"Knowing what you want is the first step toward getting it." -Mae West

"The original bombshell," were words used to describe Mae West in the 1920s. Some people still think of Mae West as the dumb blonde showgirl who just said what her managers told her and sang what they wanted her to sing. The truth is she wrote her own material for her stage shows, which usually included a bang-up one liner. She had a sexy way of saying anything and that got people listening to her.

She wasn't dumb. She marketed her singing talent and her gift of gab. People still remember her name. If you research her, you'll find many one liners attributed to her. Like the quotation above, the words are simple but the sentence rings true.

We seem to assign more importance to words of others, like Ann Frank, Helen Keller, Albert Einstein, and George Bernard Shaw. Their words are wise and also ring true.

But Mae West's words are equated with her sexy persona and some discount them as worthwhile. I agree with her quotation above. It's likened to one that reads something like this: If you aim at nothing, nothing is what you'll hit.

When did we realize what we wanted in life? Or do we make that decision only daily without planning ahead? Of course our chosen paths will have roadblocks. But as Mae West says, we need to know what we want if we're going to get it.

It's necessary that many things be considered when we make decisions about what we want. We might want what someone else has but we're not willing to work as hard as they did to get it. We must remember our own limitations when deciding what we want. Once we decide what we want and feel able and prepared to go after it then we go. We need to be be prepared for disappointment at the same time our journey excites us. Whether we reach what we decided we want, perhaps the journey will prove an adventure.

That's probably the crux of Mae West's words: make life an adventure. From all I've read of her she certainly made life an exciting adventure. We can do that. But so many in our world today look for exciting adventures in the wrong places. Our young people seem to be destroying themselves chasing after things that prove not at all exciting in the end.

My advice to the young people and all others is in the Bible in Philippians 4:8. We can go after what we want with assurance if it lies within the parameters of that verse. Try it, you might like it!