Appreciating Life as a Blessing

When you arise in the morning,
give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength.
Give thanks for your food, and the joy of living.
If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies with yourself.
- Tecumseh

We tend to forget that happiness doesn't
come as a result of getting something we don't have,
but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.
- Frederick Koenig

With gratitude, all life appears as a blessing -
without gratitude, all of life
is perceived as a burden.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Giving Thanks for Our Food

What do you take for granted?

My Glass of Life

Celebrating the Small Miracles of Our Lives
    

Follow Your Inner Guidance

When I'm trusting and being myself...
everything in my life reflects this
by falling into place easily, often miraculously.
- Shakti Gawain

Believe in yourself. Have faith in your abilities.
Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers
you cannot be successful or happy.
- Norman Vincent Peale

Trust yourself, then you will know how to live.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Every time you don't follow your inner guidance,
you feel a loss of energy, a loss of power,
a sense of spiritual deadness.
- Shakti Gawain

Today's affirmation:
Opening my mind to Spirit, I trust my intuition
to deliver powerful visions of my inspired future.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading:  Approve of Yourself

Your Intuition is Your Guide

Be Simply Yourself

Our Purpose is to Serve
     

Morality Must Be Its Own Reward

To be admirable, morality must be its own reward.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If people are good only because they fear punishment,
and hope for reward,
then we are a sorry lot indeed.
- Albert Einstein

Correcting bad habits cannot be done
by forbidding or punishment.
- Robert Baden-Powell (the founder of scouting)

Power is of two kinds.
One is obtained by the fear of punishment
and the other by acts of love
Power based on love
is a thousand times more effective and permanent
then the one derived from fear of punishment.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

It is an open question whether any behavior
based on fear of eternal punishment
can be regarded as ethical
or should be regarded as merely cowardly.
- Margaret Mead

Punishment cannot heal spirits, can only break them.
- Barbara Deming

Today's project:
Meaningful and joyful lives are lived by adhering to one's personal value system - one's principles. Today, write your six to eight most important values on an index card, and refer to that card as you go about your life today.

Further reading:  Finding Peace in Forgiveness

Anger is Its Own Punishment

Revenge, the Deadliest Sin?
    

Don't Compromise Your Values

Don't compromise yourself.
You are all you've got.
- Janis Joplin

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
- Henry David Thoreau

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.
- Steve Jobs

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable,
you disconnect yourself from what you truly want,
and all that is left is compromise.
- Robert Fritz

In matters of style, swim with the current;
in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
- attributed to Thomas Jefferson

Further reading: Question Your Questions

Choose Your Priorities

Your To-Do List

Your Relationship with Time

The Main Thing
     

Balance of Caution and Boldness

It is better to err on the side of daring than the side of caution.
- Alvin Toffler

Where fear is, happiness is not.
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca 

A life lived in fear is a life half lived.
- Anonymous

Too little caution can be dangerous.
Too much caution sucks the joy from life.
In this balance, I choose to err on the side of boldness.
 - Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today's Affirmation:
I am Cautious, But NOT Fearful.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Discovery and Adventure, Not Fear

Face Your Fear of the Unknown

Celebrate Life
 

Find Stillness and You Find God

Find stillness and you find God.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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 - grows in silence;
see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...
We need silence to be able to touch souls.
- Mother Teresa

In prayerful silence you must look into your own heart.
No one can tell you better than yourself
what comes between you and God.
Ask yourself.
Then listen!
- Johannes Tauler

The style of God venerated in the church, mosque, or synagogue
seems completely different from the style of the natural universe.
- Alan Watts

Today's affirmation:
I am a Unique Expression
of the Universal Fabric of Creation.
I celebrate both my uniqueness
and my connection with all that is.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie


Further reading: Have a Conversation with God, Today

Breath by Breath

Quiet Time

Stillness of the Mind
     

There is Only Perception

There is no truth.
There is only perception.
- Gustave Flaubert

The World Exists as You Perceive it…
It is Not what You See,
but How You See it…
It is Not what You Hear,
but How You Hear it…
It is Not what You Feel…
but How You Feel it.
 - Rumi

Not what we experience,
but how we perceive what we experience,
determines our fate.
- Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach  

We don't live in the world of reality,
we live in the world of how we perceive reality.
- Bryan Singer

Judgements prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.
- Wayne Dyer

Today's picture is Dali's "The Persistence of Memory," 1931

Further reading: Perspective

What One Emphasizes

Seeking

Simply Marvelous
                 
 

Forgive Rather Than Judge

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

Give yourself the gift of forgiving others,
not because THEY deserve it,
but because YOU deserve the serenity and joy
that comes from releasing resentment and anger.
Unconditional forgiveness is the path to your own inner peace.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A wise man will make haste to forgive,
because he knows the true value of time,
and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
- Samuel Johnson

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

Further reading: Forgive Others for Your Own Sake

Stop Anger Before it Stops You

Forgiveness is our gift to ourselves

Ten Little Tips to Feel Happier Right Now

Allow Others to be Imperfect, and Love Them Anyway

Happiness lies in accepting everyone
in our lives EXACTLY as they are.
We cause ourselves untold misery whenever
we believe others to be imperfect and try to change them.
This is the number one rule for a happy relationship.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Being human, we are imperfect. That's why we need each other.
To catch each other when we falter.
To encourage each other when we lose heart.
Some may lead; others may follow; but none of us can go it alone.
- Hilary Clinton 
[As always, I chose quotes based on the inspirational value of the specific quote, and not on the life of the person quoted.]

We come to love not by finding the perfect person,
but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.
- Angelina Jolie

Love is sometimes shown
in the things you don't say,
don't keep track of, and don't notice.
 ...
The greatest kindness is often shown
in letting things go.
None of us is perfect,
but we can all be perfect friends
and perfect partners by allowing
those that we love to be imperfect.
- Neale Donald Walsch

Further reading: Accepting Our Friends' Uniqueness

Encourage Your Friends

Greatest Mistake

Loved and Beautiful
      

Life is About Enjoying What We Have

Life is not about perfection -
or a quest for perfection.
Life is about enjoying what we have -
for as long as we have it.
Life must not be about regretting what we do not have.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness,
and the word happy would lose its meaning
if it were not balanced by sadness.
It is far better take things as they come along
with patience and equanimity.
- Carl Jung

Life is a song - sing it.
Life is a game - play it.
Life is a challenge - meet it.
Life is a dream - realize it.
Life is a sacrifice - offer it.
Life is love - enjoy it.
- Sai Baba

Further reading: Live Your Life Fully

Cherish the Whimsey

Life Really Is Good

Small Pleasures
   

Might an Inconvenience be an Adventure Instead?

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered.
An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
- G. K. Chesterton

Take a chance! All life is a chance.
The man who goes farthest is generally
the one who is willing to do and dare.
- Dale Carnegie

This time, like all times, is a very good one,
if we but know what to do with it.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life is lived in the mists;
little is fully visible; less is certain.
Yet rejoice in the unknowing,
and let all of life be a wonderful adventure.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

What worries you, masters you.
- John Locke

Further reading: Rejoice in the Way Things Are

The Edge of All You Know

Knowledge is Soon Changed

An Unknowable Future
       

Arguments Accomplish Nothing

Arguments only confirm people in their own opinions.
- Booth Tarkington

We may have our private opinions
but why should they be a bar to the meeting of hearts?
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
- Dale Carnegie

We cling to our own point of view,
as though everything depended on it.
Yet our opinions have no permanence;
like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away.
- Zhuangzi

The moment we want to believe something,
we suddenly see all the arguments for it,
and become blind to the arguments against it.
- George Bernard Shaw

Everyone believes that their beliefs are the right ones -
that is why they are called beliefs.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Disagreement

Assumptions

Six Ways to End Bickering About Money

Question Your Questions

Joy Blooms Where Minds and Hearts are Open
      

Kindness to ALL

It's the little things you do
that can make a big difference.
- Bob Proctor

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.
- Jesus (Matthew 25:40)

I expect to pass through this world but once.
Any good therefore that I can do,
or any kindness that I can show to my fellow-creature,
let me do it now.
Let me not defer or neglect it,
for I shall not pass this way again.
- William Penn

If you treat others kindly, a few will respond with unkindness,
or even take advantage of your kindness,
but most will respond with kindness and friendliness.
However, if you treat others unkindly, you can be quite certain
that they will respond with harsh thoughts and actions.
...
Whatever you do, do with kindness.
Whatever you say, say with kindness.
Wherever you go, radiate kindness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: The Parable of the Good Samaritan

Kindness: The Best of Being Human

Opportunities for Kindness

Living from Your Heart

Pay It Forward - as an Expression of Universal Gratitude
     

Kofi Annan (1938-2018) Rest In Peace

Kofi Annan (April 8, 1938 - August 18, 2018) was UN Secretary General (1997-2006) and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work.

We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin,
but we all belong to one human race.
- Kofi Annan

We need to think of the future and the planet we are
going to leave to our children and their children.
- Kofi Annan

To live is to choose. But to choose well,
you must know who you are and what you stand for,
where you want to go and why you want to get there.
- Kofi Annan

 

Called to Become a Hero

A hero is someone who has given his life to something bigger than himself
or something other than himself.
- Joseph Campbell

Hard times don't create heroes.
It is during the hard times when the 'hero' within us is revealed.
- Bob Riley

Where there is no struggle, there is no strength.
- Oprah Winfrey

Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength
which will always spring up if thou wilt always look there.
- Marcus Aurelius

Some days call for courage,
and ask those who would otherwise lead ordinary lives to become heroes.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Gather Strength

Circumstance Reveals What You Are Made Of

How Hard?

The Quiet Voice of Courage

Choosing a Joyful Life
       

Thou Shalt Not Covet

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house;
you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife,
nor his male servant, nor his female servant,
nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.
- Exodus 20:17

Beware! Jealousy is a green-eyed monster.
- William Shakespeare

The jealous are troublesome to others,
but a torment to themselves.
- William Penn

The envious person grows lean
with the fatness of their neighbor.
- Socrates

Of the seven deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all.
- Joseph Epstein

A good life isn't measured in material goods.
There is no quicker path to misery than coveting your neighbors' stuff.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The Pain of Envy

Further reading: Do Not Compare

Anger is a Killing Thing

Comparisons are Odious
    

Play to win, but be a good loser.

Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is.
- Vince Lombardi
Read my thoughts on wanting to win

Defeat is not the worst of failures.
Not to have tried is the true failure.
- George Edward Woodberry

How you think when you lose
determines how long it will be until you win.
- Gilbert (G. K.) Chesterton

Success consists of going from failure to failure
without loss of enthusiasm.
- Winston Churchill

Play to win, but be a good loser.
Have a plan for your life,
but accept whatever comes your way
with grace and gratitude.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie


Further reading: How to Deal with Rejection

Don't Give Up

Coping With Life

Win Some, Lose Some
      

What You See Reflects Your Thinking

What you see reflects your thinking.
And your thinking but reflects your choice of what you want to see.
- A Course In Miracles

Life is a mirror, and will reflect back
to the thinker what he thinks into it.
- Ernest Holmes
Read more about this quote.

What others say and do is a projection of their own reality.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Smile and the world smiles with you.
- Anonymous

Everyone is a mirror image of yourself -
your own thinking coming back at you.
- Byron Katie

Today's affirmation:
I am a Mirror for Love and Light,
but never for Anger or Fear.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: We never see Life as it really is

Hate Reflects Hate

The Power of Your Intention

We see what we expect to see

Creating Your Own Future

Your Point of View
   

Welcome Surprises

Expect nothing.
Live frugally on surprise.
- Alice Walker

Mostly, it is human to dislike surprises -
often with great intensity.
Be open to new ways;
sometimes newness just knocks on our door;
welcome it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Expectation is the root of all heartache.
- William Shakespeare

When you expect nothing,
you can receive everything as a marvelous gift.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Choose Joy Anyway

Know the Difference

Cheer for Endings
     

Recognizing Our Abundance

Our journey into consciousness of wealth begins
with the realization that we have already arrived.
- Michael Beckwith

Not what we have,
but what we enjoy,
constitutes our abundance.
- Epicurus

Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.
- Wayne Dyer

Abundance is not something we acquire.
It is something we tune into.
- Wayne Dyer

Today's affirmation:
My Cup Runneth Over - My Life Is Abundant.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Have Gratitude for THIS Moment

Appreciate Your Abundance

Know that You have been Blessed

Is your glass of life half empty? Or half full?
      

Charity is the Principle Christian Virtue

This is what the Lord asks of you: only this,
to act justly, to love tenderly,
and to walk humbly with your God.
- Micah 6:8

Jesus preached more and taught more
about helping the poor and the sick and the hungry
than he did about heaven and hell.
Shouldn't that tell us something?
- John Grisham

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
- St Francis of Assisi

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 hallmark of a true Christian is charity in thought, word, and deed.
Charity is the principle Christian virtue.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Charity: To Do God's Work

Basic Kindness

Measure of Your Heart 

The Purpose of Our Lives
      

Education IS the Future

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

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

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

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

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

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: The Nature of Learning

Lifelong Learning

How Society Treats Its Children

Honor the Children
      

It's about Sharing

It's about sharing.
You just give what you have to give
wherever you go,
and you let God handle the rest.
- Lindsay Wagner

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

It is high time that the ideal of success
should be replaced by the ideal of service.
- Albert Einstein

In service, there is clarity and compassion.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

The path to your own happiness is usually found in service.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Spread Love

Become Kinder

Be of Service
      

Just Be Yourself

Always be a first-rate version of yourself,
instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.
- Judy Garland

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

Be simply yourself and don't compare or compete.
- Lao Tzu

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

Since you are the one who has to live with your choices,
be sure they are your own.
- Alan Cohen

Further reading: Believe in Yourself

Have Confidence in Yourself

Trust Your Own Advice

Thinking for Yourself
       

Service and Caring for Others

When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves
and our own self-preservation,
we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.
- Joseph Campbell

The way you get meaning into your life
is to devote yourself to loving others,
devote yourself to your community around you,
and devote yourself to creating something
that gives you purpose and meaning.
- Mitch Albom

One of the secrets of life is that
all that is really worth the doing
is what we do for others.
- Lewis Carroll

The best cure for our own self-inflicted suffering
is often service to others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Create Light for Others

How to Choose Your Life Purpose

Eight Rules for Living Your Greatest Life

Live With Passion
      

Choosing Our Experience of Reality

What I recognized is that you can't put it together.
It's already together, and what you have to do
is experience it being together.
- Werner Erhard

If you want reality to be different than it is,
you might as well try to teach a cat to bark.
- Byron Katie

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.
- Henry David Thoreau

We don't live in the world of reality,
we live in the world of how we perceive reality.
- Bryan Singer


When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious
privilege it is to be alive -
to breathe,
to think, to enjoy, to love.
- Marcus Aurelius

Not what we experience,
but how we perceive what we experience,
determines our fate.
- Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach 

Further reading: Seeking

Solitary Cell

Perspective

Go Confidently - Live Fully

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.
Live the life you have imagined.
- Henry David Thoreau

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

Believe in yourself. Dream big dreams.
Set important goals. Take action on those goals.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
- Anais Nin

To live a great life requires two steps...
1. Plan your life goals.
2. Act on your plan - every day.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading:  Later is Never

How to Choose Your Life Purpose

How To Not Care What Others Think

Choose Your Habits, Choose Your Life

Follow Your Bliss
      

Welcome This Little Child

Jesus said: "Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me."
- Luke 9:48

Hot heads and cold hearts never solved anything.
- Billy Graham

You must not mistreat or oppress foreigners in any way.
Remember, you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt.
- Exodus 22:21

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

Fear makes strangers of people
who would otherwise be friends.
- Shirley MacLaine

I've been helped by acts of kindness from strangers.
That's why we're here, after all, to help others.
- Carol Burnett

Further readings: Gratitudes

Where There Is Love, Nothing Is Missing

Live, Play, Be Happy. It's Contagious

Life must be lived as play.
- Plato

Laugh when you can,
apologize when you should,
and let go of what you can't change.
Life's too short to be anything... but happy.
- Anonymous

Whoever is happy will make others happy, too.
- Anne Frank

Be happy for this moment.
This moment is your life.
- Anonymous

Angry and happy don't mix.
Flush out the angry, and the happy has a place to put down roots.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Live, Play, Be Happy. It's Contagious.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Ten Little Tips to Feel Happier Right Now

The Secret of Happiness

Breaking the Cycle of Self-Inflicted Suffering
       

Begin Now to Live Your Dream

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, Begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it, Begin it now.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Formula to live your dream:
1. Be bold. 2. Begin now, 3. No exceptions.
- William James

You can't realize your dreams unless you have one to begin with.
- Thomas A. Edison

Dream. Begin. Persevere.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Explore. Dream. Discover.

Spread Your Wings

Dream and Take Action
    

A Time for Wandering

Not all who wander are lost.
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Look at everything as though you were seeing it
either for the first or last time.
Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.
- Betty Smith

A pilgrim is a wanderer with purpose.
- Peace Pilgrim

Look deep into nature, and then
you will understand everything better.
- Albert Einstein

Further reading: Question Your Questions

Where does your path lead?

Go With the Flow
       

Without Compassion There Is No Morality

Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.
- Arthur Schopenhauer

To love our neighbor as ourselves
is such a truth for regulating human society,
that by that alone one might determine all the cases in social morality.
- John Locke

Never impose on others what
you would not choose for yourself.
- Confucius (Ancient Chinese)

Do not do to others what would anger you
if done to you by others.
- Isocrates (Ancient Greek)

Religion is no more the parent of morality
than an incubator is the mother of a chicken.
- Lemuel K. Washburn

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

Know that the true essence of the Golden Rule
is always being compassionate, kind,
generous, and being in service to others.
Compelling others to behave
as you wish them to behave
in the name of the Golden Rule
is a corruption of a sacred principle.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Go and Do Likewise

To Keep the Golden Rule

Our Character

More Understanding, Less Hate