CHAPTER 1

The Law of Causality

Never try to violate natural laws and win.

Here is a question for you: “What is the difference between a law and something like a theory, principle, or idea?” The answer is that a law is always true—for everyone, at all times, under all circumstances. That is why it is called a law. Every other idea can be partially true or partially false, depending on the personality of the individual using it and the external circumstances. But a law? It is unchanging, like the Law of Gravity.

For example, the Law of Gravity says that things fall down. It is said that Sir Isaac Newton discovered this law when he was sitting under a tree and witnessed an apple fall from it. He formulated what became the first Law of Motion. It is a law because it is always true—for everyone and under all circumstances. Things on earth always fall down, not up.

Many people are confused about this idea of immutable, unchanging laws. They wish and hope that if only they believe strongly enough, and wish and hope for a desired outcome, the natural force of the laws will be suspended temporarily, and they will get what they want despite their actions or their failure to act. They, in effect, want things to fall up. But as we said earlier, nature is neutral. If nature was arbitrary and unpredictable, our world and our lives would be chaotic and unpredictable.

Aristotle’s first major law was the Law of Causality. The Bible’s Old and New Testaments explain this in terms of sowing and reaping or cause and effect. This rule says that everything that happens, happens for a reason or a series of reasons.

This law, of which there are several secondary laws, is the foundation of all reasoning, philosophy, science, medicine, physics, and almost all knowledge known to man. It is the reason for success and failure, wealth and poverty, and almost everything that happens to you.

The Law of Action, as Albert Einstein defined it, states that nothing happens until something—or someone— moves. Nothing happens until you take action, until you do something, often different from what you are doing today. You’ve heard the old saying, “The more you do of what you’re doing, the more you’ll get of what you’re getting.”

My friend Marek Stelmaszak says, “Your success in life will be in direct proportion to the intensity of the actions that you undertake. Only your actions, and not what you say you are going to do, will count at the end of the day.”

To succeed greatly, you must constantly think in terms of specific actions you are going to take immediately. All successful people are intensely action oriented. If it doesn’t work, try again and again, or try something else. As Shakespeare wrote, “Take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them.”