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16 September 2008 |
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| Those
who wish to secure the good of others have already
secured their own.
Confucious |
If
you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
the
Dalai Lama |
| Since
you have to do the things you have to do, be wise enough
to do some of the things you want to do.
Malcom
Forbes |
One day, who
knows? Even
these hardships will be grand
things
to look back on.
Virgil |
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Learn
to Make Good Choices
Elaine St. James
In
order to simplify, we have to start making choices,
sometimes difficult choices. And often it means
saying no, even to the things we want to do.
Shortly
after Gibbs and I began taking steps to simplify, we found
ourselves having dinner with some friends who were into
hang gliding.
We
spent the entire evening listening to them rave about the
thrill of this fascinating sport. As we sat there
being seduced by yet another activity, we imagined
ourselves leaping off the cliff and soaring silently over
the beautiful hills behind our home.
By
the time the evening was over we'd promised our friends
we'd meet them at six o'clock the next morning on a nearby
peak to try out their gear and have our first lesson.
All
the way home we talked about how wonderful it would be to
start hang gliding.
Then
we walked through the front door, looked at each other,
and reality began to set in. We reminded ourselves
of how little time we actually have available. We
realized there was no way we'd be able to fit a new sport
into our schedule, especially one as time and energy
consuming as hang gliding. We knew that our short
list would suffer if we did. And our short list had
been suffering long enough.
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When
we analyzed it carefully, we realized hang gliding was not
as high on our list as we'd originally thought.
Reluctantly,
we called our friends and explained why we wouldn't be
able to join them.
"Sorry,
we got carried away. We'd truly love to meet you
tomorrow morning, but we're making some changes in our
lives, and we simply won't have time to get involved in
hang gliding for the time being."
When
we thought about it later, we realized this was progress
for us. In the past, we'd have purchased all the
equipment and had six weeks of lessons before it dawned on
us that we couldn't fit this new activity into our
schedule.
And
all the time, we'd have been wondering why, when we were
at last engaged in this wonderful activity that we both
had thought we wanted, our lives had become even more
complicated and stressed out. The choices then would
have been to stop hang gliding and feel guilty about all
the time and money we'd wasted, or to keep trying to
justify the expenditure by continuing with an endeavor
that we didn't have time for.
The
need to make wise choices encompasses every area of our
lives. Since we have time for only a limited amount
of stuff, we need to choose wisely what stuff we're going
to allow to take up that time. Since we have only a
limited amount of time to spend with friends or to engage
in leisure activities, we need to choose our friends and
our activities wisely.
Take
a look at your own life to see if there are any choices
you might be able to make that would free up more time and
energy for the things that are higher up on your list.
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Former
businesswoman Elaine
St. James, whose previous books,
Simplify Your Life and Inner
Simplicity,
have over 475,000 copies in print,
once again cries "Simplify!" in Living
the Simple Life: 100 Steps to Scaling
Down and Enjoying More. After a
brief testimony to the rewards of her
own simplified life, St. James discusses
100 areas, from household chores to
e-mail, where action may be effectively
taken to remove the clutter from everyday
life. A pinch of Heloise and a dash
of Buddha enliven her recipes. |
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| I
don't subscribe to the belief that non-violence is
cowardice. When people are involved in something
constructive, trying to bring about change, they tend to
be less violent than those who are not engaged in
rebuilding or in anything creative. Non-violence
forces one to be creative; it forces any leader to go to
the people and get them involved so that they can come
forth with new ideas. I think that once people
understand the strength of non-violence--the force it
generates, the love it creates, the response that it
brings from the total community--they will not be
willing to abandon it easily.
Cesar
Chavez
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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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What
Constitutes a Good Life?
Jim Rohn
The
ultimate expression of life is not a paycheck. The
ultimate expression of life is not a Mercedes. The
ultimate expression of life is not a million dollars or
a bank account or a home. Here's the ultimate
expression of life in my opinion, and that is living a
good life. Here's what we must ask constantly,
"What for me would be a good life?" And
you have to keep going over and over the list, a list
including areas such as spirituality, economics, health,
relationships and recreation. What would
constitute a good life? I've got a short list.
1) Productivity. You won't be happy if you
don't produce. The game of life is not rest.
We must rest, but only long enough to gather strength to
get back to productivity. What's the reason for
the seasons and the seeds, the soil and the sunshine,
the rain and the miracle of life? It's to see what
you can do with it, to try your hand; other people have
tried their hand, and they've accomplished much.
You try your hand to see what you can do. So part
of life is productivity.
2) Good friends. Friendship is probably the
greatest support system in the world. Don't deny
yourself the time to develop this support system.
Nothing can match it. It's extraordinary in its
benefit. Friends are those wonderful people who
know all about you and still like you. A few years
ago I lost one of my dearest friends. He died at
age 53 - heart attack. David is gone, but he was
one of my very special friends. I used to say of
David that if I was stuck in a foreign jail somewhere
accused unduly and if they would allow me one phone
call, I would call David. Why? He would come
and get me. That's a friend. Somebody who
would come and get you. Now we've all got casual
friends. And if you called them they would say,
"Hey, if you get back, call me we'll have a
party." So you've got to have both, real
friends and casual friends.
3) Your culture. Your language, your music,
the ceremonies, the traditions, the dress. All of
that is so vitally important that you must keep it
alive. In fact it is the uniqueness of all of us
that when blended together brings vitality, energy,
power, influence, uniqueness and rightness to the world.
4) Spirituality. It helps to form the
foundation of the family that builds the nation.
And make sure you study, practice and teach. Don't
be careless about the spiritual part of your
nature--it's what makes us who we are, different from
animal, dogs, cats, birds and mice. Spirituality.
5) Don't miss anything. My parents taught me
never to miss anything. Don't miss the game.
Don't miss the performance, don't miss the movie, don't
miss the show, don't miss the dance. Go to
everything you possibly can. Buy a ticket to
everything you possibly can. Go see everything and
experience all you possibly can. This has served
me so well to this day. Just before my father died
at age 93, if you were to call him at 10:30 or 11:00 at
night, he wouldn't be home. He was at the rodeo,
he was watching the kids play softball, he was listening
to the concert, he was at church, he was somewhere every
night.
Live a vital life. Here's one of the reasons
why. If you live well, you will earn well.
If you live well it will show in your face, it will show
in the texture of your voice. There will be
something unique and magical about you if you live
well. It will infuse not only your personal life
but also your business life. And it will give you
a vitality nothing else can give.
6) Your family and the inner circle. Invest
in them and they'll invest in you. Inspire them
and they'll inspire you. With your inner circle
take care of the details. When my father was still
alive, I used to call him when I traveled. He'd
have breakfast most every morning with the farmers, at a
little place called The Decoy Inn out in the country
where we lived in Southwest Idaho.
So Papa would go there and have breakfast and I'd call
him just to give him a special day. Now if I was
in Israel, I'd have to get up in the middle of the
night, but it only took five minutes, ten minutes.
So I'd call Papa and they'd bring him the phone.
I'd say, "Papa I'm in Israel." He'd say,
"Israel! Son, how are things in Israel?"
He'd talk real loud so everybody could hear - my son's
calling me from Israel. I'd say, "Papa last
night they gave me a reception on the rooftop underneath
the stars overlooking the Mediterranean."
He'd say, "Son, a reception on the rooftop
underneath the stars overlooking the
Mediterranean." Now everybody knows the
story. It only took 5 - 10 minutes, but what a
special day for my father, age 93.
If a father walks out of the house and he can still feel
his daughter's kiss on his face all day, he's a powerful
man. If a husband walks out of the house and he
can still feel the imprint of his wife's arms around his
body, he's invincible all day. It's the special
stuff with the inner circle that makes you strong and
powerful and influential. So don't miss that
opportunity. Here's the greatest value. The
prophet said, "There are many virtues and values,
but here's the greatest, one person caring for
another." There is no greater value than
love. Better to live in a tent on the beach with
someone you love than to live in a mansion by
yourself. One person caring for another, that's
one of life's greatest expressions.
So make sure in your busy day to remember the true
purpose and the reasons you do what you do. May
you truly live the kind of life that will bring the
fruit and rewards that you desire.
To Your Success,
Jim Rohn
Reproduced
with permission from the Jim Rohn Weekly E-zine
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Eyes
Wide Open
tom walsh
To
Everything, a Season
When I
was younger, I used to love listening to music all the
time. I still do, but I find that my tastes have
changed--I used to listen to upbeat music with strong
beats and strong melodies all the time, but now I find
that I listen to just as much soft, melodic music as
fast, upbeat music. And that's great--the soft
instrumental music is extremely relaxing, and it helps
me to slow down, mellow out, and enjoy my days much
more. I don't feel that I miss the other kinds of
music, for my life has changed. My needs and my
wants and my desires have changed, and my life is
different now. When I was younger, I didn't feel
the need to relax nearly as much, whereas now I find
that the relaxing times help me to be in touch with my
spirit, with the parts of myself that have been with me
all along but not part of my daily life because I never
allowed them to work their ways out.
My life
has changed--it changes every day in subtle ways, as a
matter of fact--and it would be silly of me to hold on
to things of my past just as a matter of tradition or
consistency. Today calls for something different
from me if I want to live my life in the best ways I can
live it. Emerson said that "A foolish
consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,"
which means that doing things just because we've always
done them (or doing them in a certain way simply because
we've always done them that way) is a reflection of our
inability or unwillingness to expand our minds, our
selves, and our beings. We always will keep our
minds little if we don't allow them to grow and expand,
and the only way to do so is to learn and try new
things, to take risks and expand ourselves.
In my
life I pass through many seasons, and it would be silly
to wear my summer clothes in the cold air of winter,
just as it would be very uncomfortable to wear my winter
coat when the summer temperatures outside are in the
90's.
Another
big change in my life is in my diet. I used to be
able to eat anything I wanted without gaining weight at
all, but once I reached a certain point in life, I
started gaining whenever I ate more than I needed.
My love for sweets and baked foods like pies and cookies
added to the problem, and over the course of a few years
I ended up gaining more weight than was healthy for
me. Nowadays I have to watch carefully what I eat
and exercise very regularly if I want to maintain my
current weight. And after all the work it's taken
to get back down to a weight that I know is healthy for
me, I don't want to regain that weight and return to an
unhealthy state.
Things
change in our lives. We grow apart from people we
thought would be friends forever; we feel a pull to
leave what we thought were stable careers to try our
hands at something new and different and challenging; we
see our likes and our dislikes and our tastes shift and
develop; we feel our beliefs become outdated and no
longer relevant. The human life is not a static
life, unchanging and always stable. The human life
is a dynamic one, one that we either can grow with and
change with, or can rebel against, holding on to the
wants and needs of our yesterdays in stubborn refusal to
admit that some things must change.
There
are some things that stay constant, of course. I
still have friends that I've known for a few
decades. I still love to run after many
years. I still like to read, even if I don't do so
as much. And I still love sweets and baked goods
and coffee, even if I don't partake in them as often.
Probably
the most important thing that we can do about the
seasons of our lives is to accept them, to be aware of
them and let them be. We need to put on a coat in
autumn, and we need to stay indoors more in the
winter. We tend to accept those realities very
easily. But what are the seasons of our lives
telling us to do? Can we recognize the clues and
cues, accept them, and do what's most appropriate for us
right here, and right now? Only when we learn how
to do these things will we be going with the flow of
life and allowing our lives to follow the cues that this
beautiful world of ours gives us.
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The
silence of
prayer is the silence
of listening.
Elizabeth
O'Connor
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All contents © 2008 Living Life Fully®, all rights
reserved.
Please feel free to re-use material from this site other than
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We
need to find God, and he cannot be
found in noise and restlessness. God is
the friend of
silence. See how nature--
trees, flowers, grass--grow in
silence;
see the stars, the moon and sun, how they move in
Silence. . . . The more we receive
in silent prayer, the
more we can give
in our active life. We need silence
to be
able to touch souls.
Mother
Teresa
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You Can Be Whatever You
Want to Be
Donna Levine
There is inside you
all of the potential to be whatever
you want to be--
all of the energy to do whatever
you want to do.
Imagine yourself as you would like to be,
doing what you want to do,
and each day, take one step
towards your dream.
And though at times it may seem too
difficult to continue,
hold on to your dream.
One morning you will awake to find
that you are the person
you dreamed of--
doing what you wanted to do
simply because you had the courage
to believe in your potential
and to hold on to your dream.
© Copyright by Donna Levine |
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