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In the days of the mighty sailing ships, when brave souls voyaged into the unknown, dependent on the winds and their as-yet incomplete knowledge of geography and navigation, one of the greatest and most dangerous challenges was to traverse the area known as "the doldrums."

Extending about 30 degrees on either side of the equator, the doldrums are subject to days, weeks, even months of no wind at all. After a long and difficult crossing from Europe to South America, lying becalmed in the doldrums -- with no land in sight and with the ship's supply of fresh water dwindling -- was a terrible and life-threatening situation.

But history and legend offer us some fascinating insights into the power of our own thinking and belief. Back then no one had yet figured out how to determine longitude, although latitude was easily calculated. So if you could not see recognizable land, you could only know in what band of latitude you currently were. Exactly where you were in that ring around the earth was, at that time, unknowable.

And so it happened that at times a ship would fetch up off the coast of South America, out of sight of shore, fresh water supplies exhausted and death knocking at the door. Then, with what must have been the sweetest sound those sailors could ever have hoped for, the lookout would suddenly call out that a ship was approaching on the horizon.

Once the ship was within hailing distance, the cry went up: "Water! Give us water!"

And the reply would come back, "Lower your buckets over the side."

You see, although the sailors didn't know it, they were afloat in a virtual river of drinkable and life-sustaining water flowing from the mouth of the powerful Amazon River, which carries nearly 20 percent of all the earth's runoff water into the sea with such force that the fresh (or brackish but safe) water flows as far as 100 miles out into the Atlantic.

The sailors, dying of thirst, only THOUGHT they were experiencing lack. The REALITY was that they were afloat in a literal sea of abundance. Exactly what they needed was within their reach the whole time, but the APPEARANCE of scarcity and their BELIEF in that appearance threatened to overpower them.

They could have died -- and many certainly did -- believing in lack while surrounded by abundance.

In his remarkable but largely forgotten 1910 book, The Science of Getting Rich, Wallace Wattles writes:

"I have said that people get rich by doing things in a certain way, and in order to do so, people must become able to think in a certain way.

"A person's way of doing things is the direct result of the way he thinks about things.

"To do things in the way you want to do them, you will have to acquire the ability to think the way you want to think. This is the first step toward getting rich.

"And to think what you want to think is to think TRUTH, regardless of appearances.

In a recent edition of my ezine, The Certain Way, my friend Teresa Romain of Access Abundance <http://www.accessabundance.com> wrote about how Galileo changed the world by looking at things from a new perspective. By dropping the prevailing attitude that the sun revolved around the earth, he was able to see that the opposite was, in fact, the truth.

The key to finding the truth, Teresa noted, was choosing to cast off the old notion and look at the situation anew, through a new lens. Teresa wrote:

"The path that lies before you is one of unlimited abundance. And it begins by SEEING the abundance available all around you.

"As you begin to experience life through the new lens of abundance, you'll find that many of the problems you face today will simply disappear. As for the ones that remain, your relationship to them will have changed profoundly, empowering you to take actions that are congruent with and support abundance."

What old beliefs, what old ways of looking, seeing, and perceiving do YOU need to cast off right now, my friend? If you find yourself "in the doldrums," how can you take a fresh look today and begin to see the abundance that surrounds YOU so that you are empowered -- not becalmed and hopeless?

The choice is always available. If you have chosen unwisely before, remember that every moment is new and the great power lies in your ability to CHOOSE AGAIN, no matter the appearances and no matter what it seems everyone else thinks or does.

Teresa says that this choice "is the path that leads, ultimately, to the fulfillment of your dreams." Mr. Wattles says this choice is "the first step toward getting rich."

And, bearing in mind those long-ago sailors, I would add that this choice can be the ultimate choice -- for death or for life itself.

That choice, every moment, is yours. Which way do you choose -- right now?