Principles span all cultures, generations, and languages. They happen regardless of your approval. Principles do not care about your opinion.Their force will be exerted no matter what.

But there is a great power resting inside principles. Since they always act in the same way, you can use them to your advantage. Once you comprehend how they work, their pattern becomes extra force for you to work with not against. They follow the same predictable pattern that you can leverage to your advantage.

Here is an example. The teacher says their will be a test. The questions to expect on the exam are identical to the study guide. Yet for some unknown reason, you spend hours studying unneeded material. Then at test time, you act shocked when the test is exactly like the study guide. Principles follow the same pattern over and over. They are predictable.

When you understand how they work, you can use them to your advantage. They follow the same predictable pattern. This knowledge gives you leverage to help meet your goals.

Knowledge and leverage become momentum for accomplishing your goals rather than resistance to work against.

Andy Stanley does a tremendous job laying this idea out in more detail in his book Principles of the Path. The quick summary of the book is summed up in one sentence that he repeats time and time again throughout the book. "It is direction, not intention, that determines destination."

In practicality, what he is saying is action must take the place of procrastination if we want to see results.

But this cannot be any action. Good choices lead to good results. Bad choices lead to bad results. Simple as that. Many of these results are the product of principles. Bad money management leads to unmanageable debt. Good money management leads to prosperity. That is a principle.

That brings up another question. Not all decisions seem clear at the time. How do we know which ones are good and which are bad? Sometimes we won't know for months or years, but we do know that persistence on a good path leads to a good result.

The opposite is also true. A continued string of bad decisions creates a miserable line of dots no one wants to be connected to.