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August
1, 2006 |
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| Everyone
takes the limits of their own vision for the limits of the
world.
Arthur
Schopenhauer |
It requires
moral courage to grieve; it requires religious courage to
rejoice.
Sören
Kierkegaard |
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If God
lived on earth, people would break his windows.
Yiddish
proverb |
What
a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone
can be.
Ellen
Burstyn |
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Fair
Play
Gail Pursell Elliott
"Turn about is fair play," is an expression that
most of us have heard for years. What a
preposterous statement this is. This means, that if we
are treated unfairly that it is fair to act unfairly.
To me, this makes little sense.
This statement puts forth the premise that we are to base
our behavior on someone else's behavior rather than our own
beliefs, and that we are perfectly justified in doing so.
If we are determined to hang onto our personal power and
identity, to be true to ourselves, then we cannot fall for
this trap regardless of how tempting it may be. When
we do allow someone else to determine what we do we have
voluntarily become controlled. We have given our power
away. At this point we will do whatever we can to
regain that, including engaging in activities that we
ordinarily would not do.
We may try to excuse ourselves by saying that we are
"teaching the person a lesson" or "beating
them at their own game." To do this we have to
become proficient at doing something that we think we
despise, and to knowingly engage in behavior that we find
reprehensible in others.
Separating people from their behavior in order to treat them
with dignity and respect is difficult. However, many
of us are ready and willing to separate ourselves from our
behavior when we "turn the tables" on someone.
We feel that the responsibility for our actions then belongs
to someone other than ourselves. And at that point we
relinquish even more of our personal power.
When we "turn the tables' on someone we actually turn
on ourselves. We make a reaction to someone else's words or
behavior more important than our own identity and integrity.
We may try to believe that we are acting with strength, but
in reality we are giving in to and confirming weakness.
We actually participate in the destructive work begun either
intentionally or inadvertently by another.
Some of us may take the position of not reacting to someone
else's actions because we are 'better than that.' The
very act of comparing merits means that we are still caught
in the web of the power game.
We alone are responsible for the choices we make, whether we
choose to blame them on environment, situations, or
inheritance. If we maintain our personal power we then
can make choices that will best serve our own good, and
reinforce our inner truth, regardless of circumstances.
Have a Great Day and be good to yourself. You deserve
it!
© Gail Pursell
Elliott, "The Dignity and Respect Lady."
Innovations
"Training With a Can-Do Attitude" Box 552,
Roland, IA 50236-0552; 515-388-9600 www.innovations-training.com
info@innovations-training.com |
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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
Thanks
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A few weeks ago, I had a few chunks of skin cut off by a
dermatologist, for I had developed basal cell carcinomas,
which are small areas of skin cancer that fortunately aren't
malignant. |
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This isn't the first time that I've been
through this process, nor shall it be the last--I grew up in
San Diego, and when I was a kid the link between sun and
cancer hadn't been publicized nearly as strongly as it is
today, and there
was no such thing as sunscreen. Almost everyone did
their best to tan, and while I was too young to worry about
that, I did get plenty of sunburns just from playing around
in the sun without a shirt on.
As I lay there on the table listening to the knives and
scissors cut away just three or four inches from my right
ear, I couldn't help but think just how fortunate I was to
be there. In that one situation there were so many
things to be thankful for that it was almost overwhelming to
me. First of all, of course, there was the
dermatologist who had decided to dedicate himself to the
study of medicine, who had gone through years of study in
order to become an expert at what he did, and who was
willing and able to examine, diagnose, and remove the
cancerous growths that were there. I
also thought about how grateful I was to be alive during a
time in history when medical equipment is consistently of
very high quality and almost always completely
sterile. I wasn't worried about being scarred by
knives that weren't sharp enough or infected by knives or
needles that weren't sterile. And when I thought back
to where the scalpels came from--all the way back to the
people who had mined the ore through the people who had
refined it through the people who had shaped it into
surgical instruments. . . . there was a long list of
people for whose work I could be thankful. Then
there were the people behind the organizations--those who
had founded and maintained the hospital where I was, the
medical school where the doctor had studied, the mines where
the ore had been extracted, the businesses that specialized
in providing surgical instruments. There were the
people who did the biopsy to determine the kind of cancer in
the cells, the people who supported all these other people
as secretaries, delivery people, cleaning people, parents,
friends. It's absolutely amazing to think of just how
much goes into some of the smallest, simplest experiences of
our lives. I
knew that I would be feeling some pain in the weeks
following the surgery, but I also knew that that pain was
nothing compared to what I would go through if I lived in a
society in which I didn't have access to the medical
services that I have access to here. My heart goes out
to all of those people who have to watch similar cancers
grow and spread without the possibility of getting them
taken care of. I knew that the pain that I would feel
would be the pain of healing, and not that of disease, and
for that I was extremely thankful. Needless
to say, I was also very grateful that I had insurance to pay
the bill, as I've gone many years without insurance, and
this particular surgery would have hurt us badly
financially. Through
the right filters, anything can be positive. I didn't
think for a minute that I was unfortunate to have to deal
with the carcinomas--I knew that I was fortunate to live in
a society in which I can get them taken care of. I
know that in the future I'll have to be careful when I'm out
in the sun, and I'll have to be much more diligent about
using sunscreen, but when all is said and done, there's much
to be thankful for in my situation. One of my
strongest hopes in life is that I never lose the ability to
feel gratitude for all of the blessings in my life, for if
that were to happen, I think life would be very sad, indeed. |
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The
Need to Become Silent in a Noisy World
Mike Moore
It is
quite evident that we are living in one terribly noisy world
and it seems to be getting worse every day. Everywhere we go
we are accosted by loud, unwanted sound. When we enter
elevators, malls and restaurants we are engulfed by musak.
I
recently had lunch at a popular restaurant and found the
background music so loud that it interfered with normal
conversation and the enjoyment of my lunch. When I asked the
waitress if she could turn the music off, or at least down,
she said, "I don't think we can." Surely, we as a
people are still in charge of volume controls.
When
you add lawnmowers, snow blowers, leaf blowers, jack
hammers, jet engines, transport trucks, and horns and
buzzers of all types and descriptions, you have a wall of
constant noise and irritation. Even when watching a
television program at a reasonable volume level you are
blown out of your chair when a commercial comes on at the
decibel level of a jet.
We
seem to have created a cultural acceptance of our noisy
world in spite of the fact that it is making us ill
physically and psychologically. We can't seem to live
without background sound. We have friends who turn on the
television the moment they awaken in the morning and leave
it on all day. The house is just too quiet if it isn't on.
Former high school students of mine used to tell me that the
first thing they did on arriving home after school was turn
on their CD player as loudly as would be tolerated by their
parents.
Cornell
University recently conducted a study to determine the
impact of noise on employees in an open area office space
where people are constantly exposed to fax machines,
telephones, office chatter, shredding machines, etc. Test
results revealed that workers in an open area had high
levels of adrenalin in their urine. Adrenalin is released by
the body when under stress. It prepares us for fight or
flight. When these employees were compared to those in self
contained office spaces the results were startling. People
in a quiet, self contained work area did not have the same
high levels of adrenalin in their urine. They were much more
relaxed and less stressed.
A
puzzle, demanding attention and concentration, was given to
both groups of employees. The open area group was found to
be less diligent in the solution of the puzzle becoming
easily frustrated and giving up much earlier than the group
from the quiet office. The study also found that workers
from the quiet office slept better at night, had better
digestion, were much less irritable at home and felt better
at the end of their workday than employees from the open
concept office. Noise does seem to affect focus,
productivity and general physical and psychological well
being. Noise tends to increase stress levels which in turn
can result in increased frustration and anger and strained
interpersonal relationships. We must begin to establish a
friendship with silence.
How
to Make a Friend of Silence
While
we have very little control over noise in the environment at
large, we do have control over our own private environment.
This is where we begin to cultivate a friendship with
silence.
*
Make a conscious commitment to the experience and
appreciation of silence.
* Go
for a walk in nature. Let the silence soothe your spirit.
*
When you are alone in your residence turn off all noise
making appliances. Begin with fifteen minutes of silence and
gradually increase the duration.
*
Learn how to meditate and schedule a ten minute meditation
period once or twice a day. Gradually extend your meditation
time.
*
When driving to work turn off your car radio and drive in
silence.
* Go
camping for a night by yourself. Find a quiet campground
where they don't allow people to blast their music without
consideration for others. I usually go solo camping for one
week each year to be alone and silent in the outdoors.
It
has become something I eagerly look forward to.
*
Drive to a lake at sunset and rent a canoe. Paddle slowly
along the shoreline observing the silent sights and the
gentle sounds of nature as the sun sets and darkness
approaches.
* In
silence listen to your breathing. Get a sense of the silent
rhythm of life.
*
Just before retiring go outside and look up at the night
sky. You will soon sense another universal rhythm so
unfamiliar to many. Let the night sky and the darkness
embrace you and calm you as you prepare for a night's rest.
*
When you read a book, do so in silence. Many of us read to
music or during television commercials. Try silence.
You'll
grow to love it.
Soon
you will begin to cherish the periods of silence you have
built into your day and long for more. You will quickly
discover that you are becoming more relaxed and less tense
even in the midst of our noisy world. You will have made an
invaluable new friend of silence, a friend which can
comfort, heal and soothe your spirit. What a gift you will
have given yourself.
Be
still and know the restorative power of silence.
Mike
Moore is an international speaker and writer on human
potential, motivation and humour. You can check out his
website at
http://www.motivationalplus.com |
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I
Dream a World
Langston Hughes
I dream a world
where man
No other will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn.
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom's way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you bed,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head,
And joy, like a pearl,
Attend the needs of all mankind.
Of such I dream--
Our world! |
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