Conflict

Conflict cannot survive without your participation.
Wayne Dyer

We are constantly in conflict with some thing or other. Eckhart Tolle even talks about a pain-body within us that wakes up every so often needing to feed on our own and other people's pain. It's like we don't even have control over ourselves. We are constantly getting into fights about things that really don't need to be fought over. And when we are not in conflict with other people, we are in conflict with ourselves. We are hurting ourselves and putting ourselves down, just as we do with others.

Conflict is what our ego feeds on. It makes us feel important, by giving us a sense of seperation and moral superiority. It gives us a sense of purpose; it seems to be what makes our life meaningful. In a very real way, we often don't really feel alive unless we are angry or jealous or resentful. But conflict is only good for our ego, it is not in any way good for the person we really are. We are really about love and we can't have love if we are busy fighting the other person.

But conflict can't survive without your participation. You do not have to choose to participate. We do so many things, including quarrel with others, out of sheer force of habit. We can change our habits, even if it takes a while. Imagine a world without conflict, with nobody fighting each other. It would be a paradise. With each time we choose to say no to some conflict (and it would help to start small and work up), it not only makes the world a better place, but it makes it easier for us, and for other people, to say no the next time to increasingly bigger conflicts.

Healthier

It is healthier to see the good points of others than to analyze our own bad ones. Francoise Sagan

How many faults of your own can you come up with? For most people it will be quite a few. We spend a huge amount of time criticizing ourselves. Sometimes we try to compare ourselves to an impossible ideal; we can never be rich enough or skinny enough. The advertising media love to cash in on our insecurities. They want us to beleive that unless we have the right make of car, for ex, we will never be rich or successful with the opposite sex. This is nonsense of course, but we are seduced into beleiving it when we are constantly bombarded with that kind of message.

It is probably the case that the more faults you see in yourself the more you will see in the people around you. Your attitude about the people around you will be reflected in their attitude towards you. We know underneath that all people are basically the same; so it stands to reason that if I am not a good person, if I have all these terrible faults, then other people must have them as well. And if other people know you think they have all these faults, they will start acting as if they did, too. And they won't like you or respect you.

It is much healthier to see the good points of others. For one thing, if we always compliment others on their good points, they will like us more and undoubtedly return the favor. Even more importantly, once again, we know underneath that all people are basically the same, so it stands to reason that if other people have all these good points, then I must have them as well. You feel better about yourself if you feel better about other people. Because we really are connected. Any opinions or feelings you send towards others do come back to you. So make sure they are good ones.

Enemies

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life
Winston Churchill

We all think that it's a bad thing to have enemies. We can't stand the idea that someone doesn't like us, doesn't approve of us. Some of us are so desperate for approval that we will do whatever anyone tells us to do in the vain hope that we will be liked by everyone. Which, of course backfires because almost nobody respects or likes someone who does whatever they say. But who wants an enemy. They may hurt us, they may destroy us. Or worst of all, they could laugh at us and their laughter could kill us inside.

But having enemies is not really a bad thing. The truth is that whatever we say and do, there will be someone somewhere who doesn't like it, and disapproves of us for doing it. Because we all have our own different view of the world, and what is a wonderful idea or action for one person will be a disaster to someone else. We cannot possibly be liked by everyone, or approved of by everyone, no matter what we do. The sooner we realize this, the better

The only people who have no enemies are those who have never had their own ideas, and their own values, have never spoken up and told others about what they really beleive in. Those who have never taken action towards a goal they value for fear that it might offend someone. Those people are the ones who are not really living. You don't want to be like them. You want enemies. It means that you've stood up for something sometime in your life; and that means you are really living.

Fun

In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and the job's a game.
Mary Poppins

It's all about attitude, about the way you see things. You can cry because it was raining when you wanted to have a picnic. Or you can be happy because it was raining and your car needed a wash. The same goes for how you see your work, or any one of the endless chores you feel like you have to get done during the day. You can hate your work and struggle through it grudgingly, or you can love your work and have the time pass quickly and productively. It's your choice.

I would define fun as the process of finding out that you are capable of something you never knew you could do before. If we look at fun in this way, there is always an element of fun in just about anything you could be doing. Because there will always be room for improvment in anything you do. Look at your job, whatever you are doing, the way a child would see it. A child sees everything around them as an opportunity to explore, learn, and grow. Unfortunately, most adults have forgotten this point of view.

Start exploring the task you have to do. Is there a way it can be done differently that might get better results? Why do you have to do it, could you reach the end result in a different, perhaps more efficient, way? Ask yourself what you can learn from this task? How might this task help you to grow (maybe by something as simple as helping you develop patience and perseverence)? In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and the job's a game. And your life is that much more happy and enjoyable.

Determination

Determination and perseverance move the world; thinking that others will do it for you is a sure way to fail.
Marva Collins

We so often hope that someone else will make our dreams come true. We wait for our Prince Charming to come and magically slay all our dragons so that we will happily live ever after. But that is something that only happens in fairy tales. We hope that our boss will give us the promotion we want. But unless we do something to influence that, he probably won't. And it is only the lonely people who sit and hope that some wonderful person will come up to them and ask to be their friend. We certainly can't count on that ever happening.

Determination and perseverance move the world. Instead of waiting for our Prince Charming to come, we need to learn how to slay all our own dragons. Instead of hoping our boss will give us that promotion, we need to actively show him why we deserve to be promoted by being the best possible employee. Instead of sitting and hoping that some wonderful person will come up to us and ask to be our freind, we need to actively search out that wonderful person and ask them to be our friend.

A successful person is a self-reliant person. While it is certainly true that nobody can be successful all by himself, a successful person doesn't just expect other people to help him. He actively gives them a good reason why that is to their benefit. He has a clear goal, determination, and perseverence. He knows where he is going and why, and that he expects to get there, and he can communicate all that to others. Other people admire his determination and perseverence so they start to beleive in his goal and want to help him get there. But he never expects other people to just do it for him. He can do most of it himself.

Tested

To be tested is good. The challenged life may be the best therapist
Gail Sheehy

Imagine a life without challenges. Without problems. Without difficulties. Louis Lowry does a great job of describing that kind of life in "The Giver". What would you do? Sure, sitting down relaxing with a drink is very enjoyable for a short time but after a while you'd get pretty tired of it. We just aren't built to sit around and do nothing. God intended us to go out and get things down. To make a difference in the world. To help ourselves by helping everyone else.

To be tested is good. It is only when we are given a serious challenge to solve that we can rise to the difficulty. I never would have beleived I could deal with a child like my eldest one if I didn't have to actually do it. We have no idea of our capabilities until they are tested. We simply don't know what we can do until we try. But the only fair test for us is to measure ourselves against what we could do yesterday; as opposed to what other people have been able to do. We are not them, we don't have the same strengths (or weaknesses) that they do. Or the same circumstances.

The challenged life may be the best therapist. Anyone who complains that life is boring and meaningless and worthless does not have any goal to strive for, any challenge that they are motivated to try to overcome. Life is boring and meaningless and worthless if you have nothing to do and nowhere to go. Life is only enjoyable when we are solving problems, surmounting difficulties, and getting past obstacles; when we are taking action and moving forwards towards our goals. It is actually the challenges and difficulties that make life worth living.

Idleness

Idleness among children, as among men, is the root of all evil, and leads to no other evil more certain than ill temper.
Barrie Sir James

I've always beleived that there is nothing worse than boredom. When you have nothing to do you have nothing to feel. Depression sets in because we learn that we have no control over our situation. I still remember when I was pretty depressed my first year of university and my biology proffessor showed a film that was designed to make people angry about the persecution of wolves and how I indeed got very angry and made that clear to the proffessor but I felt wonderful because I could feel something even if it was just anger. And I could do something about it, even if it was just to voice my disapproval. (My proffessor and I got along very well after that)

We were designed to act, to learn about ourselves, to conquer obstacles, to reach goals. We are not meant for an easy life. When we are being idle, we are, in a very real way, not living. When we are idle, life has no meaning for us. It's like just plodding through a difficult task, as opposed to dancing in the rain. When we are idle, we have nothing to look forwards to. We know in our hearts that life is never going to get any better unless we do something to make it better.

We simply cannot be happy when we are idle. It often happens that the days that someone is struggling to reach success, when they are sleeping in their car and living on peanut butter and crackers, are the times they look back to as being the happiest times. Because they had a goal and they were busy doing something about it. We are happier living in miserable conditions and taking action than we are living in a palace and having nothing to do all day. When we are idle we are ill tempered and our frustration, resentment, and anger just creates trouble. Always make sure you have something to do, something to live for, something that makes you happy. Something to make your life worthwhile. Occasional rest is good and necessary, but idleness is a disaster waiting to happen.

Leadership

Leadership is getting someone to do what they don't want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve.
Tom Landry

For some of us it is very easy to know what we want, or at least what we think we want. We all want unlimited money, and perhaps a mansion by the waterfront, thousands of adoring fans, a chauffeur and a maid etc. It's easy to look at our successful neighbor and say "That's what I want. I want all those things he has." We tend to look at these people and just see the way they are now, enjoying all those things we wish we had. We don't see where they came from and what they had to do in order to get those things.

The truth is that for any really successful person, they had to do a lot of things they didn't enjoy in order to come to the place where they can enjoy the things they do now. Everything has a price. But we would rather not know that, we want whatever it is for free. We want to get it by doing minimal work for a minimal amount of time. We want it to be easy. We don't want to give up anything we have now in order to get that other thing. But that just isn't the way life works.

In order to get what we really want, we are going to have to get our hands dirty. We are going to have to make some hard choices and give some things up. We are simply going to have to do unpleasant, risky, messy things. So we need a leader. Leadership is getting someone to do what they don't want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve. Sometimes, of course, you have to be your own leader, and find some way to inspire yourself to do what you need to do to get what you want. Leadership is about inspiration, and motivation to do the grunt work; both of which require vision as well as an action plan. With the right leader, you can accomplish anything.

Ignorant

To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.
Disraeli

Are any of us willing to admit that we are ignorant? We beleive that ignorance is a shameful thing, that we should know everything about everything. But the truth is, of course, that nobody knows everything about everything. And those people who know a great deal about any given subject, probably know little about all the other ones. There simply is too much to know, even for a magnificent machine like our own brain.

Many times we don't even know that we are ignorant. We think we have the answers, and we happily inform everyone else of that. It is interesting how many people, when they hear that the "expert" says some idea just assume that he is right and then go on to quote it themselves without bothering to check out the facts of the situation. A very important part of being aware of being ignorant is knowing what exactly we are ignorant about.

To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge. Once we know what we are ignorant about and can admit that to ourselves and to others, then we will be motivated to learn about it because we definately don't want to remain ignorant. Being ignorant really is a problem, but it is important to realize that it is a problem that can be remedied relatively easily. Being ignorant is not the same thing as being stupid. A stupid person doesn't understand what he is lacking, but a person who knows they are ignorant is already on his way to rectifying that situation.

Success

You already have every characteristic necessary for success if you recognize, claim, develop and use them
Zig Ziglar

Do you know what your strengths are? When an acquaintance of mine was asked to list 7 strengths that she had, she couldn't do it. She just couldn't even think of 7. But then on top of that she said that she wasn't comfortable with expressing the ones she could come up with in public. That's a sad state of affairs but I can relate to it. Most of us are just not brought up to tell everyone how wonderful we really are. It is time now to recognize and claim all our unique and special strengths. And to feel free to announce them to the world.

Once we have recognized and claimed our strengths we must develop them. Many of us concentrate on trying to lessen our weaknesses but it is really improving our strengths that we must focus on. The more we increase our strengths the less our weaknesses will matter to anyone. We constantly need to update our skills. Successful people are constantly reading and learning new skills and new methods in order to keep up to date with a changing world. Even if we say we have no skills now, there is nothing to stop us from acquiring any skill we will need in the future, except our own imagination.

Finally the last step is to actually use your personal strengths, and the skills you have been acquiring. Knowledge is wasted unless it is acted upon. Muscles grow weak if they are not consistently used. Each of us needs to determine the best place we can practise using our strengths and skills. We need to create a vision of where we can use them that will benefit the most people in the best possible way. And then just go out and do it. You already have every characteristic necessary for success if you recognize, claim, develop and use them. There is nothing to stop you now from acheiving anything you want.

Change

To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable
Helen Keller

We tend to be very scared of change, wanting things to remain in their comfortable, familiar state forever. We tell ourselves that if something acts in a certain way, then it will probably continue to do so. But this is just not true. In real life, change is inevitable, whether we want it or not. The only thing that won't change is that everyone at some time has to die. So, if we want to be happy or successful in our lives, it is imperative that we learn to expect, and deal with, change.

In order to deal most effectively with change, we can't let ourselves get too attached to what is already there. Whether we like or don't like what we have now, we tend to make it part of our sense of who we are. Even if we don't like it, then to become seperated from it is to feel a sense of grief or anger, because it feels like we have lost a part of ourselves. And if we do like it, well we all know the feeling of devastation when something we loved is now no longer there. It helps to realize that if we don't like something, it too will change soon.

We can't avoid change, so we might as well accept it. To look for change and ignore the idea of fate is an undefeatable strength. When we expect change we actively look for it, and when we are actively looking, we find new opportunities and new ways to get what we want. We are free of anxiety and grief because we knew things weren't going to stay around forever anyway. Life is so much more enjoyable when we aren't afraid of change.

Love

To live is like to love--all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it. Samuel Butler

How can our reason be against living? Simply put it is because we are afraid of taking risks. We are afraid of hurting or disappointing or angering some other person or group of people with our behavior. We are afraid of not fitting in. We are afraid that we will fail in whatever we attempt and other people will laugh at us. But we want to live. Our comfort zone may feel safe but we know it is a prison nonetheless. Our healthy instinct is to live and we spend our days feeling frustrated that we never got to do what we really wanted to.

How can our reason be against loving? Once again it is because we are afraid of taking risks. Once again, we are afraid that we will fail; and that we will feel terrible, and that other people will laugh at our attempts. Our problem is that we define failure as the other person not loving us as much as we love them, and this really sets us up for failure. For us, it becomes not the loving of others that is joyful but the fact that they love us back.

But again our healthy instinct is to love others. We know deep down that this is the only thing that can make us really happy. And the truth of it is the reason that "to live is like to love--all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it" is simply because to love is to live. They are not seperate. We live for the purpose of loving. Not just one soulmate, but our families, other people, and our planet. All of life. It is in fact our feelings of love that makes us feel like we are alive.

Vices

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues. Abraham Lincoln

It turns out that a vice is actually the other side of a virtue. A weakness is actually the other side of a strength. If you pick any one of your character strengths, you will see that it can be a character weakness in certain situations. What works great in one situation can be a disaster in another. Being very talkative, for example, can be great for situations where nobody knows what to say, but if they do it can be very annoying because other people want their chance to speak too. It has been said that when couples get divorced, it was typically the thing that first attracted them to their partner that is now the thing that is so annoying that they just want to leave.

But I think that Abraham Lincoln may have had something else in mind. Those people who have no vices are probably people who stay at home quietly doing nothing, because the truth is that whenever we are out doing something we beleive in we are going to annoy some people who don't share our beleifs. And the more we do for the cause we beleive in, the more we are going to annoy them. Abraham Lincoln himself was shot for his beleifs. But of course anyone who quietly stays at home for fear of annoying people isn't going to be helping anyone either. Virtues are expressed when you are passionate about some cause and about helping other people.

Folks who have no vices have very few virtues. They are not very interesting people because they don't beleive in any meaningful cause enough to stand up for it against skeptical or even very angry people. Quite likely they don't even know who they really are. When you try to be what other people want all the time, having no vices, you lose sight of who you really are. You may lose your vices but there is a heavy price to pay. Because you lose your virtues as well.

Responsive to Change

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
Charles Darwin

It is perhaps part of our mental expectation (or hope) that things will not change that leads us to desire to be very strong. We often fear change, for that will mean that we will have to leave that place with which we are most familiar, and most recognized in. And if we are going to be in the same place, dealing with the same problems, all our life, then it makes sense that we should become strong and skilled at solving those particular problems.

But in real life things are always changing. That is the whole reason God created sexual reproduction and evolution. Glaciers melt, mountains rise, droughts and floods occur, grassland becomes desert. And animals have to adapt or die. It is no use being a very good swimmer if you can't find a lake to swim in any more. And being intelligent won't help you much if you find yourself alone in a desert. But just as true as this is for animals, it is also true for people too.

Human life is much more complex than that of animals and so changes even faster. Only a few generations ago people thought that computers wouldn't amount to much, now we can't seem to live without them. And it is of course those visionary people who saw the future of computers, who survived and prospered. Change is a constant. Within even one person's lifetime, enormous social and technical/ physical changes occur. It does no good for us to be the best at one set of problems when another is on the horizon. If we want to survive, we must not work on being the strongest or most intelligent but instead work on being the most adaptable to whatever changes come along. Being adaptable is what will save us in the end.

Forgive

Only after we can learn to forgive ourselves can we accept others as they are because we don't feel threatened by anything about them which is better than us.
Stephen Covey

How many people do you know that make you feel threatened? I think most of the time we never think about this aspect of our relationship to the people around us. Our ego is constantly comparing our strengths and weaknesses to those of other people. In real life there is always going to be some aspect of any other person that is better than the equivalent aspect of yourself. There is absolutely nobody who you are totally better than, just as there is nobody who you are totally worse than. So whoever you are talking about, even if it is the bum in the downtown street corner, there will be something about him that is better than the equivalent part of yourself.

We can only really love other people when we stop these constant comparisons. And the truth is that we can only really love ourselves when that happens too. It is only when we forgive ourselves for having weaknesses and acting from them that we can truly love ourselves. We have to accept ourselves just the way we are, with all our weaknesses and negatives, before we can effectively begin to do something about those things. We have to learn to accept that we don't have to be perfect to be good enough because life is a process of learning and improving and there is nothing that is perfect.

Imagine what it would be like if you didn't feel threatened by anybody at all. I have found that if I dislike anyone who has not consciously attacked me, it is almost always because I am jealous of them. I feel threatened because they have something, or can do something, that I feel I cannot have or do. I am comparing myself to them and finding myself wanting. It is very difficult to completely accept all of our faults as being okay but that is what we must do. Only after we can learn to forgive ourselves can we accept others as they are because we don't feel threatened by anything about them which is better than us. Only then can we truly feel love.

Simplify

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
Hans Hoffman

"It's a gift to be simple". When we think of simplifying we often think of it as going without things, as depriving ourselves of what makes us comfortable and happy. We think of people who choose to live without electricity, for example, and we admire them but we certainly wouldn't want to do that for ourselves. We can't imagine our lives without computers, and lightbulbs, and all the other things that electricity provides us.

But the ability to simplify really means to eliminate what is unnecessary in our lives. We run into trouble because most of us have not thought carefully about what really is necessary in our lives and what is just a distraction or idle amusement. We don't know what it is we truly value, and what it is that we need in order to fulfill those values. We are too busy just responding to the random things life throws at us to stop and consider just how necessary those things, and our reaction to them, are.

When we eliminate the unnecessary, the necessary can speak. When we remove all the (unnecessary) hay it is much easier to find the (necessary) needle. What is unnecessary in your life and how can you get rid of it? What is cluttering up your mind, and your physical surroundings so that you can't find what you need to find? What is (literally) getting in the way of you living your values, and in the way of your success? These are questions we all must ask ourselves. Then we must eliminate those unnecessary things so that the necessary things can be found and expressed.

Success

Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success
Napoleon Hill

In order to be successful you must have patience. In our society we are taught that we should be able to get anything very quickly; immeadiately if not sooner. But life doesn't work like that. We need to understand that the things we want will come to us in their own good time, not according to when we want them. Just because something doesn't come tomorrow doesn't mean it will never come. The Universe has perfect timing and knows better than we do when to give us this thing -- at the moment that we will be able to enjoy and profit from it the most.

In order to be successful you must have persistance. You must not give up, no matter how long what you want seems to be taking to show up in your life. Whatever it is will come at the time that you will benefit from it the most; but if you are not still working towards it then it definately isn't a time when you will really benefit from it. You need to show the Universe that you still want this thing enough to be willing to work for it, because if you don't really want it that badly now then now is not the time for you to get it.

In order to be successful, you must have perspiration. You must work hard, again as a way to show the Universe that you really are serious about having this thing. Your choices and sacrifices will show you, others, and the Universe just how much you really want this thing. If you are not willing to work hard and/or make any sacrifices in order to get this thing then it isn't very important to you. You would rather have something else, whether it is security, vacation, idle entertainment, or time with family and friends, and that is what you will get.

Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success. They build on each other too. It is much easier to work long and hard if you have the patience to wait for something because you know that it is coming. Probably the biggest difficulty for most of us is having the faith that if we just keep working then what we want will inevitably come eventually. Once we have that faith that leads to patience, persistence, and perspiration, anything is possible.

Failed

A man's life is interesting primarily when he has failed- ...For it's a sign that he tried to surpass himself.
Georges Clemenceau

Probably not many of us would like to be remembered for all the times we failed in life. We think failure is an embarrassment, something to hide from the world. We don't want to admit we made a mistake, that we are less than perfect. We are taught from a very young age that making a mistake isn't acceptable and failure is even worse. No child ever wanted to show his parents a failure on his exam or especially on his report card.

But the truth is that if we never fail, it means we never try. Very few people ever do anything just right the first time. We call it beginner's luck and even those who are familiar with the task wish it would happen to them. In real life, when we try to do something that we are not familiar with, we can expect to make mistakes, and even fail. That's the way things happen. That's how we learn. But, of course, just because we failed this time doesn't mean we should quit.

When we fail, it means that we tried to do something that was difficult for us. We tried to surpass ourselves, to do something that we had never done before. We were engaged with life, trying to better ourselves. Success, of course, is wonderful when it comes. But it is the trying, the risking failure, the getting started and taking action, that is really important. It is the journey to success that is the interesting part of our life. And those times that we fail are the signposts along the way, that show the direction we are taking to improve ourselves.

Preparation

Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives, is perfect preparation for the future that only He can see.
C. T. Boon

My daughter yesterday was complaining that something just didn't make sense. I told her that life often doesn't. Great disasters like hurricanes and tornados don't make sense. She said "yes they do there's a scientific reason why they happen." So I said "Yes and there is probably a 'scientific reason' why your issue happened too, except that you just don't know what it is." It's only because we don't understand why something is happening that it doesn't make sense to us. It might make perfect sense to someone else, and it always makes perfect sense to God.

We almost always complain when there is a experience or person in our lives that we don't like. We want the situation to be resolved fast, and the person to just go away. We only want to be surrounded by things, people, and situations that we enjoy. But life doesn't work like that. All those unpleasant situations, and ugly things, and annoying people are actually in your life for a reason, and one that benefits you. They help you clarify what you want, at the very least. And it may not make any sense to you why they are there but that is because you don't know how the future will unfold.

We say that hindsight is always perfect. It is often easy to see why you had to put up with someone or some situation in the past because now you can see how it actually helped you get something you wanted later. "Every cloud has a silver lining" Every experience God gives us and every person God puts in our lives, prepares us perfectly for the future that only God can see. Love everything that happens to you because it is all meant for your own growth and improvement. It was sent by a kind and loving God, and even if you don't understand why it is there, you can be sure it is meant to be good for you in some way.

Fear

What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.
Timothy Ferris

Why is it that we are afraid of doing whatever in our hearts we know we need to do? I think it is that we are leaving our comfort zone to do something differently, and that is always scary. We know we need to grow, we can all list many faults we have that we want to get rid of. Yet we are used to these faults, and even to the coping mechanisms we have set up long ago to try to deal with issues. Just to take away our coping mechanisms that we have used for a long time in order to deal with annoying people or difficult conversations, for example, is pretty scary.

Whenever we are afraid of something we are imagining that something terrible will happen in the future. We wonder what will happen to us if there is a very difficult conversation, for example, and we can't deal with it the way we used to in the past. How can we cope with it now, before we have learned and incorporated any other new and more effective ways to deal with it? We start to imagine all sorts of undesirable outcomes that may happen. And we become afraid.

What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do. Getting past that fear of the unknown is the most important thing. And the best way to do that is simply to get started. Do what you know you need to do. Don't put it off because that just makes it more difficult to get started again. Start with easier problems (ex a conversation that is only a little difficult) so that you don't get overwhelmed and discouraged. Maybe you need to go to a group where everyone is working on the same issues. Do whatever you need to. But don't let fear keep you where you are. Use it to determine where you most need to go. And get going on it.

Happy

There is only one person who could ever make you happy, and that person is you. David Burns

How often do you fall into the trap of expecting someone else to make you happy? We want our kids to behave and "make mommy proud". We want our spouse to go out with us more often. We want our employer to give us better work. We want the government to give us better roads (for ex) without taxing us more. And we get angry and irritated and upset with those people who fail to give us what we think will make us happy.

But expecting someone else to make you happy is just another way to be a victim. You are effectively letting someone else control your life. You are expecting them to know what you want (and some of us don't even clearly state what it is we want) and then give you it. And then you are punishing them if they don't. You get mad at them for having that (imagined) power to make you happy or sad. That really isn't their power, or their responsibility. And it isn't fair to them to have you upset with them over something they really have no control over.

There is only one person who could ever make you happy, and that person is you. It is all up to you; it is your own responsibility to keep yourself happy. You are not a victim. You can take action to make yourself happy. First of all you need to know what it is that will make you happy, and communicate that clearly to the people around you. And then you need to find a path to that, steps you can take yourself. You can't rely on others. They are, after all, trying to find a way to do whatever will make themselves happy. That really is all that any of us can do.

Only 3 Colors

There are only 3 colors, 10 digits, and 7 notes; its what we do with them that's important.
Jim Rohn

Isn't it amazing just how many colors we find in nature that are made out of only 3 primary colors? And how many man-made colors there are. The range of colors we can create is limited only by our imagination. Even the number of reds that we have created for lipstick is staggering. And it is the same with 7 notes that turn into an enormous variety of music; and 10 digits and 26 letters which when combined give us most of our information about the world.

It is what we do with these colors and notes and digits and letters that is important. We can take them and enjoy them just at their face value or we can improvise on them. We can build on them to create something just a little better for our purposes right now. If we keep doing that we soon have a huge number of choices, which inspire many more possible uses for them, for the future.

We don't have to be limited to what is already there. With just our intuition, inventiveness, and a few creative twists, we can soon have something completely new and much more suited to our purposes. And we can also take what we just created and figure out a new and better purpose for it. How can you improve upon what is already in your world to make it much more useful to you? How can you take what you already have and make it into something that gives you more options, more opportunities to do what you want to do? Remember that it's what you do with what you are given that makes all the difference.

Exploration

In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.
Ansel Adams

I love exploring. There is not much that excites me more than the idea of an open road leading off into the distance. It is fun to find out what awaits me off in the distance. I would say that the definition of fun is to find out that you can do or be more than you thought you could. With that definition, exploring is probably the best way to have fun because it almost always leads to surprises that teach you about yourself in some way.

But you don't need an open road to go exploring on. For some people, looking for something in the garage is an exploration as they clear through their clutter. When we read a novel, we are exploring another person's world. Those of us who are parents are constantly exploring our children's personality and needs. When we start a job we are exploring what that job requires of us and how to meet its demands most effectively. When we fall in love, we are exploring the other person's strengths and character.

Every experience is a form of exploration. In everything we do, we explore who we really are. We explore what works for us and what doesn't. We explore what happens when we do things a certain way, or even when other people do things a certain way. We are constantly exploring how we can improve either ourselves or at least the situation. But often we don't appreciate this and get impatient when things don't work right the first time. We don't see our experiences as exploration, adventure, and fun. They start to get annoying. But this just makes things worse. Celebrate your experiences of exploration. One could say that life itself is a form of exploration. That's what makes it fun.

Limitations

Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again
Arthur C. Clarke

You've probably had many people tell you what you can't do over the course of your life? Often when people say that, what they are really saying is that they can't do it. Sometimes they are saying that they might be jealous of you if you could do it and they don't want to find that out. They are afraid of how they might feel if you succeed where they couldn't. Sometimes they really beleive that it is impossible for anyone to do.

We learn as babies that other people know more about what we can do than we do. If our mother says that we can't do something, well it must be the truth because we beleive she knows us better than anyone, even ourselves. We take her words as gospel. And when other people agree with her, that idea gets reinforced even further. And we end up proving to ourselves that she was right. We end up not being able to do that thing. We end up thinking it is impossible for us.

But if we just once what others say we can't do, we will never pay attention to their limitations again. It's time for us to prove to ourselves than we are capable of much more than we thought we were. Much more than all those other authorities thought we were. Some people hear another person say that something is impossible and take that as a challenge. That's a good attitude. Because in reality other people don't know what is impossible any more than we do. They, like us, only think something is impossible because someone else has told them that and they never questioned it. Start challenging your limitations today.

Challenges

Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.
Bernice Johnson Reagon

Do you get paralyzed by life's challenges. Perhaps you look at the challenges other people face and worry about what you would do if they happened to you. Perhaps you are struggling to deal with your own challenges. Life is constantly handing us challenges. Everyone is faced with different kinds of challenges. God always gives us one that God thinks we can deal with, but sometimes we aren't so sure. Sometimes we get overwhelmed by them and just can't see the solution which is right in front of us.

But life's challenges aren't supposed to paralyze you. Being frozen, overwhelmed, and paralyzed is obviously not a good situation. Life's challenges are supposed to motivate you to act. They are supposed to get you to learn how to figure out solutions; and gain the self confidence that you can deal with whatever challenges arise. To banish fear, and even to strengthen and refine your character

Life's challenges are supposed to help you discover who you are. One way they do that is to force you to prioritize what is important to you about the situation. What bothers you the most about it and what do you want to see fixed first. And how much you are willing to work, or even sacrifice, to fix that. Challenges also help you discover that you are more capable than you thought you were. You will never know how much you can do until you have to do it. Never complain that life is challenging. Be grateful for challenges because all of them are actually good for you, sent to you by a kind and loving God who only wants to see you grow and mature.

Love

Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves, without any insistance that they satisfy you
Wayne Dyer

This is what unconditional love is. But this kind of unconditional love is, in my experience, very rare. Neale Donald Walsch in "Conversations with God" says that people are so unfamiliar with unconditional love they can't even imagine God loving us in this way. Even when a mother has a newborn baby, which is probably the closest to unconditional love that we ever get, as soon as that baby becomes able to control their actions and make choices, the mother is telling him what to do in order to please her. Of course we are constantly telling babies what to do just for their own safety, but I think there is also a lot of "do this just to please me" too.

I grew up in a very controlling family. We had to do what our parents thought we should do, and that was the end of it. We were "good" children, because we didn't really have a choice. We simply were not allowed to experiment during adolescence with who we wanted to be. I have always struggled with that because I am not, and can never be, what my parents, and later my ex-husband, wanted me to be. I still yearn to be accepted for the way I am, instead of the way someone thinks I should be.

Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves, without any insistance that they satisfy you. This kind of unconditional love demands a great deal of maturity and emotional healthiness. More than most of us have. It comes from not needing other people to satisfy your wants and needs because you love yourself enough to be willing and able to satisfy your own wants and needs. Only when you unconditionally love yourself can you unconditionally love others. And that is the only kind of love that is really meaningful to any of us.

Wrong Road

If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn't need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around"
Jim Rohn

Sometimes it's hard for us to realize that we are headed in the wrong direction, let alone down the wrong road. We get some idea of a pre-planned result we want to accomplish for a particular reason, and fail to see that there is another aspect to the situation, a bigger reason why this result would not be a good thing for us. We don't see the whole picture because we are focused on one little part of it. Sometimes, too, we are not even clear about where we want to be headed and are just randomly exploring.

Sometimes other people look at what we're doing and assume that we are doing what we know is best for us. We give them our reasons for doing it and they make good sense to others because they are also unaware of the whole picture or perhaps because they assume that the part we are looking at is the most important part for us. So other people try to help us reach the destination they think we want and need to get to. They try to speed us up. They try to be helpful.

But getting to the wrong destination sooner does not help us. We, and others, need to become aware of the whole situation. We need to learn about the pros and cons of the result that we originally chose, other possible results, and the means of getting to those. So that we can make a better decision about where we need to be headed and how to get there.

Most of us like to assume that the situation is more simple than it actually is, because we don't want to have to think too hard. We read one fact about butter, just for an example, and think we know all we need to know in order to make a good decision about whether to eat butter or not.

But life is never that simple, or that static. We need education, about ourselves and about the things in our world, so that we can make wise decisions about where we need to be headed. And this education needs to be lifelong since both we and the things around us are constantly changing. There is constantly new information and new ideas about who we want and need to be.

Trust

Trust in what you love, continue to do it, and it will take you where you need to go.
Natalie Goldberg

Sometimes it is hard to trust in what we love. We learn early in life that other people know best about what is good for us. We We learn we have to obey our parents and other authority figures; welearn to do what they say instead what we know is right in our hearts. Our father for example might want us to become a lawyer like he was when we really want to become a nurse; and we go to law school just to please him. But in the end, we must do what we love. We must listen to our own hearts and follow our own path, if we are going to be happy with our lives.

We must continue to do what we love, no matter how many people, even those close to us, disagree with it. Even when it seems like we will never be able to make enough money to live on while doing it. Sometimes its easy to get discouraged and quit. Life keeps throwing obstacles at you in order to find out just how serious you are about doing this thing. Perseverence may be the single biggest component of success.
Be aware of and celebrate small successes. And never stop trying.

Doing what you love will take you where you need to go, as long as you never give up. Always look for opportunities to find your way into something you love to do even more. Sometimes the road to success will have many twists and turns and even dead-ends, but with practise, you will get better at recognizing which road to take and where the dead ends are. Always be flexible enough to be open to new possibilities of something even better, but be realistic enough to know when something just isn't working. And never stop trusting in what you love.

Giving

It is possible to give without loving, but it is impossible to love without giving. John Wesley

We've probably all had the experience of having been given something without love. Often it is given with strings attached- "Because I've given you this, I expect you to give something equally valuable (in my eyes) back to me". That is really an exchange and not a gift. And it does not feel good because it is about reciprocation and not love. It has demands attached and leaves us feeling resentful and guilty. We almost feel taken advantage of.

But it is impossible to love without giving. At the very least, whenever we love something we want to make it happy. We want it to be beautiful and fulfilled and to reach its potential. This is true whether we are talking about a person, a flower, or our house. We want to give ourselves to it, even if there is no hope of us getting anything in return. All we ask for is to see it at its best, and we will do whatever we can to ensure that. That is the true measure of being in love.

You can only be truly motivated to give when you are loving. This is why there can never be too much love in your life. The more you love, the better your world will be. Only when everything is loved, by many people, can we enjoy a world where everything is beautiful, fulfilled, and at its full potential. Only then can we see our world at its best.