Free Will Choice

Life is like a game of cards.
The hand you are dealt is determinism;
the way you play it is free will.
- Jawaharlal Nehru

One of the annoying things about believing in free will
and individual responsibility is the difficulty
of finding somebody to blame your problems on.
And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable
how often his picture turns up on your driver's license.
- P. J. O'Rourke

Free will is not the liberty to do whatever one likes,
but the power of doing whatever one sees ought to be done,
even in the very face of otherwise overwhelming impulse.
There lies freedom, indeed.
- Anonymous

Further reading: Take Charge of Your Life

Consciousness

Be Simply Yourself
   

Unconditional Love, Not Judgment

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
- Mother Teresa

Love your neighbor as yourself.
- Leviticus 19:18

The only way you can serve God is by serving other people.
- Rick Warren

Do to others as you would have them do to you.
- Luke 6:31 (the "Golden Rule")

I can only have peace of mind when I forgive rather than judge.
- Gerald Jampolsky

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me:
I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
...
Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these
my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Matthew 25:35-40

Further reading: To Be a Faithful Follower of Jesus

Keep the Golden Rule

Tolerance, Not Judgement

We Belong to Each Other

Seek To Love
    

The Whole of Life

You must understand the whole of life,
not just one little part of it.
That is why you must read,
that is why you must look at the skies,
that is why you must sing and dance,
and write poems
and suffer and understand,
for all that is life.
- Jiddu Krishnamurti

Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.
We cannot cure the world of sorrows,
but we can choose to live in joy.
- Joseph Campbell

Count your blessings - not your troubles.
- Dale Carnegie

Today I choose life.
Every morning when I wake up I can choose joy,
happiness, negativity, pain...
To feel the freedom that comes from being able to continue
to make mistakes and choices -
today I choose to feel life,
not to deny my humanity but embrace it.
- Kevyn Aucoin

Hold on... Joyfully.
Holding-on does not have to be
a desperate teeth-gritting kind of holding-on.
Holding-on can be a joyful
"this is just the nature of Life,
so I may as well enjoy it"
kind of holding-on.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Why Me?

Fear of Suffering

Times of Trial and Suffering

Unbending
   

Celebration of My Life

I celebrate myself, and sing myself.
- Walt Whitman

Celebrate what you want to see more of.
- Tom Peters

There is not one blade of grass, there is no color
in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.
- John Calvin

Celebrate Your Life!
Celebration is an expression of Gratitude.
Gratitude is like the prayer, while
Celebration is the hymn and sacred dance.
Celebration is its own road to happiness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today's affirmation:
I walk today's march with courage.
I create today as my celebration of life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Celebration - It's a party

Rejoice

Celebration

Celebrate Endings

Celebrate Rainbows and Butterflies - the Small Miracles of Our Life
    

As a Young Child

Choose to be as a young child -
fully awake, eager for the next experience.
As we age, we experience disappointments,
and then develop a fear of the unfamiliar.
Consciously adopt the mindset of a young child,
to whom all of life is a grand adventure.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Unless you try to do something
beyond what you have already mastered,
you will never grow.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Become more and more innocent,
less knowledgeable and more childlike.
Take life as fun -
because that's precisely what it is!
- Osho

If we don't change, we don't grow.
If we don't grow, we aren't really living.
- Gail Sheehy

Unless you change and become like little children,
you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
- Jesus (Matthew 18:3)


Further reading:Childlike Wonder

Try Something New

Welcome Change
   

Wisdom through Understanding

That is what learning is.
You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life,
but in a new way.
- Doris Lessing

To acquire knowledge, one must study;
but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.
- Marilyn vos Savant

Develop a passion for learning.
If you do, you will never cease to grow.
- Anthony J. D'Angelo

Cultivate a 'learning consciousness,'
in which your experiences, knowledge,
and attitudes expand over time;
in contrast to a 'fixed consciousness,'
in which one stagnates and fails to progress.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Lifelong Learning

Lessons from Life

Knowledge is Soon Changed

The Nature of Learning

True Understanding
    

A Riot of New Ideas

The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.
- Charles Kettering (1876-1958 - holder of 186 US Patents, including the automotive electric starter)

I can't understand why people
are frightened by new ideas.
I'm frightened of old ones.
- John Cage

Wise men put their trust in ideas
and not in circumstances
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The world moves, and ideas that were
once good are not always good.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Incite a riot of new ideas.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Ideas, yes.
Inspiration, yes.
Creativity, yes.
Planning, yes.
Perseverance, yes.
More perseverance, yes.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Progress

Cheer for Endings

A Better Plan

Flexibility
    

Lighten Up, Life Isn't Serious

Life is too important to be taken seriously.
- Oscar Wilde

Your attitude is like a box of crayons that color your world.
Constantly color your picture gray, and your picture will always be bleak.
Try adding some bright colors to the picture by including humor,
and your picture begins to lighten up.
- Allen Klein

Seriousness is a sickness; your sense of humor
makes you more human, more humble.
The sense of humor - according to me -
is one of the most essential parts of religiousness.
- Osho

Smile.
Today would be a wonderful day
not to take life so seriously.
Today may end up the way you prefer -
and it may not.
Happiness is not about being a winner -
it's about being gentle with life -
being gentle with yourself.
Let life be a dance,
and choose the kind of
dance you want for today -
perhaps a gentle loving dance.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Time to Smell the Flowers

Humor in the Face of Adversity

Tread Lightly

As a Child Again

Be Gentle with Yourself
   

Guide Our Feet toward Peace

Let there be peace on earth.
And let it begin with me.
- Jill Jackson Miller

Each one has to find his peace from within.
And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

When you pray for anyone, you tend to
modify your personal attitude toward them.
- Norman Vincent Peale

If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Guide our feet into the way of peace.
- Luke 1:79

Pause. Breathe deeply. Focus on your own inner peace and the peace of the world.

Further reading: Peace Through Peace

Radiating Light and Love

Being Peaceful

The War Within Yourself
    

Acting on Big Dreams

So many of our dreams at first seem impossible,
then they seem improbable, and then,
when we summon the will,
they soon become inevitable.
- Christopher Reeve

New ideas pass through three periods:
1) It can't be done.
2) It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing.
3) I knew it was a good idea all along!
- Arthur C. Clarke

Winners Dream Big Dreams.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We come this way but once.
We can either tiptoe through life
and hope we get to death without being badly bruised
or we can live a full, complete life achieving
our goals and realizing our wildest dreams.
- Bob Proctor

A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.
- Mark Twain

We have a choice of how we view the obstacles on our life path.
One choice makes us slaves to circumstance,
while the other empowers us, and motivates us
to follow our dreams - and our happiness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Boldly Sail the Storms of Life

Hold Fast to Your Dreams

What You Become

Don’t Quit
    

Look to the Simple Joys

The essence of life is not in
the great victories and grand failures,
but in the simple joys.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Instead of dwelling on negative thoughts,
cause your mind to dwell on peace and joy.
- Ernest Holmes

Find a place inside where there's joy,
and the joy will burn out the pain.
- Joseph Campbell

Resolve to keep happy, and your joy
and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.
- Helen Keller

Have NO EXPECTATIONS.
Life will not meet your expectations.
Choose joy anyway.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Choose Joy Anyway

Calm During Storms

Radiating Light and Love

Life Really Is Good
    

To be Fully Alive

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake
is to be continually thrown out of the nest.
- Pema Chodron

We can only be said to be truly alive in those moments
when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
- Thornton Wilder

Don't ask yourself what the world needs;
ask yourself what makes you come alive.
And then go and do that.
Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
- Howard Thurman

Our lives are to be used and thus to be lived as fully as possible,
and truly it seems that we are never so alive as when
we concern ourselves with other people.
- Harry Chapin

One does not become fully human painlessly.
- Rollo May

Further Reading: Embracing Change

Upheaval

Staying Flexible
    

Imagining is the First Step

If you can imagine it, you can achieve it.
If you can dream it, you can become it.
- William Arthur Ward

The power of imagination makes us infinite.
- John Muir

Imagination is everything.
It is the preview of life's coming attractions.
- Albert Einstein

Live out of your imagination, not your history.
- Stephen Covey

The man who has no imagination has no wings.
- Muhammad Ali

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand,
while imagination embraces the entire world,
and all there ever will be to know and understand.
- Albert Einstein

Imagining is the first step to accomplishing.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Magic

The Canvas Of Life

Imagination

Why be Reasonable?
   

Painter of Your Dreams

Imagine peace. Imagine love. Imagine oneness.
Imagine whatever most speaks to your heart.
Whatever you can imagine, you can accomplish.
The canvas of life awaits You -
the painter of your dreams.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.
- Henry David Thoreau

If you wait for the perfect moment when all is safe and assured,
it may never arrive.
Mountains will not be climbed, races won,
or lasting happiness achieved.
- Maurice Chevalier

Affirmation:
I boldly paint my dreams upon the canvas of my life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Take a moment to sit back, close your eyes,
and visualize what you wish for the world,
what you wish for the future of humankind.

Further reading: How to Choose Your Life Purpose

Respecting All Life

Flexibility

The Quiet Voice of Courage
    

Presidents' Day 2016

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
- Abraham Lincoln (16th United States President)

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie,
deliberate, contrived and dishonest,
but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
- John F. Kennedy (35th President of the United States)

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt (32nd President of the United States)

We hold these truths to be self-evident:
that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
- Thomas Jefferson (third President of the United States)
[Declaration of Independence, and inscribed in the Jefferson Memorial]

Further reading: Being a Leader

Don't Borrow Trouble

Difference of Opinion

Killing Each Other's Children
    

Long-Lasting Love

Love that does not renew itself every day
becomes a habit and in turn a slavery.
- Khalil Gibran

Some people come into our lives and quickly go.
Some people stay for awhile, and move our souls to dance.
They awaken us to a new understanding,
leave footprints on our hearts,
and we are never, ever the same.
- Flavia Weedn

No partner in a love relationship should feel
that he has to give up an essential part of himself to make it viable.
- May Sarton

Every good relationship, especially marriage, is based on respect.
If it's not based on respect,
nothing that appears to be good will last very long.
- Amy Grant

Marriage, ultimately, is the practice of
becoming passionate friends.
- Harville Hendrix

Further reading: A Loving Relationship

7 Secrets of Happy Couples

Celebrating Your Differences

Say It Out Loud
   

Choose to Alleviate Suffering

The bond of our common humanity is stronger
than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices.
God gives us the capacity for choice.
We can choose to alleviate suffering.
We can choose to work together for peace.
We can make these changes - and we must.
- Jimmy Carter

For me, an area of moral clarity is:
you're in front of someone who's suffering
and you have the tools at your disposal
to alleviate that suffering or even eradicate it,
and you act.
- Paul Farmer

Helping someone is what life is all about.
- Willie Stargell  

I hope you always forgive, and you never regret,
And you help somebody every chance you get.
- from "My Wish" by Rascal Flatts

If you are healthy, support those who are sick.
If you have a job, support those who have lost theirs.
If you are strong, support those who are feeble of body or mind.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: To Be a Faithful Follower of Jesus

Judge Not

Measure of Your Heart

Christians Charged with Helping Others

Our Purpose is to Serve
   

Powerful Dreams, Powerful Action

Powerful Dreams Inspire Powerful Action.
When you can taste, smell, and touch your dreams,
you can enroll the world.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Nothing happens unless first a dream.
- Carl Sandburg

A man can succeed at almost anything
for which he has unlimited enthusiasm.
- Charles M. Schwab

What is your dream - your life-dream?
Have you begun to live it yet?

Further reading: I Dreamed a Dream (Susan Boyle video)

I have a Dream... Martin Luther King Jr. (video)

Dream. Begin. Persevere.

Follow Your Dreams
  

Let Your Heart Lead

Listen to the compass of your heart.
All you need lies within you.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Your inner knowing is your only true compass.
- Joy Page

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition -
they somehow already know what you truly want to become.
- Steve Jobs

Everyone who wills, can hear the inner voice.
It is within everyone.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Further reading: Choose to Follow Your Heart

The Beat of the Universe

Inner Voice

Feel Your Connection With the Infinite - a Meditation
    

Welfare of Our Children

Nothing is more important in our national life
than the welfare of our children.
- Harry S. Truman (33rd President of the United States)

There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul
than the way in which it treats its children.
- Nelson Mandela

Education is a social process.
Education is growth.
Education is, not a preparation for life;
education is life itself.
- John Dewey

What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us;
what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.
- Albert Pike

Further reading: Honor the Children

Teach by Example

Feed the Children

Full Measure
    

Love Life and Live Fully

Live with intention.
Walk to the edge.
Listen hard.
Practice wellness.
Play with abandon.
Laugh.
Choose with no regret.
Appreciate your friends.
Continue to learn.
Do what you love.
Live as if this is all there is.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

I challenge you to make your life a masterpiece.
I challenge you to join the ranks of those people
who live what they teach, who walk their talk.
- Tony Robbins

The highest and most beautiful things in life
are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen
but, if one will, are to be lived.
- Soren Kierkegaard

Today's affirmation: Today, I will do my best...
and then relax in the knowing that I have done all I could.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Enthusiasm and Passion

Progress

Live Every Moment, Joyfully

Don't Miss Out On Life
    

Dance with Your Life

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...
It's about learning to dance in the rain.
- Vivian Greene

A happy life consists not in the absence,
but in the mastery of hardships.
- Helen Keller

Dance like no one is watching,
love like you'll never be hurt.
Sing like no one is listening.
Live life like it's heaven on earth.
- Anonymous (various attributions and alternate phrasings)

I live to experience something new each day -
to learn something new,
meet a new friend,
bring joy into someone's life,
feel the wind newly on my skin,
touch a new fear, a new anger,
and with focused intent and good fortune,
find an ample measure of my own joy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Appreciate Today

Not Too Serious

Choose Joy Anyway

Choose to Love Life
    

Faith, Not Fear

Can you imagine a life with no fear?
What if faith, not fear, was your default reaction to threats?
- Max Lucado

I will gather myself around my faith.
Light does the darkness most fear.
- Jewel

One who has any faith in God
should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Fear clogs; faith liberates.
- Elbert Hubbard

With complete faith there is no fear
of what faces you in life or death.
- Jacqueline Cochran

Further reading: Know That You Are Loved

The Edge of All You Know

Don't Worry about Tomorrow
    

Stop Trying to Grasp at "Security"

Security is mostly a superstition.
It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
- Helen Keller

There is no security on this Earth,
there is only opportunity.
- Douglas MacArthur

Our only security is our ability to change.
- John Lilly

Security is not the absence of danger,
but the presence of God,
no matter what the danger.
- Anonymous

All life is change.
Release your attachment to the way things have been,
and wend your way joyfully
through life's unfolding majesty.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: True faith needs no guarantees

All Life is a Risk

Courage to Take Action

Choose to be Courageous
  

Kindness: The Best of Being Human

The smallest act of kindness
is worth more than the grandest intention.
- Oscar Wilde

You cannot do a kindness too soon,
for you never know how soon it will be too late.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Be kind whenever possible; and it is always possible.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Wherever there is a human being,
there is an opportunity for a kindness.
- Seneca

Kindness is the most sincere expression of being fully human.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: The Parable of the Good Samaritan

Let Us Be Kind

Brotherly Love

Empathy
   

Creating Light

As we work to create light for others,
we naturally light our own way.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others
will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves.
- Helen Keller

Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven.
- Henry Ward Beecher

What power there is in our service
when our actions line up with our mission, skills and joy.
– Mary Anne Radmacher

It costs you nothing to make another happy -
and you gain your true self through the act of spreading joy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: How can I find what my happiness is supposed to be or look like?

Happiness in Cheering Others

Rekindling the Light

Think a Kind Thought Today

We Belong to Each Other
    

Respect the Right to be Different

The highest result of education is tolerance.
Long ago men fought and died for their faith;
but it took ages to teach them the other kind of courage, -
the courage to recognize the faiths of their brethren
and their rights of conscience.
- Helen Keller

To be one, to be united is a great thing.
But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.
- Bono

In the practice of tolerance,
one's enemy is the best teacher.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Tolerance is the first principle of community;
it is the spirit which conserves
the best that all men think.
- Helen Keller

Further reading: Through the Eyes of Another

Each To Their Own

Open Minds

All Brothers and Sisters
   

Believe in...

Believe in the goodness of life.
Believe in the power of time to heal and to renew.
Believe in the power of forgiveness and gratitude.
Believe in the gift of rainbows and butterflies.
Believe in the laughter of children.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Believe in love.
Believe in magic.
Believe in others.
Believe in yourself.
Believe in your dreams.
If you don't, who will?
- Jon Bon Jovi

A generous heart, kind speech,
and a life of service and compassion
are the things which renew humanity.
- The Buddha

Being part of the natural world reminds me
that innocence isn't ever lost completely;
we just need to maintain our goodness to regain it.
- Jewel

Further reading: Renewing Yourself

Believe in Humanity

Our Opportunity

Natural Goodness
    

Take Nothing Personally

We are to take nothing personally,
least of all ourselves, for the moment we do,
our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.
- Hopi Proverb

What you think of me is none of my business.
- Terry Cole-Whittaker

You can't get mad at weather because weather's not about you.
Apply that lesson to most other aspects of life.
- Doug Coupland

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; ...
Forgive them anyway.
- Kent Keith
(often attributed to Mother Teresa, who kept a copy on the wall of her orphanage)

Don't Take Anything Personally.
Nothing others do is because of you.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Whatever anyone else says or does, their words
and their actions are truly about themselves.
Don't take it personally when they rant,
even if they direct their unhappiness in your direction.
Their negativity is basically selfishness,
and their selfishness is about them, not about you.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: How to Not Care What People Think about You

Don't Take Rejection Personally

How to be Positive Around Negative People