“If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?”
Stephen Levine
How would you feel if you were told that you were going to die soon, that you only had a short time left to live. Most of us would feel panicky, because we would realize just how many things that we wanted to do before we die, that have been left undone because we always assumed that there would be plenty of time to do them in the future. Usually, it is only a diagnosis like this that makes people realize what is really important to them, and what has been neglected for too long.
Our lives tend to be filled with trivia. We are constantly bombarded with messages from different people trying to get our attention, and we often react by ignoring all of them, even the ones that would be important to us. We spend our lives reacting to whatever life throws at us without stopping to reflect on whether it is important or not. Many of us long for peace and quiet to just stop and think. Few of us really know what we value most in life until it, or life, is taken away from us.
“If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?” The truth is that none of us know how much more time we have to live. We might even drop dead without warning, it does happen. So it’s important to first of all stop and really think about who and what you value, and secondly to let the person know or to celebrate the things. Don’t just think how much you love them, actively show it. Make the world better.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Rest
Make rest a neccesity,not an objective.Only rest long enough to gather strenghth. -- Jim Rohn
We all need rest. To run ourselves into the ground does nobody any good. We can't be so focused on working that we ignore our health and welfare. We all know workoholics and they are not healthy people. We need time to rest and rejeuvenate ourselves. We all know that very often it is when we are quiet and relaxed that we get ideas for how to proceed, and when we come back to the task at hand we can cope with it a lot better.
So rest is a necessity if we are to efficiently cope with the inevitable problems and obstacles we have. We need to make an appointment with ourselves to have a time of rest every day where we can be quiet and will not be disturbed. If we fail to schedule a time of rest, it will be forgotten amongst all the other things we have scheduled.
The next question is how long to rest. Only rest long enough to gather strength. Only rest long enough that you feel ready to tackle your problem or obstacle again with new understanding and new strength. If you rest too long, you are wasting valuable time that could be spend overcoming obstacles, solving problems and moving forward to your goals. You will start to feel lazy and sluggish and unmotivated if you rest too long.
Even with resting, there is a window of opportunity. Make sure you catch it. You must rest every day, but only until you are ready to tackle the next step with enthusiasm, and newfound strength and wisdom. The turtle probably won the race against the hare because he stopped to rest but not for too long.
We all need rest. To run ourselves into the ground does nobody any good. We can't be so focused on working that we ignore our health and welfare. We all know workoholics and they are not healthy people. We need time to rest and rejeuvenate ourselves. We all know that very often it is when we are quiet and relaxed that we get ideas for how to proceed, and when we come back to the task at hand we can cope with it a lot better.
So rest is a necessity if we are to efficiently cope with the inevitable problems and obstacles we have. We need to make an appointment with ourselves to have a time of rest every day where we can be quiet and will not be disturbed. If we fail to schedule a time of rest, it will be forgotten amongst all the other things we have scheduled.
The next question is how long to rest. Only rest long enough to gather strength. Only rest long enough that you feel ready to tackle your problem or obstacle again with new understanding and new strength. If you rest too long, you are wasting valuable time that could be spend overcoming obstacles, solving problems and moving forward to your goals. You will start to feel lazy and sluggish and unmotivated if you rest too long.
Even with resting, there is a window of opportunity. Make sure you catch it. You must rest every day, but only until you are ready to tackle the next step with enthusiasm, and newfound strength and wisdom. The turtle probably won the race against the hare because he stopped to rest but not for too long.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Helping Hand
Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm ... As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands. One for helping yourself, the other for helping others.
Audrey Hepburn
You have a helping hand at the end of your arm. What this means is that you can't expect other people to help you. They are often busy helping themselves at the time when you need them. And if they did come and help you, they do not necessarily have your best interests at heart. They quite possibly don't even know what you really want. They may also have ideas about what you "should" want. This is why it is best that you help yourself when at all possible. Only you can truly know what the best solution is for you.
On the other hand, sometimes you can't help yourself. You might not have access to the necessary resources right now. You might not have adequate knowledge about the subject you are trying to deal with. In cases like that, you can and should ask for help from others.
"As you get older you will discover that you have two hands. One for helping yourself, the other for helping others". It feels good to help others when they really need it. It makes us feel useful and valuable. We are meant to help others along when they are struggling. But only when they are struggling. If they don't really need your help, they are likely to resent it. And that doesn't do anyone any good. The trick is to know when people really need your help, and what help you can provide. But once you do, don't hesitate to offer a helping hand whenever it is needed. It's good for you, and it is good for them. Everyone wins.
Audrey Hepburn
You have a helping hand at the end of your arm. What this means is that you can't expect other people to help you. They are often busy helping themselves at the time when you need them. And if they did come and help you, they do not necessarily have your best interests at heart. They quite possibly don't even know what you really want. They may also have ideas about what you "should" want. This is why it is best that you help yourself when at all possible. Only you can truly know what the best solution is for you.
On the other hand, sometimes you can't help yourself. You might not have access to the necessary resources right now. You might not have adequate knowledge about the subject you are trying to deal with. In cases like that, you can and should ask for help from others.
"As you get older you will discover that you have two hands. One for helping yourself, the other for helping others". It feels good to help others when they really need it. It makes us feel useful and valuable. We are meant to help others along when they are struggling. But only when they are struggling. If they don't really need your help, they are likely to resent it. And that doesn't do anyone any good. The trick is to know when people really need your help, and what help you can provide. But once you do, don't hesitate to offer a helping hand whenever it is needed. It's good for you, and it is good for them. Everyone wins.
Love, Foregiveness, Faith, and Hope
To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.
G. K. Chesterton
It is easy to love something that is loveable. It is easy to forgive minor slights. It is easy to beleive what makes sense to us. And it is easy to hope when life is going your way. But our lives were not meant to be easy. We were meant to learn and grow, and as much as we don't like it, to learn and grow means to encounter obstacles, problems, and difficulties. An easy life is a boring life, and ultimately one full of fear.
Can you love the unlovable, foregive the unforegivable, beleive the unbeleivable, or hope when everything seems hopeless? This is the true test of character, of faith, motivation, and success.
Remember the times when you needed love and foregiveness the most. It was of course at those times when you were at your most unloveable and unforgivable. Is it fair to deny your love and foregiveness to other people at the time when they need it most? It is likewise when everything seems hopeless that you, and others, need hope the most. It is when good things seem impossible that you need faith the most. The time to give is the time when whatever you have to give is needed the most. But those times are the ones when it is the most difficult for us to give.
Practise loving more and more unloveable things; and forgiving more and more unforgivable acts (this does not mean you have to approve of them, but you need to distance yourself from them emotionally). Practise faith and hope when you are more and more unsure that anything good will come from the situation you find yourself in. In this way, you refine and strengthen your character, and that will increase your success.
G. K. Chesterton
It is easy to love something that is loveable. It is easy to forgive minor slights. It is easy to beleive what makes sense to us. And it is easy to hope when life is going your way. But our lives were not meant to be easy. We were meant to learn and grow, and as much as we don't like it, to learn and grow means to encounter obstacles, problems, and difficulties. An easy life is a boring life, and ultimately one full of fear.
Can you love the unlovable, foregive the unforegivable, beleive the unbeleivable, or hope when everything seems hopeless? This is the true test of character, of faith, motivation, and success.
Remember the times when you needed love and foregiveness the most. It was of course at those times when you were at your most unloveable and unforgivable. Is it fair to deny your love and foregiveness to other people at the time when they need it most? It is likewise when everything seems hopeless that you, and others, need hope the most. It is when good things seem impossible that you need faith the most. The time to give is the time when whatever you have to give is needed the most. But those times are the ones when it is the most difficult for us to give.
Practise loving more and more unloveable things; and forgiving more and more unforgivable acts (this does not mean you have to approve of them, but you need to distance yourself from them emotionally). Practise faith and hope when you are more and more unsure that anything good will come from the situation you find yourself in. In this way, you refine and strengthen your character, and that will increase your success.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Limited
“Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all your energies on a limited set of targets.”
Nido Qubein
How focused are you? We live in a society in which thousands of marketing messages are constantly bombarding us, let alone all the messages from the people around us. Some people can’t get off their cell phones even when they are in the bathroom. We are constantly being encouraged to look at this and do that. It can be completely overwhelming, unless you are able to prioritize which messages are really improtant. You don’t know what’s really important unless you have very clear goals so that you can choose to only pay attention to messages that are relevant to what you intend to acheive.
“A jack of all trades is a master of none”. We only have a limited amount of time and energy and money, so it only makes sense not to waste it on things that aren’t going to produce the results we really want. What results are produced when you watch TV? Does it help you move towards realizing your goals? Unless you’re watching educational TV, the answer is almost certainly no. So why watch it? Why not go out there and do something that does help you acheive the things you want most?
The fewer things you focus on, the faster you will see results. If you work on one goal at a time, and you can give it all your attention and energy, and even money, imagine how much faster you will acheive that goal. If you are thinking about many different things at once, you can’t move forwards very far on any one of them. When you can’t move forwards on any one thing, you will start to feel overwhelmed and frustrated and inclined to quit working on any of them. Start today to only focus on one goal at a time. Concentrate on that until it is acheived. Then move onto your next goal. That’s the way to really get things done so you can acheive what you want.
Nido Qubein
How focused are you? We live in a society in which thousands of marketing messages are constantly bombarding us, let alone all the messages from the people around us. Some people can’t get off their cell phones even when they are in the bathroom. We are constantly being encouraged to look at this and do that. It can be completely overwhelming, unless you are able to prioritize which messages are really improtant. You don’t know what’s really important unless you have very clear goals so that you can choose to only pay attention to messages that are relevant to what you intend to acheive.
“A jack of all trades is a master of none”. We only have a limited amount of time and energy and money, so it only makes sense not to waste it on things that aren’t going to produce the results we really want. What results are produced when you watch TV? Does it help you move towards realizing your goals? Unless you’re watching educational TV, the answer is almost certainly no. So why watch it? Why not go out there and do something that does help you acheive the things you want most?
The fewer things you focus on, the faster you will see results. If you work on one goal at a time, and you can give it all your attention and energy, and even money, imagine how much faster you will acheive that goal. If you are thinking about many different things at once, you can’t move forwards very far on any one of them. When you can’t move forwards on any one thing, you will start to feel overwhelmed and frustrated and inclined to quit working on any of them. Start today to only focus on one goal at a time. Concentrate on that until it is acheived. Then move onto your next goal. That’s the way to really get things done so you can acheive what you want.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Simplify
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”
Hans Hofmann
Our lives get pretty complicated. We are bombarded with messages that our lives will not be complete unless we buy whatever they are selling. Our society encourages us to have as many things as it takes to keep up with the Jones’s. It has become a status symbol to have the most, biggest, fastest, and most expensive, things. We accumulate as many things as much as we can manage. Our lives get bogged down in the details of finding them, getting them, looking after them, and worrying about them.
Our error is that we have not thought about which of those things are really important to us and which of them we have acquired in order to impress others and which of them we acquired because they seemed appealing at the time. How many things have you bought, and then realized that this was not what you really wanted after all, it just didn’t bring you the sense of satisfaction or even happiness that you had hoped for? Many of the things we have are simply unnecessary. They just take up space, in our minds as well as in the physical world.
We need to be able to tell the difference between what is necessary and what is unnecessary. Then we need to get rid of the unnecessary things, so that we can find and focus on the things we really want and need. If we don’t, finding the good stuff can be like finding a needle in a haystack. It’s pretty difficult. It is only when we rid our lives of everything except those things that we really want and need, that we can find what we want. And when we get rid of all the fluff, there will be room left for even more good things to come into our life. Simplify your life and you will be rewarded.
Hans Hofmann
Our lives get pretty complicated. We are bombarded with messages that our lives will not be complete unless we buy whatever they are selling. Our society encourages us to have as many things as it takes to keep up with the Jones’s. It has become a status symbol to have the most, biggest, fastest, and most expensive, things. We accumulate as many things as much as we can manage. Our lives get bogged down in the details of finding them, getting them, looking after them, and worrying about them.
Our error is that we have not thought about which of those things are really important to us and which of them we have acquired in order to impress others and which of them we acquired because they seemed appealing at the time. How many things have you bought, and then realized that this was not what you really wanted after all, it just didn’t bring you the sense of satisfaction or even happiness that you had hoped for? Many of the things we have are simply unnecessary. They just take up space, in our minds as well as in the physical world.
We need to be able to tell the difference between what is necessary and what is unnecessary. Then we need to get rid of the unnecessary things, so that we can find and focus on the things we really want and need. If we don’t, finding the good stuff can be like finding a needle in a haystack. It’s pretty difficult. It is only when we rid our lives of everything except those things that we really want and need, that we can find what we want. And when we get rid of all the fluff, there will be room left for even more good things to come into our life. Simplify your life and you will be rewarded.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Shadows
Never fear shadows.... that always means there is a light shining somewhere. -- Jonathan Santos
We are very fearful creatures. We are always afraid that the worst will come to the worst. We are afraid that something will go wrong, that we will make a mistake, that other people will laugh at us. We are afraid of having a problem that we can't fix. We even talk about it being "the end of the world" if something really bad happens to us. But it isn't the end of the world. The trick lies in getting ourselves to really beleive that.
We will never live in a world where bad things never happen. God sends us bad things for several reasons. One is to prove to us that we can cope with whatever happens (life goes on). Another is to show us how strong our integrity, dedication to our goal, and character is. A third motive is to help us realize what we need to know about ourselves in order to improve. God never sends us bad things to punish us or make us miserable.
Never fear shadows.... that always means there is a light shining somewhere. There is always a lesson to be learned from whatever happens to us, and it is up to us to find it. We need to train ourselves to look for the light that is shining somewhere.
Whenever something "bad" happens, no matter what it is, we need to ask ourselves "What is God trying to show me here. What is the lesson I can learn from this, either about myself or about other people or both? How can I use it for my own improvement?". So often, a disaster becomes a blessing in disquise. If we learn to ask the right questions, this will happen all the time.
We are very fearful creatures. We are always afraid that the worst will come to the worst. We are afraid that something will go wrong, that we will make a mistake, that other people will laugh at us. We are afraid of having a problem that we can't fix. We even talk about it being "the end of the world" if something really bad happens to us. But it isn't the end of the world. The trick lies in getting ourselves to really beleive that.
We will never live in a world where bad things never happen. God sends us bad things for several reasons. One is to prove to us that we can cope with whatever happens (life goes on). Another is to show us how strong our integrity, dedication to our goal, and character is. A third motive is to help us realize what we need to know about ourselves in order to improve. God never sends us bad things to punish us or make us miserable.
Never fear shadows.... that always means there is a light shining somewhere. There is always a lesson to be learned from whatever happens to us, and it is up to us to find it. We need to train ourselves to look for the light that is shining somewhere.
Whenever something "bad" happens, no matter what it is, we need to ask ourselves "What is God trying to show me here. What is the lesson I can learn from this, either about myself or about other people or both? How can I use it for my own improvement?". So often, a disaster becomes a blessing in disquise. If we learn to ask the right questions, this will happen all the time.
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