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29 April 2008 |
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| All
of us can work for peace. We can work right
where we are, right within ourselves, because the more
peace we have within our own lives, the more we can
reflect into the outer situation.
Peace
Pilgrim
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Peace
is self-control at its widest— at the width where the “self”
has been lost, and interest has been transferred to coordinations
wider than personality.
Alfred
North Whitehead |
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The
one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one
thing we never give enough of is love.
Henry
Miller |
When we connect with ourselves in love,
we can connect with others and the planet in love.
Rattana Hetzel |
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Giving
(an excerpt)
Jerry White
There
is a difference between surviving and thriving.
Thriving requires tapping into our gratitude and
drawing on this well to give to others. Studies
on gratitude and giving are starting to
proliferate. Why? Because people are
catching on to the secret of happiness--giving, not
getting. It turns out that by giving, we end up
getting as well. It's a loop. Ralph Waldo
Emerson said, "It is one of the most beautiful
compensations of life that no person can sincerely try
to help another without helping him or herself."
The
gift of gratitude is ancient wisdom. Aesop, the
Greek master of fables, said, "Gratitude is the
sign of noble souls." Marcus Tullius
Cicero, the Roman statesman and orator, said,
"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues,
but the parent of all others."
But
what if you don't have a lot? Can you still
give? Of course. Families living in
poverty are among the biggest givers relative to their
means. Just travel through low-income villages
around the world. You could be sitting in a
one-room house without plumbing or electricity, but
you will be fed like a king and served with abundant
kindness. You may not deserve or appreciate it
fully, but the fatted calf was sacrificed for you, a
stranger in their midst. It's worth remembering
that statistically the poorest among us are the most
generous. Well, that's why they are still
poor and I'm not, you jest, they should learn
to save. But seriously, does your savings
account bring you joy? Does your bank balance
make others smile? Have you ever given until it
hurts, and then been surprised by how good it feels?
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Generosity,
it turns out, is an indicator of gratitude and
happiness. Neuroscientists at the National
Institutes of Health have scanned the brains of
volunteers, asking them to think about a scenario
involving either donating a sum of money to a charity
or keeping it for themselves. When volunteers
placed the interests of others before their own, their
generosity activated a primitive part of the brain
that usually lights up in response to food or
sex. Altruism, the experiment suggested, is
basic to the brain, hardwired and pleasurable.
Just think of it. It was St. Francis of Assisi
who admonished, "For it is in giving that we
receive."
Giving
is simply good for us. It can be private,
public, big or small. Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., said "Life's most urgent question is what
are you doing for others? Everybody can be
great. . . because anybody can serve. You don't
have to make your subject and verb agree to
serve. You only need a heart full of grace
A soul generated by love."
Dragana,
my Bosnian friend who survived cervical cancer, says,
"I
do not want to live only for myself. I want to
share what I have learned and what I feel with
others. Not only through talking about my
experience and educating other young women that
cervical cancer does not happen to someone else, but
through inspiring and motivating people to discover
their inner strength and passion for taking charge in
their lives and making this world a better place.
"For
me, life is enriching and making better the lives of
people who are less fortunate than I am. And I
feel very, very fortunate. For me, a day spent
without making a difference in the life of others,
even by a kind word, a smile, is a wasted day.
And there is so much more that each of us can
give."
Hands
down, absolutely nothing I have done in my life has
compared with the transforming experience of meeting
thousands of survivors and trying to be of help.
I discovered meaning and growth in starting Landmine
Survivors Network. I came to believe that we can
all reflect on our circumstances and make meaning out
of tragedy. For ourselves, for the strength of
our communities, it is something we must apply
ourselves to do. It's an act of grace--allowing
a crisis to give us purpose.
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White
outlines a very specific
five-step program to coping with
disaster; to achieving strength and
hope; and to turning tragedy into
triumph. In their own words, his
survivor friends and colleagues
share their stories. It's a group that
includes the well known, like Lance
Armstrong, Nelson Mandela, and the
late Princess Diana, and also everyday
survivors. Through their stories and
the author's words, the book takes
readers step-by-step through the
process of not only surviving tragedy
and victimhood, but going on to thrive. |
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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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Principles
That Govern My Life
Chris Widener
The strength and durability of a building is found in
its foundation. The same is true in a
life. What we accomplish and the effect we have
on those around us is not only in what we do, but also
in who we are. In fact, what we do is driven by
who we are, what we believe and value, and the
principles that we live by.
Principles give us direction in whatever circumstances
we find ourselves in. They are transferable to
any given situation and will determine our
direction. Those who do not have permanent
principles will find themselves drifting along and
making decisions that are personally expedient,
short-term oriented and usually bad for their
long-term success. So I thought I would share
with you the principles that govern my life.
These are the ideas and concepts that drive my
behavior, my career, and my family. I would
encourage you to sit down and write out your own
principles--those that drive your life, or at least
that you want to drive your life!
God first, others second, me third. Gale Sayers,
the running back of the Chicago Bears wrote a book
titled I am Third. This is true. If
I am to do and be what I want to do and be in this
life, I recognize that I must have my priorities
right. Some people think that the way to success
is to put themselves first. This is short-term
thinking. Yes, you may be able to accomplish
much in the near-term, but long-term, the best is
accomplished by those who live by the above.
Always be completely honest. You really only
have your character when it comes right down to it,
and honesty is the quickest way to determine your
character. Live in such a way that you can be
completely honest and be willing to accept the
responsibility that being completely honest will
bring.
Make it your goal to help others; income will come
from that. Zig Ziglar is the one who got me
thinking about that. If you take care of others
and their needs, you will earn your income. If
you simply try to earn income, people will stop
responding to you and you will have defeated yourself.
You reap what you sow. This is the most common
truth on earth. You put an apple seed into the
ground, you get an apple tree. An orange seed
produces an orange tree. If you invest, your
money will grow. If you eat right and exercise
you will lose weight. If you are kind to others
they will be kind to you.
The true measure of a person's wealth is in the things
he or she can afford not to buy. This is one of
my favorite quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Things are great to have and so is money, but true
riches are the priceless things we can't buy, like our
family, our integrity and the sense of a job well
done. Pursue true wealth.
Work smart - and hard. Some say you should work
smart, not hard. I say work smart and
hard. A good day of hard work is a blessing and
ought to be appreciated. Hard work is what
changes the world - as long as it is smart, hard work!
Follow through on all commitments. If there is
one thing I can't stand it is when someone doesn't do
what they say they will. When we don't do what
we say we will, we essentially say that the job wasn't
important, the people we promised it to aren't
important, and that we can't be trusted. This is
a good way to short-circuit your success.
Challenge others to greatness. There are enough
people who will hold out the low bar for people to
step over. I want to be a person who holds up
the high bar, causing people to have to run and jump
with all their might. And when they clear that
high bar, I want to be there celebrating with them!
Find ways to generously give of your resources.
The old saying is true - you can't take it with
you. But you can spread it around to lots of
people while you are here. If we wait until we
die to give money away, we don't get any satisfaction
in seeing how it is used and enjoyed. Write a
few good-sized checks each month!
Treat people right no matter how they treat you.
You cannot control another person's behavior. It
took me a long time to realize that. I can only
control my behavior. And I can choose to do what
is right no matter how another person treats me.
If everybody retaliated every time someone treated
them bad, we would have a mess on our hands.
Instead, choose to act appropriately at all times.
When relationships go bad, be the first to hold out
the olive branch. Life is too short to leave a
relationship broken. As much as it is up to me,
I will pursue reconciliation, for their sake, and for
mine. I don't want to get to the end of my life
and wish I tried harder in my relationships. For
this reason I attempt to restore broken relationships.
Regularly try new things. This is what keeps the
spice of life going! Try new foods, go to new
places, and make new friends. You will be amazed
at the joy you receive and are able to give when you
make it a habit to try new things. Break out of
the mold, and do something unusual today!
Treat everyone equally. No one is better than
anyone else. I know people with tens of millions
of dollars and people who do not have two nickels to
rub together. They are both equally valuable and
worthy of being treated as such. Don't fall into
the trap of treating some people better than
others. It doesn't matter what color they are or
how much money the have or what country they come
from--treat them with the respect and dignity each
human deserves.
Use any success you have to help others. What
good is success that only helps you? Instead,
use the money you make to help others. Use the
connections you make to help someone else up.
Use the knowledge you achieve to give someone else a
leg up. Take what you have and give to others so
that they may join you on the journey of success.
Look down the economic scale more often than up.
When I look up the economic scale too often I become
greedy and unsatisfied. I become selfish.
Looking down at others who have less than me on a
regular basis keeps me humble. It reminds me of
all of the blessings I have and keeps me thankful for
them.
I want to encourage you to sit down soon and write out
the principles that guide your life. It is an
excellent exercise that will help you refocus and keep
your life going in the right direction! |
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Plum Blossoms
Rachel Naomi
Remen
Many years ago in the midst of a shopping trip, I found myself
in a store specializing in Japanese furniture, helping a friend
who was furnishing his house. He had been rapidly taken over
by the only salesperson, a tiny woman in a kimono who had grabbed
his arm and begun a discussion of Japanese paintings with him in a
loud and intense voice. Her head reached barely above his
elbow but in spite of her size her manner made me uncomfortable
and I drifted away toward the door, lurking behind chests and
tonkus, waiting until he finished his purchases.
I thought I had hidden successfully until, without warning, the
woman turned and moved toward me, pointing as she came. I
saw then that she was very old, possibly even deaf, and this
perhaps explained her loudness. She took me by the arm and
began to pull me through the showroom, encouraging me with little
clicking noises and repetitions of "Come. You
come." I tried to shake her off but for someone so
small and frail her grip was strong. So I went along,
followed by my friend, who was clearly amused by my struggle.
She took us into a room in the back of the store, empty except
for four scrolls, one on each wall, representing the
seasons. Unlike the paintings in the showroom these were
museum-quality. In one of them, an old and twisted branch
bloomed with hundreds of tiny pink blossoms. The branch and
the blossoms were covered with snow. It was exquisite.
Leading me up to this, she said to me, "You see, you see?
February! The plum blossom comes!" In her odd intense
way she told me that the plum suffered because it was the first,
it bloomed early, in February, often still in winter, in the hard
and the cold. She touched the snow on the branch with her
small arthritic hand, nodding her head vigorously. Looking
intensely into my face and shaking my arm slightly, she said,
"Plum blossom, the beginning. Like Japanese woman, plum
blossom gentle, tender, soft. . . and survive."
I puzzled about this for a long time afterwards. As a
physician, I thought I knew about survival, because after all I
was in the survival business. I had known survival to be a
matter of expertise, of skill and action, of competence and
knowledge. What she had told me made no sense to me.
This was confusing to me for other reasons as well. Like
the plum blossoms, I too had come early. My mother had
suffered from toxemia and I had been delivered by emergency
cesarean section far below full-term weight. In February
1938, I had not been expected to live. All through my
childhood I had been told that I had survived because of the
invention of the incubator.
For many years I had felt grateful for this technology,
dependent upon it for my life. Now as a young pediatrician I
was working in a premature intensive-care nursery using far more
powerful technology to keep other babies alive. But what the
old woman had said had made me wonder. Perhaps survival was
not only a question of the skillful use of state-of-the-art
technology, perhaps there was something innate, some strength in
those tiny pink infants, that enabled both them and me to
survive. I had never thought of that before.
It reminded me of something that had happened one spring day
when I was fourteen. Walking up Fifth Avenue in New York
City, I was astonished to notice two tiny blades of grass growing
through the sidewalk. Green and tender, they had somehow
broken through the cement. Despite the crowds bumping up
against me, I stopped and looked at them in disbelief. This
image stayed with me for a long time, possibly because it seemed
so miraculous to me. At the time, my idea of power was very
different. I understood the power of knowledge, of wealth,
of government, and the law. I had no experience with this
other sort of power yet.
Accidents and natural disasters often cause people to feel that
life is fragile. In my experience, life can change abruptly
and end without warning, but life is not fragile. There is a
difference between impermanence and fragility. Even on the
physiological level, the body is an intricate design of checks and
balances, elegant strategies of survival layered on strategies of
survival, balances and rebalances. Anyone who has witnessed
the recovery from such massive and invasive interventions as bone
marrow transplant or open heart surgery comes away with a sense of
deep respect, if not awe, for the ability of the body to survive.
This is as true in age as it is in youth.
There is a tenacity toward life which is present at the
intracellular level without which even the most sophisticated of
medical interventions would not succeed. The drive to live
is strong even in the most tiny of human beings. I remember
as a medical student seeing one of my teachers put a finger in the
mouth of a newborn and, once the baby took hold, gently lift him
partway off the bed by the strength of his suck.
That tenacity toward life endures in all of us, undiminished,
until the moment of our death.
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Sitting
around the table telling stories is not just a way of
passing time," writes Rachel Naomi Remen in her
introduction to Kitchen Table Wisdom. "It is the
way wisdom gets passed along. The stuff that helps us live a
life worth remembering." Remen, a physician, therapist,
professor of medicine, and long-term survivor of chronic
illness, is also a down-home storyteller. Reading this
collection of real-life parables feels like a late-night
kitchen session with a best friend, munching on leftovers
while listening to the good-as-gossip stories of everyday
heroes and archetype villains. Every story guides us like a
life compass, showing us what's good and lasting about
ourselves as well as humanity. |
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The majority of people are not awake; it is only
here and there
that we find one even partially awake. Practically all of us,
as a result,
are living lives that are unworthy almost the name of lives,
compared
to those we might be living, and that lie within our easy
grasp.
While it is true that each life is in and of Divine Being,
hence always
one with it, in order that this great fact bear fruit in
individual lives,
each one must be conscious of it; he or she must know it in
thought,
and then live continually in this consciousness.
Ralph
Waldo Trine |
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The
Fence
author unknown
There
once was a little boy with a bad temper. His father gave
him
a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his
temper, he should
hammer a nail in the back fence rather than take it out on
other people.
On
the first day, the boy drove 37 nails into the fence. As
the days
went by, though, the number of nails gradually dwindled
down. He discovered
it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails
into the fence.
Finally
the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all.
He
told his father about it, and the father suggested that the
boy now pull out one
nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper.
The days passed, and
the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the
nails were
gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to
the fence.
He
said, "You have done well, my son, and I'm very proud of
you.
But look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never
be the same.
Remember that when you say things in anger, your words leave a
scar
just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and
draw it out, and it
won't matter how many times you say 'I'm sorry'--the wound is
still there.
A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one." |
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