask a violinist how long it took him to become a good violinist. He says "12 hours a day for 20 years". He concentrated. None of us can do everything, none of us can go everywhere, we need to find what we can do well and concentrate on it. Genius is intensity, genius is concentration, we must learn to oppose to the death the petty larceny of our life by trifles.

One of the greatest inventions in media is the remote control whereby you can turn off the ads. Oppose to the death the petty larceny of your life by trifles. Remember there are 10,000 things that invite time and attention from which we must turn away. If we neglect these principles of "priortization" and limitation we bring upon ourselves stress that can destroy us. Seventy to ninety percent of diseases are initiated or exacerbated by stress. What is stress? It is the pressure from outside that makes you feel sick inside, a pressure also that gets things done, but it gets us undone. Stress is the friction of two things rubbing together, and you and I are rubbing together with people and things all day long. Sartre said, "hell is other people", and that's stress. He should have also said, "heaven is other people", but he omitted to say that.

You can take a test in two minutes straight as to whether by neglect of the principles of "priortization" and limitation your life has too much stress, which will ultimately undo you while you are trying to do so much. Here's the very simple test. You remember the old ammeter on the dashboard of a car that told you whether the battery was charging or discharging. We're going to take a stress ammeter test. I'm going to mention several characteristics, and I've experienced them all, and you have too, and they're not important as isolated factors. They're tremendously important when they come into the life in a clump. When we have many of these factors characteristic of our daily existence, we are having so much stress we're going to undo ourselves. Sickness is inevitable. So take the test with me, I have failed it many a time. Here are the signs when your nervous ammeter, because of excessive stress, is discharging vitality at such a rapid rate that you will shortly be undone unless you change things and turn to the principle of "priortization", the other side of which is limitation. Now here are the signs. Remember none of these on its own is significant, but when they come in a cluster, they're a red light, they're a red alert. Here they are:

1. Irritability without known cause. If you're a wife you've probably seen this in your husband many times, and some husbands have seen it in their wives. Irritability without known cause, number 1.

2. Number 2 - difficulty in concentrating. Serious reading is too heavy, give me the comics, put on the TV. Difficulty in concentrating.

3. Third - difficulty in remembering names, and I'm always conscience stricken when I remember this because, I fail at this, every place I go. Increasing difficulty in remembering names of familiar people. You'd be surprised, you can even forget the name of someone that's related to you closely.

4. Headaches. Very few headaches are caused by brain tumours, they're almost all caused by excessive stress.

5. Indigestion. Doctors have carried out innumerable operations on people complaining of digestive problems. In 99 cases out of 100 there's no pathological cause, there's just too much stress.

6. Fatigue. The main cause for weariness is not work, it's worry. It's not work. Very very few people are ever fatigued by work, but all of us get fatigued by worry.

7. Mild depression. Now, of course, some depression can be hormonal, and can be chemically aided, but the ordinary variety that we all suffer from is usually a sign of excessive stress.

8. And then, finally, insomnia. Now insomnia can sometimes have a hereditary factor, there are multiple causes, but insomnia can be a product of too much stress.

So let me run through them very quickly again, here are the signs that your vitality is being dissipated at too fast a rate because you are neglecting the principle of "priortization" and limitation. Here they are again. Irritability without known cause; difficulty in concentrating; difficulty in remembering names; headache; indigestion; fatigue; depression; insomnia. I repeat, none of them significant on its own, we all have them, but if you have them as a cluster, you will soon be undone.

What should we do when we find such a cluster in our lives? Three things to remember:

1. First, diversify the stressful agent. A single stressor that never is remitted, that has no pause, allowed to continue in the life can destroy us. We must diversify the stressful agent. Go and run, it's impossible to retain a strong emotion when you're physically relaxed. Medicos tell us today that for most people a 30-minute walk will do them much better than Valium. Imitate the last sleeping cat you saw. Pick it up and it sags at both ends. You can't help but feel relaxed after you've been physically active. So diversify the stressful agent, don't let it all be on your mind, use the muscles. There should be the same proportion of stress on muscles as there is on nerves, otherwise health will give way. Much stress on the nerves needs much stress on the muscles. So, diversify the stressful agent.

2. Secondly, interrupt the stressors by rest. The more important your work, the more important rest. Your capacity for work is determined by your capacity to rest. Rest is not doing nothing, rest is repair. Rest is stepping back so you can jump further. Rest is tarrying a while so you'll finish sooner.

3. Thirdly, reinterpret. Most of our stresses come because we misinterpret things. "Two men looked out through prison bars, and one saw mud, and the other saw stars." When the boys were wounded on the Anzio Bridge Head in Italy in World War Two, it only took a quarter of the amount of morphine to ease their pain as if the same wounds had happened in civilian life. Why? Because they saw their wounds as a ticket home. It isn't what happens to us, it's how we interpret what happens to us. It's not the program of being highly stressed, it's the psychology of the person in the program that determines everything. It's not what happens to us, it's what we do with what happens to us, so we must learn to reinterpret the stress.

If we don't take these steps and continue the mad melee of life, forgetting to "prioritize", forgetting that 80% of what we do only has 20% importance, in other words 80% of things you do could be left undone and you wouldn't notice the loss, if we don't wake up to this, health will fail us. Remember that in a typical group like this one in Australia, three out of four will die of cancer and heart disease. Three out of four. And these are not mysterious illnesses for the most part. We know what causes over 95% of cancer. If you don't smoke, you wipe out a third of the likelihood of getting cancer. If you're not greatly into alcohol, you're not going to be among that 10% that die from alcohol. If you don't eat heavily of animal products, you reduce your chances of an early death by about 40%. So when I say in the typical audience three out of four will die of heart disease or cancer, we choose to. It's our choice, because we haven't learnt to "prioritize", and knowing what makes life, and knowing what causes death, should be among our priorities.

Let me tell you all they know about nutrition in one sentence, because what we put between our lips determines nine out of ten deaths. The cigarette, excessive alcohol, excessive use of animal products, refined foods, causes nine out of ten deaths. So here's the best they know in nutrition, and it's agreed on now the world around. This is not open to dispute. It was in my boyhood. I began to read in this area when I was about nine years of age, and today there's a complete revolution. Eat fresh whole food chiefly of vegetable origin. Fresh, because the body doesn't make Vitamin C, your dog's body does, but your body doesn't, my body doesn't, you get Vitamin C in fresh food, we must have fresh food every day. If you want to stay alive, eat live food, if you want to be dead, eat dead foods. If you want to die early eat stuff mainly out of packets, cans and bottles. If you want to live long and be alive and vital, only have a minimum of stuff out of packets, cans and bottles, because that's all been killed to some degree.

There's a principle in the good Book that says that what God has joined together should never be put asunder. Our whole food industry violates that principle. Eat fresh whole food. Why whole? As soon as we begin to refine foods we rob that food of certain elements necessary for our survival. The body needs 50 different elements to survive, to function well, 50. Now once we strip foods, you know, white flour, they take out about 22 elements and put back six and call it enriched. We are certainly a brainwashed generation. The old quip that "the whiter the bread the sooner you're dead" is not far wrong. You imagine, take out about 20 elements and put back six and call it enriched, that's crazy. You cannot process food without causing weakness and lack of vitality to the consumer. Eat fresh whole food. Almost everybody in this country and USA and every civilised country on earth has the makings of diverticulitis, which consists of inflamed pouches in the intestines mainly through constipation, caused by eating refined foods, and ultimately you get bowel cancer. They're the steps, you eat refined food, you get constipation, you probably have your appendix removed, then diverticulosis, and then diverticulitis and then bowel cancer, that's it. Because we eat refined foods. Eat fresh whole foods, chiefly of vegetable origin. Why that? Because the main cause of death is the excessive use of animal products. You don't have to be a vegetarian, but the nearer you get to it the healthier you'll be, and what's more, you'll have more hours in the day, far more hours in the day. The banana-eating monkey sleeps six hours a day, the meat-eating lion sleeps 20. As a general principle the nearer you get to vegetarianism the less sleep you can manage on. A very important practical issue because time is money. It's worth more than money, it's easier to get money than it is to get time. Queen Elizabeth is supposed to have said, "a million pounds for a moment of time", on her deathbed, but you know, time can't be bought. So eat fresh whole food chiefly of vegetable origin. You can't be efficient, successful, if your health is going down the tubes. Everything is dependent on energy. Someone said "if I made a new God I would rear a statue to energy and worship that." But energy springs from good health, good health springs from right habits, and it's mainly what you eat and what you think and whether you move. Here's one to remember. They never bury anything that moves! They never bury anything that moves! The good Book says "in the sweat of thy brow shall thou eat bread". If you don't sweat, don't eat. It's estimated 300,000 people a year die in US because they're couch potatoes. Less than one in four Americans do anything like the exercise that's necessary, despite one of the founding fathers and one of the early presidents, Jefferson, saying that at least two hours a day of physical activity is necessary for health. They never bury anything that moves, and in the sweat of thy brow shall thou eat. If you don't sweat don't eat.

Now let me go further and say that even if we think we're applying these principles of "priortization" and limitation we may still miss the mark. John D. Rockefeller was a millionaire by the time he was 33. He had built the biggest monopoly in the world, the Standard Oil Company by the time he was 43, by the time he was 53 he was dying. He wore a skull cap and a wig, his skin was like parchment, he lived for a while on mother's milk, he was earning $1 million a week, his food cost $2 a week, crackers and acidulated milk was the best he could do. He had a serious digestive ailment that took all the hair of his head, all his eyelashes, left him with just a wisp in the eyebrow. Why? He was the most hated man in America, particularly in the oil fields of Pennsylvania where they hanged him in effigy. And being hated and unloved, plus the worry of his work, he never put his head on the pillow without worrying about whether he would lose his fortune. All this destroyed his health. So the doctor said to him, Mr Rockefeller, here's your choice, keep your job and your money, and die, or give up your job and risk your wealth, and live. So he retired at 53. They gave him three rules to live by, Mr Rockefeller you're not to worry about anything under any circumstances - not ever, Rule number one. Number two - get enough rest, but exercise regularly in the open air. Number three - be careful how your eat, and always eat a little less than you want. John D. Rockefeller changed his whole life, and when he had time, now he was retired, he began to wonder, could money bring happiness? It had brought him near to death. Could money bring happiness? So you know the rest, The Rockefeller Foundation pursued disease, wiped out hookworm in America, has done things all around the globe, wonderful! Was John D. contented when he changed his lifestyle and learned to give rather than to get? For the first time in his life he was contented. Now he'd practiced "priortization" of a type, and limitation of a type, the only things he ever did was make money and teach Sunday School. But he'd missed the boat.

You know J.C. Penney who started the Penney's Stores. Penney, when his life was about half way through counted that he didn't have a friend in the world, he'd lost all his self-respect, he had shingles, he couldn't sleep, he was in a sanitarium in Battle Creek in America, wrote letters to his wife and child and said "I don't think I'll live to see the morning." He'd been a hard-hitting businessman, but he realised he'd failed terribly. He did see the morning, and he heard someone or some group singing songs, so he made his way down to the little chapel of Battle Creek Sanitarium, and the tiny congregation of patients there were singing "God will take care of you". Then came a Scripture reading about a God who counts the hairs of our head and who attends the funeral of every sparrow and who so loved the world that he gave his son. And J.C. Penney recording it says: "suddenly I was lifted out of hell into paradise, suddenly the darkness was dispatched and I was in brilliant light and aware that I was responsible for my own troubles and hating myself for my stupidity, my folly, my weakness, my failures". He said: "suddenly I came to see the Creator of the universe thought I was valuable, cared for me, wanted the best for me:. He said: "from that day to this I haven't worried". That's what he said when he was 72 years of age.

You've heard of Goethe, the great German writer who wrote Dr Faustus. Admired by kings and presidents and generals and everybody, a man of marvellous genius. At the end of his life in his 80s he said: "I've not had three happy months in my whole life". He practiced "priortization" of a type and limitation, but he failed, like Rockefeller, like J.C. Penney.

It's not enough to know those principles in their outward form. Napoleon had glory, fame, wealth. On St Helena he said "I haven't had six days of happiness in my life". Contrast Helen Keller. Blind, deaf and dumb. She said in her old age: "I have found life so beautiful". What made the difference? We need to understand our human nature, what makes us tick. Every decision you and I make is to avoid anxiety, consciously or unconsciously. The anxiety of unhappiness, the anxiety of self-despair, the anxiety of the lack of love, but above all, the anxiety of separateness, is constantly our concern.

We're born without choosing to be born, we die without choosing to die. Either our loved ones die before we do, or we die before them, and subconsciously there's borne in on us the awareness that we are lonely isolated people in a universe that's immense and seemingly merciless. The human organism from the time it leaves the womb is struggling to get back. Our parents were meant to shape us to deal with this problem. The mother represents unconditional love. Doesn't matter what you do, your mother loves you still. The father represents conditional love, he represents the world of discipline, cause and effect, sowing and reaping. And the child, as it matures, is meant to have both a mother principle and a father principle, and can then accept itself despite its follies. You know we're all stupid in lots of ways, there are no exceptions. But the mother principle properly developed says: "hey, if God can love me, I can accept myself despite my stupidities". The father principle says: "that's true, but you've got to deal with the world out there, now get cracking, obey the law, do this, work, rest, 'priortization'". If we lack the proper development of either of these two, the mother principle or the father principle we are neurotic in one way or another. If we've been exposed to smother love, a mother that's too domineering, with a weak disinterested father, we grow up always looking for a mother, we grow up liable to depression, liable to hysteria, unable to cope, always messing things up. If we grow up on the other hand with a highly dominating father, and a recessive mother, we are likely to become obsessive, cold.

The problem with this issue of learning to love aright, which is the real solution to the problem of separateness, is that there is no enterprise in the world that is associated with as many failures as love. Love as Hollywood presents it is not what the great thinkers of the world mean by love. Love as Hollywood presents it makes towering promises that are false. You fall in love with the right boy, right girl, you'll be in ecstasy forever. Absolute rubbish! Absolute rubbish. The state of infatuation is never lasting, or how would we get anything done! Never lasting! Nature starts every new procedure off with an explosion, and the same is true about generating the next generation, but the promises made by erotic passion are false - that once you've found the ideal mate, oh the rest of life will be just honey and sugar and strawberries and cream. Rubbish, sheer rubbish. And furthermore, the lie goes on to say, once I find him or find her, everything else is lost. And they think if only we can do this, I'll not only have repeated ecstasies, I'll have lifelong satisfaction. But it is not so.

The Creator of the universe told us a better way. You know in Thornton Wilder's book Woman of Andros the hero is walking out in the dark and he's thinking of all the messes his friends have made in their marriages and their jobs, and he raises his hands to heaven: "what should I do, how should I live?"

Wouldn't it be great if the universe told us, wouldn't it be great if the Creator came down and gave it to us in two minutes straight. He did, he did. In two minutes he did it. Oh you say, those old Ten Commandments. Oh no, no, no. At Mount Sinai the Creator of the universe told us three things: happiness is causal not casual; the universe is a universe not a multiverse, it's run by law, and the primary law is that of unselfish disciplined love. When God gave the Ten Commandments, he was telling us this, if you want to handle the stress and the distresses of life one must "prioritize". Observe the sequence of priorities in the dectalogue.

God, family, neighbours, things. Most people do the opposite. Things come first, my job, my wages, my reputation. The neighbours come next because they interfere with my reputation. Family comes a poor third. Poor God, we spend more on cat food than on Him. Life is meant to revolve around love, but not Hollywood type love. Unselfish caring. True love has to do with care, respect, responsibility and knowledge. Selfish love can't love anyone truly and cannot love oneself. You know the good Book really simplifies life when it sets out life as a triangle. I have a relationship with my Creator, I have a relationship with myself, I have a relationship with other people. Now unless I know He accepts me I can never accept myself, and I'll pursue all sorts of things to avoid facing myself. I'll be busy about a thousand things rather than face myself. I will be somewhat neurotic and selfish.

But see the Christian principle. You have a relationship with God and if you are right with Him, you know He accepts you, and this is the genius of the Bible's teaching about love, that God loves the unlovely. That's my only hope. He'd better or I'm done for, but if I know He can accept me (and again that's the genius of the Christian gospel, he accepts the unacceptable). "Whosoever will may come". You don't have to be a success in your own sight, or the world's, to be a success from God's side, all you have to do is to receive. You don't have to be good to be accepted by God, you do have to be accepted by God in order to be good. He accepts us just as we are, but he never leaves us just as we are. However, to come back to the triangle, if he accepts me, I can accept myself, otherwise I'll never be able to accept myself, it's just that simple. No honest person who knows themselves can accept themselves unless they know God accepts them. Thirdly, if I can accept myself I'll accept other people. Now that's the only way life will work, the triangle principle. When I know God accepts me I can accept myself, when I can accept myself then I can accept other people. That's the only way life will work.

Now there is a hitch, and the hitch is this. We've been talking about priorities and limitation and love. But is this love which Christianity teaches, is it really a chimera, an illusion, a delusion, or does it reflect the heart of the universe? That's the question. We have to know whether there's meaning, It's no good being a success with lots of money and a good reputation if I die like a dog and that's it. If there's a zero at the end, everything along the way is a zero. Please write it down, think about it. If there's a zero at the end, everything along the way is a zero.

It's very important to be able to define life correctly. What is life? What is humanity, a planetary eczema? Is life a nightmare between two eternities? Is it a punishment for the crime of being born? Is it a disease for which the only cure is death? Are human beings a stir in the mud, a fuss in the slime, is that all? If so, if there's a zero at the end, we die like a dog. Everything along the way is a zero, when you embrace your spouse, you kiss your child, you pursue your hobby, you do your professional work, it has no meaning at all. A zero at the end is a zero all along the way. And don't say "well couldn't I live forever without God?" Yes you could, but let me illustrate. An astronaut is marooned on a barren chunk of rock, absolutely lost, but he has two vials. One of them is a poison that can kill him instantly; the other will give him immortality. He looks at his broken machine, he knows he's lost in the universe, he doesn't want to live forever so he takes the poison, but he takes the wrong one by mistake, and now he's immortal on a barren chunk of rock in the universe without meaning. Do you want that sort of existence? Listen. We need to face this issue. Can we look in the mirror and say, as most people really believe without expressing it, we can say to the face in the mirror: "you meaningless clot of coincidental molecules", and be inspired for the day, motivated to resist your selfishness, energised to do something for the world, "you meaningless clot of coincidental molecules". Life is meant to revolve around love, but is this love a reflection of the reality of the universe? That's very important.

Let me tell you something that very few people know. Time Magazine called it the "Quiet Revolution". What do they mean "the Quiet Revolution"? Listen, in my boyhood, physics was the mechanistic science, they thought they knew everything about the universe and it was just plainly a machine. There's come a very strange change in the last 30 years, and you only have to go and get books by Paul Davies or many of the men that are writing on modern physics. All has changed because of what they call the anthropic principle. In the last 30 or 40 years most physicists have become theists, not necessarily Christians but theists. Why? Because if any one of the crucial ingredients of the universe had differed by a 100 billionth there'd never have been humanity, this is what they call the anthropic principle, this is why there are now a thousand courses offered in university on the relationship between science and religion. Let me give you Paul Davies' illustration. He says: "if the explosive vigour of the big bang, [or Christians would call it creation] had differed from the gravitational pull by one in ten to the sixtieth there'd have been no universe". Now remember there are several crucial factors, gravity, the weak and the strong nuclear forces, gravitational pull, electromagnetism. If any of these had differed by one hundred billionth, there'd have been no universe. So Paul Davies said "if you want to understand this, you need to know that if the universe had exploded a tiny little bit quicker or a tiny little bit slower there'd have been no universe, no humanity". He says "you want to understand how big that proportion is? Imagine you have to hit a one inch target 20 billion light years away. That's your chance, that's your chance of meeting this requirement of one in ten to the sixtieth". All the atoms of the universe only amount to about ten to the seventieth. So, in other words, today it is well acknowledged by most physicists that the anthropic principle shows there is design in the universe, there is a Creator.

What's He like, is he a bird with a strange eye in his head. What's He like, like a rhinoceros, a cloud, a ghost. If there is a Creator who planned this, and it is obviously planned (if this earth was nearer the sun we'd burn up, if it was a little bit further away we'd freeze up, if the moon was bigger we'd have floodtides every day). But what's He like? That's very important. How can I have peace with Him if I don't know what He's like? Pontius Pilate is remembered for two statements: "what is truth"? "behold the man". He answered himself. "What is truth"? "behold the man". What man? The man that said "heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away". I have 10,000 books in my library, representing most of the great writers of history, and I have looked in vain to find a sentence that matches that one. You won't find Plato or Aristotle or Caesar or Confucius saying that. You won't find any of the great philosophers saying what Christ could say - heaven and earth shall pass away, my words shall not pass away - how did he know, how did he know? "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all unto me", and "this Gospel will one day go to the whole world for a witness under all nations", Matthew 24:14. How did he know? There was no printing. No radio, no TV. He was a peasant. I would suggest to you that we can only know God through Christ. We can only know the truth through Christ, and what is that truth? Within the heart of the universe there is a warm heart, a personal heart that cares for the most minute thing in creation, that attends the funeral of every sparrow and counts the hairs of our head and accepts the unacceptable. This is my only hope; I've made more mistakes than I've made anything else. If I didn't believe in a loving God, life would have no meaning at all for me.

So the Christian revelation says: you want to be a real success? Remember if you're going to die like a dead dog and there's a zero at the end, nothing you do is a success. All it is is a short epiphenomenon, a breath, that's all. But if Christ was God and if he said "come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest" then we should listen with joy. Some of us are depressed by the consciousness of who we are (some people are so honest they come quicker to the awareness of who they are than a lot of other people who are hiding the truth about themselves from themselves all their lives). That's a depressing thing to find, I'm not what I want to be, I'm not what I should be, I'm not what I could be, I'm not what I would be. God says I love you, come unto me. So the good Book says "he's gone to be guest with him that's a sinner", he's gone to eat with publicans and sinners, He says "whosoever will may come". That's a wonderful gospel, Chapter 1,000 of the Bible says God so loves the world that He gave his only son that whoever believeth, whoever believeth, whoever believeth, that's got to include me. I will perish without Christ, but with him we can live forever. Augustine said, "you've made us for thy self O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

Before we have questions. I should say that if I knew all the answers I'd be running the universe, not discussing it. Now it's your turn.

Someone asked me about the 80/20. We were saying that 80% of the things we do only have 20% of importance in our lives, whereas 20% of the things we do have 80% of importance in our life. For example, time we give to family, time we give to health to God to eternity, these may be part of the 20% of our activities that has 80% value.

Right, it's your turn. And if I don't know the answer I'll ask Ron Allen to give it.

Question - After you get all these priorities right, you've got some clues as to how to say no?

Answer - How to say no? Being able to say no is better than a Ph.D. I have two Ph.Ds and I'm not good at saying no. I think the stronger one's convictions about priorities the easier it is to say no. So for example, I get letters from many parts of the world and everyone expects me to read a long letter, read a book sent in to get an appraisal, listen to a video or a cassette and be back to them within two days. The answer has to be, as one wise man said recently in a class, he said: I explained to them that's their priorities but not mine. So I think the stronger we are on the principle of priorities the easier it will be to say no because we're more motivated.

Please, Rose.

Question - Can you tell us a bit about how to make stress work for you?

Answer - Yes. If we understand that stress is what gets things done, as well as what gets people undone, we will remember the only place without stress is the cemetery. And unless you are under some sort of pressure you'll never achieve anything, so stress that is welcome but controlled does get things done. The stress that's dangerous is when it's out of control, when we let other people dictate to us our programs and our priorities or when we have a misunderstanding regarding what is really a priority, but stress understood and kept within its right limits gets things done. It's a wonderful thing. And provided we remember to balance the stress on the nervous system with stress on the physical we can survive much, as long as we remember to diversify the stressful agents, take time off to rest. The more important your work, the more important it is that you rest. Your capacity to work depends on your capacity to rest. It's a step backward that makes you jump forward. So these are some of the things one would keep in mind in that area.

Question - Des, how do you accept people that you don't like?

Answer - How do you accept people that you don't like. That's a very practical question. The Bible and Christianity never asks us to like everybody. It does ask us to love them. The difference is this - love wants the best for everybody, whether you detest them, or whether they greatly appeal to you. And the motivation behind it is if God can put up with me, with all my faults and failings (that are more numerous than fleas on a dog), if God can put up with me, who am I, who am I, who would dare to show a different attitude to people for whom Christ died. So we should learn to try and see people not as they are, but as they may be one day, transfigured by the grace of God, that's how to see people. But God is not asking us to like people because that's not in our control. Our choices of Christian love are in our control, whereby we want the best, even for our enemies. And the best way to get rid of your enemies is to pray for them, it's very difficult to feel at enmity with someone you pray for.

I think it's vital that we learn to read for inspiration as well as information. Anyone that's going to be a success in whatever career you have, whether it's law or medicine, or teaching, or accountancy, it's vital to read for inspiration as well as information. Because, the real problem in life isn't knowing what to do, it's being motivated to do it. The worst man on earth knows more about duty than the best person does, so it's vital to read for inspiration as well as for information. Read the best biographies, the very best, of the people who've made a difference, people like Helen Keller. It's when Helen Keller's hand was held under a stream of water, and the word water was spelt out, that suddenly the penny dropped, and she saw that everything had a name and everything was loved, and that changed everything for Helen Keller, and she changed the lives of millions. She was the first blind woman to get a degree in an American university, and she opened the way for thousands upon thousands of other blind people. But it began when she saw that everything has a name and everything is loved There aren't too many beds in the hospital ward. In the big families every child is loved. God has a big family and Christ died for every one of us. We're all precious, we're all of infinite importance to God. To know that is to be motivated. So read the lives of people who've made a difference, read for inspiration as well as for information.

We just have another minute or two and then your time's gone.

Question - I'm suffering from stress at the moment because I feel that of all these gifts that God has bestowed upon me I'm not using them to do as much as I can

Answer - I guess it's not just a matter of care but a matter of prayer. We often have to ask not what needs to be done but what does God want us to do. Most of us could be good soda jerkers, you know, but God doesn't want you to be that. We might be good at collecting garbage, that doesn't mean God wants us to collect garbage. So not every need is a call, and as well as care there has to be prayer. Lord what would you have me to do? And He will probably point out the things that are primary in his gifts to you, and so you concentrate on those, the others will have a place along the way, but concentrate on the ones that are primary among your gifts, so that your work becomes your hobby and your hobby becomes your work. That's the ideal thing.

Let me finish off with a few words because we do need to be out of this room in a few minutes. 2000 years ago, a street woman of the oldest profession in world, whose life had been changed because Christ loved her, took an alabaster box that was worth a year's wages, even in her work, and she broke the box and poured the ointment over the head and feet of Christ, and the good book says in John Chapter 12, the whole house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment. This is a beautiful symbolism. 2000 years ago the precious body of the Son of God, Deity incarnate, was broken for us. And it filled the universe with its fragrance, and when that fragrance reaches our heart it gives beauty and significance to everything we do, whether it's washing and drying up, giving out documents, appearing in Court, adding numbers and statistics. Once the fragrance of the love of God from the broken body of Christ has reached our heart saying "you are loved", everything is then beautified, everything becomes significant. You don't have to look in the mirror and say "you meaningless clot of coincidental molecules", instead you say, "I'm a child of God, I'm a child of God". "God so loved the world and if I'd been the only one in the world he'd have died for me, I'm of value". I may despise myself when I find the truth about myself, and there are no exceptions to that. None of us are what we should be, but God doesn't' despise us, God loves us. The good Book says that if one died for all, then all died. In the merciful reckoning of God, you and I died on Calvary. That paid for our sins of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. That's why Paul could say "the love of Christ constrains us because we thus judge if one died for all, all died". Life begins at Calvary when we see that we died in the person our representative. We were ruined without asking for it, and we were redeemed without asking for it, and now it's free. Whosoever will may come. Because, to as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God and daughters of God. Whoever believed on His name. Dear friends, this is the only real sanity in the world. We live in an insane world, most people are suiciding in one way or another, most people's lives are in a horrible mess, the only way out is the way of God. We find it symbolised at Calvary where a cross divided the world. Both bad men on the other crosses, but one bad man saw the beauty of love in the face of Christ and thereafter knew that paradise was his. The other man rejected love. The choice is yours.

Transcript of Seminar by Dr Desmond Ford (Ph. D (Michigan State University); Ph. D (Manchester University, England)) at the Bar Common Room, Inns of Court on 19 February 2000