2014-15 - Attitude...

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude, to me is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.

We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude...

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes.

~ Charles Swindoll

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"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference."

~ Winston Churchill

2014-14 - Gift Of The Seagull...

A lonely seagull flies the winds
Majestic... soaring...gliding wings
A single screech sounds from the sky
Come fly with me... come here and fly

My spirit floats to be a part
I feel the beating of its heart
My soul, one with this bird of sea
Now knows the meaning to fly free

I feel the winds caress my soul
And soar the streams without a goal
My being trembles of delight
A treasure I received tonight

The seagull's flight of soaring high
The gift of what it means to fly

~ Munda Schram

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"Refuse to be average. Let your heart soar as high as it will."

~ A W Tozer

2014-13 - Let's not waste time...

A carpenter and his apprentices were travelling through the province of Qi in search of building materials. They saw a giant tree; five men all holding hands could not encompass its girth, and its crown reached almost to the clouds.

"Let's not waste our time with this tree," said the master carpenter. "It would take us for ever to cut it down. If we wanted to make a ship out of that heavy trunk, the ship would sink. If we tried to use it to build a roof, the walls would have to be specially reinforced."

The group continued on its way. One of the apprentices remarked: "Such a big tree and no use to anyone!"

"That's where you're wrong," said the master carpenter. "The tree was true to its own destiny. If it had been like all the others, we would have cut it down. But because it had the courage to be different, it will remain alive and strong for a long time yet."

~ Paulo Coelho

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"In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different."

~ Coco Chanel

2014-12 - Believe in yourself...

There may be days when you get up in the morning and things aren't the way you had hoped they would be. That's when you have to tell yourself that things will get better.

There are times when people disappoint you and let you down. But those are the times when you must remind yourself to trust your own judgments and opinions, to keep your life focused on believing in yourself.

There will be challenges to face and changes to make in your life, and it is up to you to accept them.

Constantly keep yourself headed in the right direction for you. It may not be easy at times, but in those times of struggle you will find a stronger sense of who you are.

So when the days come that are filled with frustration and unexpected responsibilities, remember to believe in yourself and all you want your life to be.

Because the challenges and changes will only help you to find the goals that you know are meant to come true for you.

Keep Believing in Yourself!

~ Author Unknown

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"If you believe in yourself anything is possible."

~ Miley Cyrus

2014-11 - Abandon your usual ways of thinking...

Imagine for a moment you're driving home from work, and that you've had a pretty rough day. As you drive along, your eyes see the road before you, but your mind is in the past re-running all of the day's unpleasant events. Over and over again, you feel that painful stab of some thoughtless remark, or the embarrassment of that stupid comment you made without thinking. And with each mental replay of this scene, you go deeper and deeper into thought, desperately trying to find a way to escape what seems an intolerable situation.

But what you don't see happening to you is that the more you think, the more you sink! And the deeper you sink in thought, the less you're able to see what the rest of you is doing. Driving reckless, speeding, missing the exit you want - these are only a few of the foolish things that happen to you while driving under the influence of a stream of self-compromising, self-wrecking thoughts. Your life, is actually out of your hands. It belongs to your thinking, to the "me" mind. This undeveloped nature doesn't understand what it's doing as it struggles to find a way out from under the weight of its own unconscious actions.

What the "me" mind doesn't understand is that freedom is a state of being. But there's good reason for this lower nature's ignorance, as well as for its covert efforts to keep us asleep in a similar state. The "me" mind is out of business the moment we wake up to realize that free is what we are, each time we can catch ourselves about to build another prison out of thought. Our awakened awareness instantly cancels our captivity. And as our self-created bondage fades, so does our desperate need to escape! What the "me" mind doesn't want us to know is that we're already free.

~ Guy Finley excerpt from 'Freedom From the Ties that Bind'

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"Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us."

~ Stephen Covey