Be Happy and Share Your Happiness

Happiness is not something ready made.
It comes from your own actions.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Happiness... consists in giving, and in serving others.
- Henry Drummond

Happiness is like a kiss.
You must share it to enjoy it.
- Bernard Meltzer

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Choosing to live a happy life is not only our greatest gift to ourselves,
it is also the greatest gift we can give to those around us.
When we are happy, we radiate happiness, and that is infectious.
Consider giving the gift of happiness to yourself as being your gift to all humanity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Happiness Depends upon Ourselves

Cease Striving to Find Happiness

Sharing Happiness

Choose Joy Anyway

Happiness in Cheering Others

A Happy Life
    

Don't Ask Why Life is Not "Fair"

The less I take the difficulties of my life as personal affront,
and the more I use them as an opportunity to learn and grow...
the easier I sleep at night.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

"Why?" is the most useless question in the universe.
The only question with any meaning is "What?"
Asking "Why is this happening?" can only disempower you.
Asking "What do I want to make of this?" does exactly the opposite.
- Neale Donald Walsch

Nature is relentless and unchangeable,
and it is indifferent as to whether its hidden reasons
and actions are understandable to man or not.
- Galileo Galilei

Life is NOT "Supposed to be Fair."
Know that there is no single way that life is "supposed" to be.
Demanding that life meet our expectations
is a sure fire recipe for a miserable existence.
Life is a game with no rules.
Life just happens to us regardless of our best intentions.
Our only path to happiness lies in being open
to receiving whatever life throws at us -
with Gratitude. Have NO Expectations of life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Complaining Only Makes You Miserable

A Choice for Joy

Break Your Cycle of Self-Inflicted Suffering

What One Emphasizes

You Are Not A Victim

My thoughts on "Life is not supposed to be fair."
    

Solitude vs. Loneliness

Language... has created the word "loneliness"
to express the pain of being alone.
And it has created the word "solitude"
to express the glory of being alone.
- Paul Tillich

I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.
We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men
than when we stay in our chambers.
- Henry David Thoreau

When you are lonely you are thinking of the other,
you are missing the other.
Loneliness is a negative state...
Aloneness is the presence of oneself.
Aloneness is very positive.
- Osho

If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.
- Jean-Paul Sartre

Loneliness is not what it seems.
One does not feel lonely because one is alone,
but because of a feeling of lack -
a feeling that something is missing.
Loneliness is essentially independent
of how many other humans are around.
It has much more to do with one's self-esteem -
one's sense of inherent worth.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Feeling Discouraged?

Feeling Sorry for Yourself?

Solitude vs. Feeling Lonely

Feeling Alone
    

Make a Difference, Vote

Act as if what you do makes a difference.
It does.
- William James

The 4th Tuesday of each September is National Voter Registration Day in the United States.
If you aren't already registered to vote, PLEASE do it TODAY.
Your vote is your voice (and your civic duty).
Please vote in every local and national election and primary.

In many places, every voter is eligible to vote by mail.
Request your vote-by-mail ballot and vote now.

We must remember that one determined person can make
a significant difference,
and that a small group of determined people
can change the course of history.
- Sonia Johnson

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold
is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
- Thomas Jefferson

Voting is an expression of three key life principles -
CHOICE, INTENT, and ACTION.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: All That I May Be

This World, Our Legacy

Fulfilling Your Dreams

Creating Your Legacy
    

Have Faith that God will do what is Right

Faith is not the belief that God will do what you want.
It is the belief that God will do what is right.
- Max Lucado

A person who is fanatic in matters of religion,
and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe,
becomes a person who has no faith at all.
- Alan Watts

I don't doubt God. I have firm faith absolutely in God.
It's religion I'm doubting.
- Bono
(Bono is deeply influenced by the Northern Ireland "Troubles," the 1968-1998 civil war
between Protestant Christians and Catholic Christians in which thousands were killed.)

Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.
- Michel de Montaigne

What does it profit, my brethren,
if someone says he has faith but does not have works?
Can faith save him?
- James 2:14

The faith that stands on authority is not faith.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

To know a person's religion
we need not listen to his profession of faith
but must find his brand of intolerance.
- Eric Hoffer

Further reading: Know that You have been Blessed

Thank You Prayer

Where there is Great Love

Heaven on Earth
    

Being of Service

Find out how much God has given you
and from it take what you need;
the remainder is needed by others.
- Saint Augustine

Show me your hands.
Do they have scars from giving?
Show me your feet.
Are they wounded in service?
Show me your heart.
Have you left a place for divine love?
- Fulton J. Sheen (Archbishop)

Let us touch the dying, the poor,
the lonely and the unwanted
according to the graces we have received
and let us not be ashamed
or slow to do the humble work.
- Mother Teresa

God expects us to care for His world -
to clean up our sewage and our industrial pollution -
to respect His forests and His wild animals.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: The Universal Sacrament of Compassion

Unity in One Body and One Spirit

Confession of Sins

To Keep the Golden Rule
    

Transformation into Butterfly

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.
- Richard Buckminster Fuller

The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief
in injustice and tragedy.
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world,
the Master calls the butterfly.
- Richard Bach

"Know thyself."
A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly.
Whoever studies himself arrests his own development.
A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly.
- Andre Gide

There are all kinds of futures.
There is a hoped-for future,
there is a feared future,
there is a predictable future,
and there is an unimagined future.
- Werner Erhard

Further reading: Endings

Butterfly

Be an Instrument of Change
    

In the Darkest of Times

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times,
if one only remembers to turn on the light.
- J.K. Rowling

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.
- Aristotle Onassis

It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
- Chinese proverb often quoted by Eleanor Roosevelt

The unknown is like the darkness of a cave -
it can be illuminated by the brief light
of one adventurer's small candle.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Create Light for Others

Dark Days

Divine Spark
   

Seeing Clearly

Normally, we do not so much look at things as overlook them.
- Alan Watts

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes
but in having new eyes.
- Marcel Proust

You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one.
Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own.
It's just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.
- Paulo Coelho

There are none so blind as those who will not see.
- John Heywood (also attributed to the later Matthew Henry, and others)
(based on Jeremiah 5:21)

The question is not what you look at, but what you see.
- Henry David Thoreau

We do not always see what is before our face -
sometimes we see what we hope to see,
or what we fear we will see.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Art of Seeing

What We Perceive

Listen, Really Listen

Pause to Wonder

Observe Life
    

Value Your Self Respect

Unless someone truly has the power to say no,
they never truly have the power to say yes.
- Dan Millman

To free us from the expectations of others,
to give us back to ourselves -
there lies the great singular power of self-respect.
- Joan Didion

That you may retain your self-respect, it is better
to displease the people by doing what you know is right,
than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.
- William J. H. Boetcker

Perhaps the surest test of an individual's integrity
is his refusal to do or say anything that would damage his self-respect.
- Thomas S. Monson

Everyone should carefully observe
which way his heart draws him,
and then choose that way with all his strength.
- Hasidic Proverb

Once you respect yourself, there is no longer
any reason to disrespect anyone else.
Once you are confident of your own worthiness,
the worthiness of others ceases to be an issue.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today's affirmation:
I say NO to the demands of the world.
I say YES to the longings of my own heart.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: At the Center of Your Being

Make Your Own Choices

Your Own Trail

Personal Boundaries
    

Meaning and Attitude

The meaning of things lies not in the things themselves,
but in our attitude towards them.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Delicious, fattening, heavenly, evil, works of art, gluttonous -- same pastries.

The universe is wider than our views of it.
- Henry David Thoreau

Could we change our attitude,
we should not only see life differently,
but life itself would be different.
- Katherine Mansfield

We are injured and hurt emotionally,
not so much by other people
or what they say and don't say,
but by our own attitude and our own response.
- Maxwell Maltz

Further reading: The Meaning of Time

Perspective on the Past

Your Point of View Determines What You See

The Meaning of Life 

Your Perspective Creates Your World

What Gives Meaning to Our Lives?
   

Our Future IS the Education of Our Children

I don't think anybody anywhere can talk about the future...
without talking about education.
Whoever controls the education of our children controls our future.
- Wilma Mankiller

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

Modern cynics and skeptics... see no harm in paying those
to whom they entrust the minds of their children
a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom
they entrust the care of their plumbing.
- John F. Kennedy

Nothing is more important than education,
because nowhere are our stakes higher;
our future depends on the quality of education of our children today.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger

There are two educations.
One should teach us how to make a living,
and the other how to live.
- John Adams

Education is not job training;
the function of education is to instill an appreciation
of our place in the flow of time and space,
to expand our intellectual and empathetic understanding
of nature and people.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Lifelong Learning

Honor the Children

The Nature of Learning

How Society Treats Its Children
   

Prayers

I offer my body, my mind
and any ability that I posses,
to be used by Thee, O Infinite Creator,
in whatever way Thou dost choose
to express Thyself through me.
I know that all work is Thy work,
and that no task is too difficult
or too menial when offered
to Thee in loving service.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

Today I offer a prayer of forgiveness:
forgive the pettiness of my ingratitude...
the absence of profound thankfulness.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was,
Thank you, that would suffice.
- Meister Eckhart

Lord, grant comfort, joy and health
to those I call friend,
to those I call enemy,
and to those I have cursed by my indifference.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: God Grant Me The Wisdom

Allow Love to Conquer Hate

Watch What You Pray For

Radiate Light and Love

Be at Peace
    

All Life is a Risk

You have to take risks.
We will only understand the miracle of life fully when
we allow the unexpected to happen.
- Paulo Coelho

The trouble is,
if you don't risk anything,
you risk even more.
- Erica Jong

With courage you will dare to take risks,
have the strength to be compassionate,
and the wisdom to be humble.
Courage is the foundation of integrity.
- Keshavan Nair

Could you risk believing that everything
will unfold just fine if you completely let go
of all concern about everything else,
and simply are here, now - if only for a moment?
- Dmitri Bilgere

All Life is a risk - even crossing the street, or sitting in your easy chair.
So relax, don't worry, and live the most productive and enjoyable life you can.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Dare to Fail

Life's Daring Adventure

Be Boldly Decisive

Accepting the Fear of Change
    

Let It Go

By letting it go, it all gets done.
The world is won by those who let it go.
But when you try and try,
The world is beyond the winning.
- Lao Tzu

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about
God while one is peeling potatoes.
Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.
- Alan Watts

Be - don't try to become.
Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance.
- Osho

The things of this world exist;
they are; you can't refuse them.
- Lao Tzu

If you understand, things are just as they are;
if you do not understand, things are just as they are.
- Zen Proverb

Besides the noble art of getting things done,
there is the noble art of leaving things undone.
The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.
- Lin Yutang

Further reading: Stillness

Gratitude for THIS Moment

Paradox

Stay Adaptable
    

The Gift of Forgiving

Without forgiveness, life is governed
by an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation.
- Roberto Assagioli

Today, I say yes to forgiving.
I commit to being for-giving love
and for-giving compassion in all areas of my life.
- Sheri Rosenthal

Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness,
or else forgiving another.
- Jean Paul

Give yourself the gift of forgiving
everyone you are angry with -
for every action you resent.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: The Cleansing Power of Forgiveness

Forgive Others for Your Own Sake

Finding Peace in Forgiveness

How to get over regrets and resentments
    

Your Greatest Gift

Your greatest gift to your family and friends is yourself -
your relaxed, happy, and fully-present self.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Every time you smile at someone,
it is an action of love,
a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.
- Mother Teresa

Gift the love of your life with un-distracted,
un-televisioned, unhurried attentiveness.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort
of feeling safe with a person;
having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words,
but to pour them all out, just as they are,
chaff and grain together,
knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them,
keep what is worth keeping, and then,
with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.
- George Eliot

Further reading: Family Love

True Friends

You Can't Escape Yourself

Sharing with Friends

What is a Home?
    

Time for Action

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
- Lao Tzu (Chinese Proverb)

The time for action is now.
It's never too late to do something.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Act as if it were impossible to fail.
- Dorthea Brande

Inaction breeds doubt and fear.
Action breeds confidence and courage.
If you want to conquer fear,
do not sit home and think about it.
Go out and get busy.
- Dale Carnegie

Believe in yourself,
in your vision for your future
and in your ability to take a small step
each day toward achieving your vision.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Faith Plus Action

Don't Wait - Begin Today

You Are What You Do

The First Day
    

Proclaiming Truth

He who sees the truth, let him proclaim it,
without asking who is for it or who is against it.
- Henry George

Stand upright, speak thy thoughts,
declare the truth thou hast, that all may share;
Be bold, proclaim it everywhere:
They only live who dare.
- Voltaire

To be outspoken is easy when you do not wait to speak the complete truth.
- Rabindranath Tagore

The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others
and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us,
and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak,
the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The truth is always something that is told,
not something that is known.
If there were no speaking or writing,
there would be no truth about anything.
There would only be what is.
- Susan Sontag

Further reading: Calling Out Injustice

Speaking Your Word

Take Action - Now

To Live, Not Merely To Exist
    

Justice, Peace and Brotherhood

While you are proclaiming peace with your lips,
be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.
- St. Francis of Assisi

The hope of a secure and livable world
lies with disciplined nonconformists
who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist.
I am willing to fight for peace.
Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.
- Albert Einstein

Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world.
For, indeed, that's all who ever have.
- Margaret Mead

If you want to make peace with your enemy,
you have to work with your enemy.
Then he becomes your partner.
- Nelson Mandela

Today's affirmation:
Let me bring peace into moments of chaos.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Gaining Peace Through Peace

Focus on Peace

Believe in People; Believe in Yourself

Peace Pilgrim
    

Nature and Soul

Forests, lakes, and rivers,
clouds and winds, stars and flowers,
stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes -
every form of animate or inanimate existence,
leaves its impress upon the soul of man.
- Orison Swett Marden

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.
- John Muir

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.
- Alexander Pope

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful,
for beauty is God's handwriting.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Take time today to appreciate beauty -
natural beauty, art, people.
Slow down, breathe deeply, smile.
It's a beautiful world.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Healing in Nature

The Melody Within Your Soul

Tending the Garden of Our Lives

The Beat of the Universe
    

A Comfortable Friendship with Time

Time, like life itself, has no inherent meaning.
We give our own meaning to time as to life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Who forces time is pushed back by time;
who yields to time finds time on his side.
- The Talmud

There is only one time that is important - NOW!
It is the most important time because
it is the only time that we have any power.
- Leo Tolstoy

Do not dwell in the past,
do not dream of the future,
concentrate the mind on the present moment.
- The Buddha

Don't fight against time.
Develop a comfortable friendship with time.
Time enjoyed is never time wasted.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today's affirmation: Time is my friend.

Further reading: Your Relationship with Time

Master of Patience

Urgency

Emulate the Patience of Nature
    

Blessed in Abundance

We attract abundance when we ask from a compassionate heart.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
- Matthew 7:7

In our willingness to give that which we seek,
we keep the abundance of the universe circulating in our lives.
- Deepak Chopra

Life in abundance comes only through great love.
- Elbert Hubbard

Further reading: How good things are

Zero-Based Gratitude

The Essence of Life

Appreciate again and again
    

Appearance is Not Truth

About most subjects, there is not "The Truth;"
there is merely one's personal truth.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth.
- Ludwig Boerne

Everything is not as it appears to be.
- Proverb

The problem with making assumptions
is that we believe they are the truth
- don Miguel Ruiz

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
- Oscar Wilde

A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted
for insight and understanding.
- Marshall McLuhan

What if it were only an illusion?
Perhaps life is not as threatening as it appears.
Perhaps the greatest threat to our serenity
is our fear of the future -
our fear of the unknown.
Perhaps, as Franklin D. Roosevelt said,
"The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today's image shows a Müller-Lyer perceived length optical illusion.

Further reading: When Life Looks Hopeless

Belief - Point-of-View

Maybe So, Maybe Not. - Ancient Taoist Proverb

Question Your Questions
    

I Will Fear No Evil

Learn to be calm and you will always be happy.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want...
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me
- Psalm 23

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

Today's affirmation:
My life is the eye of the hurricane -
an island of calm in a sea of uncertainty.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Calm in Chaos

Thoughtful Response, Not Panic

Choose Not To Stress

Serenity in Times of Crisis
    

A Mile in Their Moccasins

Do not judge another person
until you have walked a mile
in their moccasins.
- Native American (various wordings)

It is not our differences that divide us.
It is our inability to recognize, accept,
and celebrate those differences.
- Audre Lorde

There is no neutrality.
There is only greater or lesser
awareness of one's bias.
- Phyllis Rose

Most everything in life
is about our point-of-view,
rather than any absolute.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Through the Eyes of Another

Your Point of View

Why I Choose to Believe that Others are Never the Cause of My Unhappiness

Byron Katie - The Work - No one can give you freedom but you
    

Do What You Can Do

Do what you can,
with what you have,
where you are.
- Theodore Roosevelt

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
- John Wooden

If you don't like the way the world is,
you change it.
You have an obligation to change it.
You just do it one step at a time.
- Marian Wright Edelman

Whatever your life's work is, do it well.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Sometimes you get the results you wanted,
sometimes you don't.
What matters is that you did your best.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Simply Do Your Best

Step Up to the Plate

Take Charge of Your Life

How to Feel Good About Yourself
   

Join the Dance of Change

The only way to make sense out of change
is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
- Alan Watts

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.
- Confucius

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

Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.
- Anonymous

Today's Affirmation:
I welcome change as a great adventure.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Be an Instrument of Change

Welcome the Unknown

Making Your Own Choices

Stay Adaptable
    

Learn from One Another

We must be ready to learn from one another,
not claiming that we alone possess all truth
and that somehow we have a corner on God.
- Desmond Tutu (South African social rights activist and retired Anglican bishop)

The manifest universe is the body of God ...
all people are incarnations of the One Spirit.
- Ernest Holmes

God's Spirit moves through us and the world
at a pace that can never be constricted
by any one religious paradigm.
I love that.
- Bono

Where love is, there God is also.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The inherent nature of God
is not changed by our individual beliefs,
our religious institutions,
or our communal traditions.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Everything is God

Blessed to Forgive

Unity with Spirit and All Creation
    

Appreciate Mystery

Mystery creates wonder,
and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand.
- Neil Armstrong

To know the whole world is nothing
when it is compared to knowing your own inner mystery of life.
- Osho

As soon as man does not take his existence for granted,
but beholds it as something
unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.
- Albert Schweitzer

Today is a good day to look around at the grandeur of creation.
Whether flower or cactus, butterfly or caterpillar, elk or lizard,
vegetable garden or compost pile.
Our world is magnificent - all of it.
Rejoice and give thanks for all of life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Magnificent Mystery

Childlike Wonder

Cherish Mystery