2012-31 - You are important…

Always remember you are unique and you are important. There is no one else in the world quite like you. You are special. There never has been and there never will be anyone like you again.

Don't let people take away your respect for yourself. No matter what they say or do remember that you are very important and a worthwhile person, and always retain respect for yourself. They cannot take away yourself respect and dignity, for you control what you think of yourself and no one else.

You have your own special qualities and talents, and though you may not have the talents and gifts that someone else has, you have your own talents and gifts that others do not have. No one else can be you. Only you can be you. Try to be the best you possible.

Remember also that you are important to other people. You cannot help but touch the lives of other people as you go through life. There are many people who need your love and support, and who look up to you, and want to emulate you. People you may not even be aware of need you, and watch your life, and if you give up and fail yourself, you are failing them and letting them down too.

~ Walter Westfall
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" In your own life it's important to know how spectacular you are."
 
 ~ Steve Maraboli
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2012-30 - The Weight of a Snowflake

Not too long ago in a place not too far away, a field mouse asked a wise old owl what is the weight of a snowflake. "Why nothing more than nothing," answered the owl.

The mouse went on to tell the owl about the time he was resting on a branch in a fir tree, counting each snowflake until the number was exactly 3 million, 471 thousand, 952. Then with the settling of the very next flake—crack. The branch suddenly snapped, tumbling mouse and snow to the ground. "Humph …Such was the weight of nothing," said the mouse.

So the next time you think your contributions, your acts of charity, your works for justice, your gifts of love, and your talents are nothing, or that they are small in comparison to those of others, remember that when one is added to another, and then to another and so forth, great things can happen from nothing. In the same way, what seems to be ordinary can be transformed into something extraordinary with just a little extra nothing.

Your mission is to create great things once again out of nothingness, to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.

~ Author Unknown
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" An extraordinary amount of arrogance is present in any claim of having been the first in inventing something."
 
 ~ Benoit Mandelbrot
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2012-28 - Whose Path Are You Walking?

Have you ever had others criticize you for the path in life you have been called to walk, be it spiritual, career, lifestyle, and so on? Often those who tend to have the greatest opposition to the pathway we walk are family and friends. Of course this can be extended to include religious institutions, political parties, and cultural traditionalists as well — many of which make no bones about it, priding themselves on believing that their way is the only way.

It can be incredibly difficult to separate from the “herd” and go our own way when it goes against the grain of the herd mentality (or majority) and yet, if we don’t, we know there is a part of us that will slowly begin to die.

Call it spirit, soul, life force, or what you may, there is that within us that knows who it is we’ve come here to be and what it is we’ve come here to do and if we don’t listen to its call, it begins to wane.

This is when life becomes more about enduring until we die rather than thriving while we are here.

Perhaps what our critics don’t understand is that beneath the layer of what they may refer to as “choice,” there lies another layer where lives the authentic self, and its voice perpetually whispers ever so softly in our inner ear, “Be who you are and you’ll find freedom, fullness of expression, joy, peace, purpose and meaning in this precious life you have been given.”

This voice beckons us to be true to ourselves; when we hear and listen to that voice, it’s not so much that we are then guided to choose a certain path in life but, in truth, realize that our path has chosen us. However, do not consider this a “get out of jail free” card for the bad choices we all have made along the way that may have caused pain and suffering in our lives or the lives of others; the reality that our path chooses us when we are ready in no way alleviates the fact that we are always personally accountable for the choices we make in our day-to-day lives.

The voice to which I refer is incapable of guiding us in a direction that is self-destructive or harmful to others or that in any way dishonors the sacredness of life, because it is life itself that beckons us.



~ Dennis Merritt Jones

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" It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path."

~ Paulo Coelho
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2012-27 - Only one way to play the game...

Winning is only worthwhile when you win with your principles intact.

Although there is no more emphasis on winning in this generation that there was in any other, sometimes it seems that nowadays we're talking about winning at all costs..

In the 1925 U.S. Open, the famed golfer Bobby Jones penalized himself a stroke when his ball moved slightly in the rough and the blade of his iron touched the turf. No one could possibly have seen the ball move. The penalty dropped Jones into a tie with golfer Willie McFarlane, who went on to win the playoff. Dart board - core values

More than a half-century later, in the 1978 Hall of Fame Classic at Pinehurst, NC, Tom Kite did the same thing. His self-imposed penalty stroke caused him to lose the tournament. When reporters asked both men why they took the penalties, they both said essentially the same thing, "There's only one way to play the game."

In sports, in business, and in life, there's only one way to play the game. Winning, with your values upheld, should be celebrated. But winning in any other manner isn't winning at all.

~ Author Unknown
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" Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values."

~ Ayn Rand
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