adversity - problems - risk

I've often thought that when something is hard for you,
whether it's going to law school or anything else that
challenges you, that's probably what you should do.

Hillary Rodham Clinton

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You have to meet all of the challenges, big and small.
Because how you start is how you finish.

Bernie Mac

It’s been a tough year. . . Someone said I should send out Buddhist
thank-you cards since Buddhists believe that anything that
challenges you makes you pull yourself together.

Robin Williams

As we rise to meet the challenges that are a natural part of
living, we awaken to our many undiscovered gifts,
to our inner power and our purpose.

Susan L. Taylor

Give yourself an even greater challenge than the one
you are trying to master and you will develop the
powers necessary to overcome the original difficulty.

William Bennett

Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves
come when life seems most challenging.

Joseph Campbell

Accept the challenges so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory.

George S. Patton

I have always grown from my problems and challenges, from
the things that don't work out; that's when I've really learned.

Carol Burnett

Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth.
Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.

Noela Evans

Above all, challenge yourself.  You may well surprise yourself
at what strengths you have, what you can accomplish.

Cecile M. Springer

There is no challenge more challenging than the challenge to improve yourself.

Michael F. Staley

Sometimes the darkest challenges, the most difficult lessons,
hold the greatest gems of light.

Barbara Marciniak
Family of Light

Always in the big woods when you leave familiar ground and step off
alone into a new place there will be, along with the feelings of curiosity
and excitement, a little nagging of dread.  It is the ancient fear of the
Unknown, and it is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into.

Wendell Berry

Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you;
they're supposed to help you discover who you are.

Bernice Johnson Reagon

There are no great people in this world, only great
challenges which ordinary people rise to meet.

William Frederick Halsy, Jr.

To be successful you must accept all challenges that
come your way.  You can't accept just the ones you like.

Mike Gafka

Challenges are what make life interesting;
overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.

Joshua J. Marine

adversity - problems - risk

The big challenge is to become all that you have the possibility
of becoming.  You cannot believe what it does to the human spirit
to maximize your human potential and stretch yourself to the limit.

Jim Rohn

Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge.
Warriors cannot complain or regret anything.  Their lives are
an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be
good or bad.  Challenges are simply challenges.

Carlos Castaneda

The key to life is accepting challenges.  Once someone stops
doing this, that person is dead.

Bette Davis

Life is made up of a series of challenges designed to bring us
to fullness of growth.  Meeting them with hope in the future
is the real test of the spiritual person.

Joan Chittister

When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and
willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending
that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The
challenge will not wait. Life does not look back.

Paulo Coelho
The Devil and Miss Prym

We all have our limitations. Some of them are visible, while others
are not. As we go about everyday life and interact with people, we
are not aware of their health problems that limit activity. Some
people have accepted and adapted to their limitations,
while others have not.

Too many times our limitations keep us from doing activities we once
enjoyed and are capable of enjoying again. We are resistant to
change. We don’t want people to see us with limitations. We are
embarrassed by our handicaps. We decide that we will give up.

We need to change our views of what is possible. If we modify
the activity, it may be possible to once again enjoy life. There is
much more that we can do if only we try. We might have to relearn
it or use a new piece of equipment, but joy can return.

As we make progress in adapting to our limitations in one
component of our lives, it is easier to adapt in other components
as well. For example, I had to learn how to drive my van with hand
controls, since my feet are paralyzed. I trained my hands and arms
how to use the new controls to accelerate and brake. Other
modified activities that were introduced to me, such as snow skiing,
were easier for me to learn because I was more willing to take a
risk and accept my limitations. I have also resumed: biking, tennis,
golf, racquetball, ice skating, and horse back riding. Adaptive
equipment makes these sports fit my lifestyle.

My message to you is look at your life. Look at the challenges
and the troubles that you’ve got, and realize that you’ve got
to adapt. You’ve got to look at yourself and your situation a little
differently. It may not be over. It may be just beginning.

Rosemarie Rossetti

quotations - contents - welcome page - obstacles
the people behind the words - our current e-zine - articles and excerpts
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The brick walls are there for a reason.  The brick walls are not there to keep
us out.  The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we
want something.  Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who
don’t want it badly enough.  They’re there to stop the other people.

Randy Pausch
The Last Lecture

If we are not allowed to deal with small problems, we will be destroyed
by slightly larger ones.  When we come to understand this, we live our
lives not avoiding problems, but welcoming them them as challenges that
will strengthen us so that we can be victorious in the future.

Jim Stovall
The Ultimate Gift

Contrary to what we usually believe, moments like these, the best moments
in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times--although such
experiences can also be enjoyable, if we have worked hard to attain them.
The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched
to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.
Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen.  For a child, it could
be placing with trembling fingers the last block on a tower she has built, higher
than any she has built so far; for a swimmer, it could be trying to beat his or her
own record; for a violinist, mastering an intricate musical passage.  For each
person there are thousands of opportunities, challenges to expand ourselves.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

It was one of those events which at a crucial stage in one's development
arrive to challenge and stretch one to the limit of one's ability and beyond,
so that thereafter one has a new standard by which to judge oneself.

Kazuo Ishiguro
The Remains of the Day