1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs:
Respect for self
Respect for others
Responsibility for all your actions.
4.Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honourable life -Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13.In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
—-Dalai Lama.
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“Why is it,” Jonathan puzzled, “that the hardest thing in the world is to convince a bird that he is free, and that he can prove it for himself if he’d just spend a little time practicing? Why should that be so hard?”
–From by Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull
My vacation started yesterday and as I walked out through the office door, I felt that glorious lightness of being that goes something like this . . . for three whole weeks, I’m free and it’s the little-kid-throwing-her-bookbag-up-in-the-air-first-day-of-summer-vacation kind of free that means for the tiniest slip of time, I am the master of my own little world. I will dig my toes into the red sand and inhale the drug that is fresh ocean air. I will indulge in icecream, potato chips and lazy afternoons of reading novels that do nothing but entertain. I. am. free.
I admit that this vacation freedom is a bit of a giddy illusion. I am free no matter what I’m doing. I am free to make choices and obviously I have chosen this version of life. As far as I see it, it was a pretty good decision. I love well and I am loved. On a good day I can admit that everything else is icing on my cake.
So why the crazy urge to dance around the office with my handbag my head singing Alice Cooper’s School’s Out?
Maybe like that disillusioned seagull, Jonathan, in Richard Bach’s fable, every once in a while I need to practice feeling free to remember that I am.
Posted in Play, Uncategorized | Tagged free, Freedom, holiday, seagulls, summer vacation | 2 Comments »
“All heros encounter obstacles on the road to adventure” – Christopher Vogler.
Let’s say for a moment that you are a hero and for some reason life has offered you an adventure. It could be a new job, new relationship or a decision to overcome outdated habits. Pretty much any major life change will qualify as the adventure.
Now, remember that you know you’re the hero of this story. You’re also pretty sure that the adventure will throw you some curve balls and nastiness. You see this as something positive because you know that the bigger the obstacle that stands in your way, the closer you must be to your objective. The hero wouldn’t be much of a hero if he could just toss the dragon some Meow Mix and stroll past into the cave to claim the treasure, right?
Christopher Vogler, in his book The Writer’s Journey – Mythic Structure for Writers, calls these obstacles Threshold Guardians. Vogler says that in storytelling these Guardians serve the purpose of testing the hero to see if she is really determined to accept the challenge.
The reality of course is that few of us see ourselves as a hero in an adventure story. Life is what it is and as some wit once said “shit happens.” But pay attention and you’ll noticed that when you try to make a major change for the better, brick walls seem to appear in front of you. Each obstacle you encounter on the path to your goals can feel like a cosmic warning to give up and turn back.
Vogler writes that heros deal with these Guardians in a number of ways: They can turn and run (my favorite), attack head-on, use bribery and deceit, or try appeasement. Many heroes defeat the Guardian by entering into their skin and use the Guardian’s own strength against itself. Think of Tin Man, Cowardly Lion and Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz marching into the wicked witch’s stronghold disguised as the her minions.
In fiction, and maybe in life too, no matter what method the hero uses to overcome the obstacles, the most important lesson she can learn is to recognize the Threshold Guardians not as dangerous enemies but as useful allies “who serve as early indicators that a new power or success is coming.”
Question: What or who is the Threshold Guardian in your life right now?
Writing Exercise: Write for at least 10 minutes on each of the following prompts:
1) Change means . . .
2) When I’m faced with an obstacle in life, I . . .
3) I now know ____ is not impossible because . . .
Posted in Inspiration, Uncategorized | Tagged life challenges, writing | 2 Comments »
by Cherie Carter-Scott
1.You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it’s yours to keep for the entire period.
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, “life.”
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately “work.”
4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end. There’s no part of life that doesn’t contain its lessons. If you’re alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
6. “There” is no better a place than “here.” When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.”
7. Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9. Your answers lie within you. The answers to life’s questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
10. You will forget all this.
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People say, “What can one person do? What is the sense of our small effort?” They cannot see that we can only lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time; we can be responsible only for the one action of the present moment. – Dorothy Day.
Want to take one small action that will make a big difference? The “Act Now” section (to the right of this post) may give you some ideas how you can contribute to a better world.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged food security, human trafficking, literacy, making a difference, poverty, Social innovation, Urgent Evoke, water | Leave a Comment »
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
~ Rumi ~
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged emotion, facing difficulty, new day, Rumi | 2 Comments »
Although the world is full of suffering,it is also full of the overcoming of it.
— Helen Keller
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Healing, Helen Keller | 1 Comment »
Sunlight streams through window pane
unto a spot on the floor….
then I remember,
it’s where you used to lie,
but now you are no more.
Our feet walk down a hall of carpet,
and muted echoes sound….
then I remember,
It’s where your paws would joyously abound.
A voice is heard along the road,
and up beyond the hill,
then I remember it can’t be yours….
your golden voice is still.
But I’ll take that vacant spot of floor
and empty muted hall
and lay them with the absent voice
and unused dish along the wall.
I’ll wrap these treasured memorials
in a blanket of my love
and keep them for my best friend until we meet above.
–Author Unknown
Molly
August 16, 1997 to April 9, 2010
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged best friend, death, Dogs | 3 Comments »
Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?
—Shel Silverstein
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Flowers, gratitude, listen, nature, well-being | Leave a Comment »
Kiss the ground 
