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27 January 2009 |
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person can make a difference. You don't have to be a big
shot. You don't have to have a lot of influence. You
just have to have faith in your power to change things.
Norman
Vincent Peale
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It
is in struggle and service with our brothers
and sisters,
individually and collectively,
that we find the meaning of life.
Jesse
Jackson
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Do
not pray for easy lives, pray to be stronger people! Do
not pray for tasks equal to your powers, pray for powers equal
to your tasks.
Phillips
Brooks
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Let
the Past Go (an
excerpt)
Ella
Wheeler Wilcox
Do
not begin the new year by recounting to yourself or
others all your losses and sorrows.
Let the past go.
Should
some good friend present you with material for a
lovely garment, would you insult her by throwing it
aside and describing the beautiful garments you had
worn out in past times?
The
new year has given you the fabric for fresh start in
life; why dwell upon the events which have gone, the
joys, blessings and advantages of the past!
Do
not tell me it is too late to be successful or happy. Do not tell me you are sick or broken in spirit; the spirit
cannot be sick or broken, because it is of God.
It
is your mind which makes your body sick.
Let the spirit assert itself and demand health
and hope and happiness in this new year.
Forget
the money you have lost, the mistakes you have made,
the injuries you have received, the disappointments
you have experienced.
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Real
sorrow, the sorrow which comes from the death of dear
ones, or some great cross well borne, you need not
forget. But
think of these things as sent to enrich your nature,
and to make you more human and sympathetic.
You are missing them if you permit yourself
instead to grow melancholy and irritable.
It
is weak and unreasonable to imagine destiny has
selected you for special suffering.
Sorrow is no respecter of persons.
Say to yourself with the beginning of this year
that you are going to consider all your troubles as an
education for your mind and soul; and that out of the
experiences which you have passed through you are
going to build a noble and splendid character, and a
successful career.
Do
not tell me you are too old.
Age is all imagination.
Ignore years and they will ignore you.
Eat
moderately, and bathe freely in water as cold as
nature's rainfall. Exercise thoroughly and regularly.
Be
alive, from crown to toe.
Breathe deeply, filling every cell of the lungs
for at least five minutes, morning and night, and when
you draw in long, full breaths, believe you are
inhaling health, wisdom and success.
Anticipate
good health. If
it does not come at once, consider it a mere temporary
delay, and continue to expect it.
Regard
any physical ailment as a passing inconvenience, no
more. Never for an instant believe you are permanently
ill or disabled.
The
young men of France are studying alchemy, hoping to
learn the secret of the transmutation of gold.
If you will study your own spirit and its
limitless powers, you will gain a greater secret than
any alchemist ever held; a secret which shall give you
whatever you desire.
Think
of your body as the silver jewel box, your mind as the
silver lining, your spirit as the gem.
Keep the box burnished and clear of dust, but
remember always that the jewel within is the precious
part of it.
Think
of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled
success. A
whole, clear, glorious year lies before you!
In a year you can regain health, fortune,
restfulness, happiness!
Push
on! Achieve,
achieve!
From The Heart of the New Thought, 1902.
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We
must always remember that possessions have no inherent
value. They become what we make them. If
they increase our capacity to give, they become
something good. If they increase our focus on
ourselves and become standards by which we measure other
people, they become something bad.
Kent
Nerburn
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Every
time you heal a dark part of yourself
you bring more light into the world.
Stephen
C. Paul
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| An
excerpt:
Acknowledge
the Totality of Your Being
Richard
Carlson
Zorba the
Greek was said to have described himself as "the whole
catastrophe." The truth is, we're all the whole
catastrophe, only we wish that we weren't. We deny the
parts of ourselves that we deem unacceptable rather than
accepting the fact that we're all less than perfect.
One of
the reasons it's important to accept all aspects of yourself is
that it allows you to be easier on yourself, more
compassionate. When you act or feel insecure, rather than
pretending to be "together," you can open to the truth
and say to yourself, "I'm feeling a little frightened and
that's okay." If you're feeling a little jealous,
greedy, or angry, rather than deny or bury your feelings, you
can open up to them, which helps you move through them quickly
and grow beyond them. When you no longer think of your
negative feelings as a big deal, or as something to fear, you
will no longer be as frightened by them. When you open to
the totality of your being you no longer have to pretend that
your life is perfect, or even hope that it will be.
Instead you can accept yourself as you are, right now.
When you
acknowledge the less than perfect parts of yourself, something
magical begins to happen. Along with the negative, you'll
also begin to notice the positive, the wonderful aspects of
yourself that you may not have given yourself credit for, or
perhaps even been aware of. You'll notice that while you
may, at times, act with self-interest in mind, at other times
you're incredibly selfless. Sometimes you may act insecure
or frightened, but most often you are courageous. While
you can certainly get uptight, you can also be quite relaxed.
Opening
to the totality of your being is like saying to yourself,
"I may not be perfect, but I'm okay just the way I
am." When negative characteristics arise you can
begin to recognize them as part of a bigger picture.
Rather than judging and evaluating yourself simply because
you're human, see if you can treat yourself with loving-kindness
and great acceptance. You may indeed be "the whole
catastrophe," but you can relax about it. So are the
rest of us. |
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Don't Sweat the Small Stuff. . .and it's
all small stuff. Richard Carlson
A nice little series of lessons on perspective--we
all sweat a lot of stuff that really doesn't deserve so much attention. Many
practical suggestions here. Be careful, though, as this promises to
get as annoying as the Chicken Soup books--now there's Don't Sweat
the Small Stuff at Work, and more. When will these people stop
milking markets? |
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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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Eyes
Wide Open
tom walsh
Small Steps
One of the
most important lessons of my lifetime is one that I'm very thankful
that I've learned well--that of taking small steps, and even more
importantly, being satisfied with those small steps. I've
always tended to want things done now, or even five minutes ago, but
life has been very good at teaching me that not only is that not
always possible, but it's usually not even desirable.
I've always
been the kind of person who would take a painting class and want to
paint a masterpiece on my first outing. I'd start to build a
bookcase and want it all done in an hour, and I'd want it to be
perfect. I'd start a school program and want my degree in a
matter of months, but I'd be told that it would take years. I
still have almost a year to go on the Ph.D. that I'm working on
right now, and I've been at it for a year and a half already.
For me, this is an eternity, but I know that for other people, two
and a half years is pretty quick. Don't
worry--I'm not the kind of person who would rant and rail about
things being "too slow"--all of my discontent was inside
of me, more in the way I felt than the way I acted. One of the
problems that contributed to this bigger problem is the fact that
I'm usually pretty good at whatever I do--I learn very quickly, and
I'm almost always able to work at an accelerated pace, so slowness
frustrates me a lot. But I do realize that not everyone learns
at the same pace; many people need things to go more slowly, so
it's important that I be patient and understand that things won't
always go at my pace. I've
seen this ability reflected in the work that goes with my
novel--inside, I usually would have felt impatient when the
novel wasn't out as soon as the contract was signed, but the
publication is completely out of my hands. First, there was
the contract. That came in the mail, and I signed it and
returned it. Then came the final revision of the manuscript,
which took almost two weeks. After that, I had to wait for the
proofs to come back, and then I had to make corrections, submit
them, wait for the revised proofs. . . . You get the idea, I'm
sure. Right now I'm waiting for it to go through the people
who will design a cover, and after that, there will be more to wait
for. Cooking
is another activity that allows one to focus on the process instead
of an immediate finished product. Even something as simple as
making a salad forces one to work first with the lettuce, then with
the tomatoes, then with the cucumbers. . . . It can't be done
immediately. Unfortunately, though, we live in the age of
meals in a box, and people don't have to learn the process any
more--they just have to boil some water or throw things into the
microwave. Is
it any wonder, then, that we have a hard time honoring the processes
of life, and allowing ourselves to flow with them at the speed they
take naturally? We're so used to getting everything done at
once that we don't have time to take the small steps and actually
enjoy them for what they are--pieces in a larger process that leads
to a finished product in which we can take pride. The
ability to be satisfied with small steps is a reflection of my
growth in letting go of control of situations over which I have no
control, especially as far as time is concerned. I don't see
doing something slowly as a reflection on me any longer, and I don't
see not being finished as a negative, no matter how someone else may
look at it. I can't tell you how many times people have asked
"You're not finished yet?" when I've been taking my time
through a process so that the finished product is as good as I know
it can be. If I can take an extra day or two on something and
know that its quality will be immensely greater, then I will take
the extra time; I haven't always been this way. Life
is a process, and we must honor it. All of our years don't
come at once, so we must learn and grow as the lessons come to us,
and we must let them change us at their pace, and not try to force
things to happen. If we can do this, we'll find the peace that
the gardener feels knowing that the vegetables won't be ready for
harvest for months, and the peace that the rancher or farmer feels
when new calves are born and they must grow and develop before
they're a productive part of the ranch or farm. It's the peace
that comes from doing what we can do when we can do it, and leaving
the rest for the right time to do the rest.
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Have
you ever sat very quietly without any movement?
You try it, sit really still, with your back straight,
and observe what your mind is doing. Don't try to
control it, don't say it should not jump from one
thought to another, from one interest to another, but
just be aware of how your mind is jumping. Don't
do anything about it, but watch it as from the banks of
a river you watch the water flow by. In the
flowing river there are so many things--fishes, leaves,
dead animals--but it is always living, moving, and your
mind is like that. It is everlastingly restless,
flitting from one thing to another like a butterfly. . .
. It is great fun. If you try it as fun, as an
amusing thing, you will find that the mind begins to
settle down without any effort on your part to control
it. There is then no censor, no judge, no
evaluator; and when the mind is thus very quiet of
itself, spontaneously still, you will discover what it
is to be gay. Do you know what gaiety is? It
is just to laugh, to take delight in anything or
nothing, to know the joy of living, smiling, looking
straight into the face of another without any sense of
fear.
J.
Krishnamurti
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