My father left school before he was fourteen years old, as did many boys of his generation. He spent the rest of his brief life in a love affair with books. He was severely practical in his reading, being of the opinion that whatever you want to know is in some book, somewhere.

He died on Christmas Day in my ninth year, and one of his only legacies to me was the axiom in the title. His extensive reading and life’s experience had made this plain, and he made sure that I understood it well.

Do you remember those bumper stickers that said,“ The moral majority is neither.” The evangelicals have tried to take over the vocabulary of morality and ethics, as the Republicans successfully took over the vocabulary of politics.

Liberal used to mean open minded, educated, able to see another’s point of view. Now it’s just a political epithet since Newt Gingrich. Accuracy in speech went the way of civility and cooperation. Gay used to mean carefree and happy. Now look what’s happened to it.

Something that has been known in other cultures for many centuries is finally becoming known in this one. Floods of books and tapes on Eastern religions, sub-atomic physics, quantum theory, and the metaphysics of becoming a millionaire, are all pointing to the same primal, spiritual, fact of human existence.

Life is lived and created from the inside.

It isn't something that impinges on us from the outside. We are NOT victims of circumstances. We make our circumstances like a spider makes its web and then walks about on it. An action as simple (not easy) as changing an attitude can completely change a life, sometimes in an instant.

My students are all used to my standard saying about the world we create with our own amazing minds. If I say, “What you think….” there will often be a chorus that adds the rest, “…is what you see, and what you see is what you get.” Some of those who know the saying have also put it into use to alter their lives along the lines they desire. My posting about that was on November 20th.

There is a corollary, and it is as true as any statement can be, and continually verified by personal experience…What you expect is what you see. Let’s look at it for a while.