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22 February 2022
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If
logic tells you that life is a meaningless accident, don't give up
on life. Give up on logic.
Shira
Milgrom
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Everyone is a
prisoner of his or her owm experiences. No one can eliminate
prejudices--just recognize them.
Edward R. Murrow
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The
first question to be answered by any individual or any social group, facing a hazardous situation, is whether the crisis
is to be met as
a
challenge to strength
or as an occasion for despair.
Harry
Emerson Fosdick
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Success
often comes to those who dare and act; it seldom goes to
the timid who are afraid of the consequences.
Jawaharlal Nehru
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Live
in a Helpful, Supportive Universe
Wayne
Dyer
One of the most
important decisions you'll ever make is choosing the kind of
universe you exist in: is it helpful and supportive or
hostile and unsupportive? Your answer to this question
will make all the difference in terms of how you live your life
and what kind of Divine assistance you attract.
Remember that
you get what you think about, whether you want it or not.
So if you're sure that this is an unfriendly universe, you'll
look for examples to support this point of view. You'll
anticipate people attempting to cheat, judge, take advantage of,
and otherwise harm you. You'll blame the antagonistic,
inhospitable cosmos for not cooperating with you in the
fulfillment of your desires. You'll point the finger at
belligerent folks and bad luck for the kind of world we all live
in. Since this worldview trickles down into every thought
you have, you become a person persistently looking for occasions
to be offended, and therefore in possession of a whole slew of
excuses.
I implore you
to see the universe as a warm and supportive one. . . because
you'll look for evidence to support this view. When you
believe that the universe is friendly, you see friendly
people. You look for circumstances to work in your
favor. You expect good fortune flowing into your
life. In other words, you aren't looking for excuses!
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My favorite
affirmation when I feel stuck or out of sorts is: Whatever
I need is already here, and it is all for my highest good.
Jot this down and post it conspicuously throughout your home, on
the dashboard of your car, at your office, on your microwave oven,
and even in front of your toilet! Remind yourself: I
live in a friendly universe that will support any thing or desire
that is aligned with the universal Source of all. Such a
stance will be a giant step toward living an excuse-free life.
Affirming that
what you want is already here and all you have to do is connect to
it causes you to remember that what you attract is for your
highest good, so you can then let go of the timing issue
altogether. Just know that it is here and will arrive on
God's schedule--as does everything that makes the journey from
nonbeing to being.
I've found that
by shifting my belief about the nature of the universe, I attract
whatever I desire into my life. I desire love. I
desire peace. I desire health. I desire
happiness. I desire prosperity. Why would I want to
hold the view that our universe is unsupportive, evil, and
unfriendly? How could I expect the Divine realm to hear me
if I'm asking it to be something other than what it is?
Thus, I see my desires in perfect rapport with how the universe
works.
When I pray, I do
so in the spirit of Saint Francis. Rather than ask God to
grant him peace, this inspiring man beseeched God to "make me
an instrument of Thy peace." In other words, "Let
me be like the Source from which I originated, and then I will
rest in the knowing that it must be here, on its way, and for my
highest good." As you can see, there's no room for
excuses when you apply this model to your everyday life.
As I've written
and said many times, "When you change the way you look at
things, the things you look at change." And this
applies to the entire universe.
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Become
a Mental Chemist
Wilferd A. Peterson
Legend tells
us that behind Lincoln's life there were three dynamic words of
inspiration.
Those three
words were spoken to the young Lincoln as his mother was
dying. Calling the boy to her, and tenderly stroking his
face with her fingers, Lincoln's mother said: "Be
somebody, Abel" The inspiration of those words lifted
Lincoln from a log cabin to the White House. They inspired
him to think, study, grow. Years later the great man said,
"All that I am or ever hope to be I owe to my angel
mother!"
Three words
spoken by a poor pioneer woman worked a miracle.
Each of us
has the power to inspire or depress, to lift others or to push
them down. We should look well to our words.
When you
inspire someone you become a mental chemist.
If you have
a container of water you can change the color of the water by
dropping a dye into it. At first there is no noticeable
change, but as the dye in the water is increased, drop by drop,
the color of the water gradually changes.
The
thought-life of a person may be changed in the same way. The
inspirational chemistry that we may use consists of our acts, our
spoken words, our written words.
What are
some of the inspirational chemical elements that we can use to
inspire others?
Appreciation.
Pass the praise along. Praise stimulates and results in
improved work, for it increases people's confidence. They
feel that they belong, that they are on the team. Praise a
child's good marks or good behavior and watch that child improve.
Vision.
Often people quit because the future is clouded. They feel
there is no hope. It is as though they are trying to look in
to the future through a soot-covered window. Wash the window
so that they can see through its gleaming surface into the months
and years ahead. Many a young person bas been helped and
inspired to carry on because someone has shown him or her the
possibilities of the future.
Faith.
Most of all we need someone to have faith in us, especially when
we meet with failures and reverses. Faith is a steadying
quality. When someone believes in us and in the work we are
doing we are greatly strengthened. Edison was sent home from
school because the teacher said he was hopeless. Years later
Edison said, "I won out because my mother never for a single
moment lost faith in me."
Courage.
Someone has said that beaten paths are for beaten people.
People with new ideas, big plans, great ambitions, noble dreams,
need someone to lift them up, cheer them on, stimulate them to
dare, to wrestle with so-called impossibilities, and to win.
Every new idea, from steamboats to airplanes, has met with
ridicule and opposition. But someone believed in those ideas
enough to urge the inventors on.
Imagination.
Arousing the imagination arouses the creative powers of
people. Help people to see themselves as they wish to
be. Help them to visualize themselves succeeding. Help
them to dream great dreams.
Patience.
People need to be taught the wisdom of working and waiting.
Many a person has left the dock just before his or her ship came
in. Time has great power to solve problems. Counsel
patience.
Love.
The most wonderful inspirational chemistry we can use on another
is the gift of our love and acceptance. Devoted and
unquestioned love has a magic creative power. The
consciousness of being loved is an uplifting, saving, healing
force that causes one to go on when otherwise it would be
impossible to do so. "Love," said Emerson, "is the
affirmative of affirmatives."
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Living
Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a
place
of growth, peace, inspiration, and encouragement. Our
articles
are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do
we
mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live
life. Take
from them what you will, and disagree with
whatever you disagree
with--just know that they'll be here for you
each week. |
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It
is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate
between a time for learning and a time for play
without seeing the vital connection between them.
Leo
Buscaglia
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The
Balance between Love and Everything
Love is an area in
which we probably shouldn't be searching for much of a
balance at all, isn't it? Of course, we should try
to strike a balance between loving others and loving
ourselves, and we shouldn't limit our love to just a few
people in our lives. But when all is said and
done, isn't all of life a journey towards being able to
love unconditionally with an unlimited sense of love
that we can share with everyone? Isn't love the
strongest force on the planet, and something that is
unlimited within us--if we learn how to defeat the anger
and the fear and allow love to be unlimited?
Not all things are meant to be in balance with other
things. It would be silly to think of saying that
we want to develop our fears because our love is growing
too strong. It would be silly to try to balance
hydrogen and oxygen molecules in water, because it's not
right that there are two hydrogen molecules and only one
oxygen molecule. Do we really want to balance
every ingredient in our food? Would it be a good
thing to make sure that we have a minute of play for
every minute of work that we do?
The fact is, of course, that a half-hour of play each
day can easily balance out the eight hours of work that
we do and make us feel much better, and allow us to work
much more effectively. Having less sugar than
flour in a cake allows both ingredients to have their
maximum effect. Accepting the fact that there are
two hydrogen molecules for each oxygen molecules allows
us to let water be water without messing with it--and
thus keep everything on this world alive still.
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When we love,
we always strive to become better than we are.
When we strive to become better than we are,
everything around us becomes better too.
Paulo Coelho
The Alchemist
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So not everything
needs to be completely balanced. Some things
definitely should not be. We don't try to
balance light and darkness to come up with an
environment that's only half-lit, and the sun when
it comes out lights up everything. That's how
it should be with love. The love that we share
with others in our lives should be like the sun--it
should illuminate everything in its path, everything
with which it comes in contact.
But the light of love can be even more effective
than the light of the sun. The sun is limited
as to what it can touch--if there's something in the
way, then we see a shadow because the light can't
touch it directly. Love, on the other hand,
isn't limited by walls or obstructions, except for
those that are created by people specifically to
keep love out. Love can work its way through
cracks and around walls and under doors and even
through bricks and cement. Love can pierce the
hardest heart, and it can do its work stealthily and
steadily even when it seems that it's having no
effect at all. When light hits something
directly, we have clear visual evidence of its
existence. When love hits something directly,
we often have no visual evidence of that fact at
all.
But we know that it's doing its work. We just
have to trust it, and that's called faith.
Some people withhold the love they show because they
feel that not enough love is being "shown back
to them." Love, though, is not a tool of
barter. We don't show love to get love.
It's definitely not something that's used in
transactions. Yet many people refuse to show
love because they feel that other people somehow
don't deserve it because they don't show enough love
back. What we need to keep in mind is that the
people who are unable to show and share their love
are the people who need our love the most.
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Darkness cannot
drive out darkness: only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
Martin Luther King Jr.
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When we love, we put
behind ourselves our petty differences and our
judgments and our hostility. More importantly,
though, when we love we put behind ourselves our
fear, that part of ourselves that controls so many
of our actions and our words. We treat others
differently because we fear rejection or we fear
being hurt; but love doesn't worry about rejection
or hurt because it knows that it can handle them
both. Love knows that if someone hurts us,
that fact is a reflection of who the other person
is, and not necessarily an indication of who we
are--especially if we're coming from a place of
love.
Of course, I'm not talking about what we often refer
to as "romantic love," which is really a
form of neediness masquerading as caring for
others. If we try to expand this type of
manipulative feeling, then we're bound to be
disappointed and disappointing to others, who really
don't deserve for us to be manipulating them.
I'm talking about love, the unconditional kind that
we feel for our fellow human beings--no matter
gender or politics or sexual preference or
opinions--and our planet and all the other creatures
and plants on it. I'm talking about the love
that fills our hearts and keeps us focused on doing
all that we can for our fellow creatures on this
planet simply because love tells us that that is our
highest calling.
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Love has nothing to do
with what you are expecting
to get--
only what
you are expecting to give--which is
everything.
What you will receive
in return varies. But it really has no
connection with what you give.
You give because you love
and cannot help giving. If you are very lucky,
you may be
loved back. That is delicious, but it does not necessarily happen.
Katharine Hepburn
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So what do we do about
love? Do we work at making it the most
dominant force in our lives, or do we back away from
it because of fear and anxiety? Do we limit
the love we show because no one's showing it back at
the moment? Do we convince ourselves that we
don't need to show love because everyone we know
already has enough love in their lives?
It's important that we keep in mind that there does
NOT need to be a balance in our lives between love
and something else. Love should overbalance
everything else, for if all of us were to allow this
to happen, imagine what kind of world we would
have! You can share your love with the people
in your lives, and not worry about being loved back,
and not worry about whether that love goes further
out than your own sphere of influence. Let it
grow, let it overwhelm you, even, and then spread it
out into the world like gobs of icing on a beautiful
cake. Let others benefit from your love, and
don't worry at all about being loved back--the love
will come back to you in its own way, not
necessarily the way (or even when) you expect it to.
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More
on love.
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Love is something you and I must have.
We must have it because
our spirit
feeds upon it.
We must have it because without it we
become weak and faint.
Without love our self-esteem weakens. Without it our courage fails.
Without
love we can no longer look
confidently at the world.
We turn inward and begin
to feed upon
our own personalities,
and little by little we destroy ourselves.
With it we are creative. With
it we march tirelessly. With
it, and
with it alone, we are able to sacrifice for others.
Chief Dan George
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™
