Comfort on Difficult Days

This is my wish for you:
Comfort on difficult days,
Smiles when sadness intrudes,
Rainbows to follow the clouds,
Laughter to kiss your lips,
Sunsets to warm your heart,
Hugs when spirits sag,
Beauty for your eyes to see,
Friendships to brighten your being,
Faith so that you can believe,
Confidence for when you doubt,
Courage to know yourself,
Patience to accept the truth,
Love to complete your life.
- Anonymous

Calm provides clarity. Pause to consider
the gifts you have been given,
the difference you have made
and the direction in which you are headed.
- Anonymous

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: Feel Your Connection With the Infinite - a Meditation

Give Unconditional Love

The Secret of Happiness

Offering Comfort
   

To Be Selfish Is To Neglect Your Neighbor

The ego lives by comparisons...
The ego cannot survive without judgment.
- A Course in Miracles

A man's pride shall bring him low,
but honor shall uphold the humble in spirit.
- Proverbs 29:23

Conceit is bragging about yourself.
Confidence means you believe you can get the job done.
- Johnny Unitas

A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good,
but for neglecting his neighbor's.
- Richard Whately

Further reading: Self-Importance

Ingratitude

Be Humble
      

Fill Your Life With Love And Bravery

We will not walk in fear, one of another.
We are not descended from fearful men,
Not from men who feared to write, to speak,
To associate and to defend causes
which were for the moment unpopular.
This is no time... to keep silent.
- Edward R. Murrow

Rights are won only by those who make their voices heard.
- Harvey Milk

Never be bullied into silence.
Never allow yourself to be made a victim.
Accept no one's definition of your life;
define yourself.
- Harvey Fierstein

Lend your voices only to sounds of freedom,
no longer lend your strength to that
which you wish to be free from.
Fill your life with love and bravery,
and you shall live a life uncommon.
- Jewel

Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind -
even if your voice shakes.
- Maggie Kuhn

Further reading: Take Action - Now

Have Confidence in Yourself
      

Keep Your Head, Trust Yourself

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you...
- Rudyard Kipling

Confidence comes not from always being right
but from not fearing to be wrong.
- Peter T. Mcintyre

Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it...
that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.
- Dale Carnegie

Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.
- Vince Lombardi

Trust yourself. Only you can live your life.
Only you can taste your victories.
Only you can suffer the sting of your defeats.
Make your own choices, and accept your own consequences -
for better or worse.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Have Confidence in Yourself

Stand Tall and Proud

Feeling Tired?

Blaze Your Own Trail
      

Both Roots and Wings

Those who can see value only in tradition,...
deny man's ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
- Stephen Bayley

 There are two lasting bequests we can give our children
One is roots, the other is wings.
- Hodding Carter

I prefer to choose which traditions to keep and which to let go.
- Theodore Bikel

Honor tradition, but
Do not be constrained by tradition.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
 
Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches,
letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights.
- Pauline R. Kezer


Further reading: Embrace Change

Beyond Your Comfort Zone

Conformity

Life is an Adventure


    

National Voter Registration Day 2018

National Voter Registration Day is an American National Holiday celebrating our democracy, and reminding ALL citizens to register and to vote. It is celebrated each fourth Tuesday of September - in 2018, on September 25.

Voting for the kind of America you believe in
is one of the greatest gifts you can give your grandchildren.
In many ways, our future is determined as much by local school boards and city councils as by US senators.
Make a difference.

PLEASE: Register to Vote - and Vote!

We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

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

Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act!
Action will delineate and define you.
- Thomas Jefferson

Bad politicians are sent to Washington [and state and local government] by good people who don't vote.
- William E. Simon

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

Further reading: You Are What You Do

Either Accept It, or Change It

Walk Your Path

True Measure of a Successful Life
    

Never Fear the Opinions of Others

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

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

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

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

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: Take Action - Now

Speaking Your Word

Calling Out Injustice

To Live, Not Merely To Exist
     

Invite the Poor

Jesus said: "When you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind.
And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you."
- Luke 14:13-14

The test of our progress is not whether we add more
to the abundance of those who have much.
It is whether we provide enough for those who have little.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

If the misery of the poor be caused
not by the laws of nature,
but by our institutions,
great is our sin.
- Charles Darwin

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

Further reading: Helping Others

All Brothers and Sisters

Out Purpose is To Serve

Unity with Spirit and All Creation
   

What Matters Is That You Did Your Best

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

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

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 
 
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.


Further reading: Simply Do Your Best

Take Charge of Your Life

Step Up to the Plate

How to Feel Good About Yourself
   

Let Us Be Protectors Of Creation

Let us be protectors of creation,
protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature,
protectors of one another, and of the environment.
- Pope Francis

If future generations are to remember us more with gratitude than sorrow,
we must achieve more than just the miracles of technology.
We must also leave them a glimpse of the world as it was created,
not just as it looked when we got through with it.
- Lyndon B. Johnson

Consider seven generations in the future when making decisions that affect the people.
- Wilma Mankiller

This land, this water, this air, this planet -
this is our legacy to our young.
- Paul Tsongas

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

Our Grandchildren's Planet

Reverence

For Our Children
           

Change Your Heart

You change your life by changing your heart.
- Max Lucado

If you take the responsibility for your life,
you can start changing it.
- Osho

Everyone thinks of changing the world,
but no one thinks of changing himself.
- Leo Tolstoy

It’s the most unhappy people who most fear change.
- Mignon McLaughlin

When you are through changing, you are through.
- Bruce Barton

Only when we realize that there is no eternal,
unchanging truth or absolute truth can we arouse in
ourselves a sense of intellectual responsibility.
- Hu Shih

Thinkers do not accept the inevitable;
they turn their efforts toward changing it.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

Further reading: A New Perspective

Moving Forward

Rattlesnake of the Mind

Perspective on Tradition: An Open Mind
      

Have a Positive Mental Attitude, Be Unstoppable

Nothing can stop the [person] with the right
mental attitude from achieving [their] goal;
nothing on earth can help the [person]
with the wrong mental attitude.
- Thomas Jefferson

The world will persist in exhibiting before you
what you persist in affirming the world is.
- Emma Curtis Hopkins

Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal.
My strength lies solely in my tenacity.
- Louis Pasteur

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

Further reading: Your Attitude is Your Window

How to Choose Your Life Purpose

Could We Change Our Attitude...

What One Emphasizes
      

Your Quiet Inner Voice

Courage doesn't always roar.
Sometimes courage is the quiet voice
at the end of the day, saying,
"I will try again tomorrow."
- Mary Anne Radmacher

My quiet voice speaks the loudest.
- Richard Carlson

In quietness are all things answered,
and is every problem quietly resolved.
In conflict there can BE no answer and no resolution.
- A Course In Miracles

Courage is doing what you're afraid to do.
There can be no courage unless you're scared.
- Eddie Rickenbacker

Every calamity is to be overcome by endurance.
- Virgil

Your inner voice always knows what to do,
but it is a quiet voice.
You can only hear the whisperings of your inner voice -
your inner compass - when you turn down the volume
of your fears, your regrets, your resentments,
and the fear-based advice
your neighbors are so willing to give you.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Find God in Silence

Not Fair, But Joyful

Endurance

Your Own Greatest Hero
      

Choose to Experience Something New Each Day

With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Every day brings new choices.
- Martha Beck

Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.
- Winston Churchill

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: When It's Darkest

Focus and Flexibility

Endings and Beginnings

The Rest of Your Life

Beyond Your Comfort Zone
     

Infinitely Blessed

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

Be Grateful for All of Life:
Each of us has been infinitely blessed - beginning with the gift of life.
Whatever may appear to be missing or broken on any particular day,
our glass is not half full, it is 99.9% full.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie - from 7 Secrets for a Happy Life

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

I don't think of all the misery
a but of the beauty that still remains.
- Anne Frank

However much or little you have,
"Thank You" is always a more powerful prayer than, "I need more."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Thank You God

Appreciate Your Blessings

Life Really Is Good

My glass of life


   

The Right Thing To Do

The truth of the matter is that
you always know the right thing to do.
The hard part is doing it.
- Norman Schwarzkoff

Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble
and beautiful end of a human being.
- Khalil Gibran

If you are neutral in situations of injustice,
you have chosen the side of the oppressor.
If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse
and you say that you are neutral,
the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
- Desmond Tutu

When the rights of any group, no matter how small, no matter how marginal,
are violated, your liberty, your freedom is put at risk.
Let there never be a day when we cast about in horror
and have to ask the question, "How did it ever come to this?"
- Thomas Childers

Do your little bit of good where you are;
its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
- Desmond Tutu

Further reading: The Freedom of Others

Prison of the Closed Heart

America's Historic Reverence for Independence

Personal Freedom
      

Unconditional Universal Forgiveness

Forgive Your Brother from Your Heart.
- Matthew 18:21-22

Forgiveness ... is the finishing of old business
that allows us to experience the present,
free of contamination from the past.
- Joan Borysenko

A wise one said, "We are most like God when we forgive."
It is easy for us to blame, but hard for us to forgive.
Yet that is what we are called upon to do -
to forgive everyone for everything.
And the reward?
In this life, the reward for forgiveness
is your own happiness.
Unconditional universal forgiveness is
the key to your own happiness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Forgiveness means letting go of the hope for a better past.
- Lama Surya Das
 
He who spends time regretting the past,
loses the present and risks the future.
- Quevedo


Further reading: Believe in...

Burn Away Old Regrets and Resentments

Forgiving Sets You Free

The Peacemakers

Take Nothing Personally
      

Integrity is Everything

If you have integrity, nothing else matters.
If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters.
- Alan K. Simpson

Never do anything against conscience
even if the state demands it.
- Albert Einstein

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters
cannot be trusted with important matters.
- Albert Einstein

Further reading: Ethics Requires Respecting Others

Social Morality

What You Know Is Right

Do Good Now
     

Your Life a Masterpiece

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

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

Do not lose hold of your dreams or aspirations.
For if you do, you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
- Henry David Thoreau

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: Don't Miss Out On Life

Live Every Moment, Joyfully

Progress

Enthusiasm and Passion
        

9/11 2018

This world of ours... must avoid becoming
a community of dreadful fear and hate,
and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

We must build dikes of courage
to hold back the flood of fear.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself
the means of inspiration and survival.
- Winston Churchill

Courage doesn't always roar.
Sometimes courage is the quiet voice
at the end of the day saying,
"I will try again tomorrow."
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Fear defeats more people than
any other one thing in the world.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

Photo was taken in the aftermath of 9/11 2001 in New York City

Further reading: Overcoming Fear

Draw from Suffering

Hard Times

Gather Strength
    

Your True Priorities Must Not Be Driven By Urgency Or By Others

It is a better thing to weigh and measure priorities
in the illuminating light of your own mission
than to have your activities formed by the
impressions and expectations of others.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

If a task is important, do it now.
If it is not truly important, forget about it forever, relax,
and do something that really is important.
Caution: The most important things in life are seldom the most obvious.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Do first things first, and second things not at all.
- Peter Drucker

"It's not that important,
don't worry about it" is the answer,
now what was the question?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Take time to contemplate - away from the opinions and influence of others -
what you really want and what you believe to be important in your life.
Your True Priorities Must Not Be Driven By Urgency Or By Others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Perspective on Priorities

Don't Sweat The Small Stuff

Choose Your Focus

Either Accept It, or Change It
    

Faith That A New Day Will Dawn

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

Faith has to do with things that are not seen
and hope with things that are not at hand.
- Saint Thomas Aquinas 

 Faith is the bird that feels the light
and sings when the dawn is still dark.
- Rabindranath Tagore
The antidotes for worry are gratitude, action, service, and faith.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
 
There is nothing that wastes the body like worry,
and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed
to worry about anything whatsoever.
- Mohandas Gandhi

Further reading: The Edge of All You Know

Worrying about Tomorrow

Harmony of the Soul

Don't Let One Cloud


   

Have the Courage to Act Upon Your Dreams

Yes! it takes courage to act upon your dreams.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

The secret of making dreams come true can be summarized in four C's.
They are Curiosity, Confidence, Courage, and Constancy;
and the greatest of these is Confidence.
- Walt Disney

The resources we need to turn our dreams into reality are within us,
merely waiting for the day when we decide to wake up and claim our birthright.
- Anthony Robbins

Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence.
Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear.
Perhaps the action you take will be successful;
perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow.
But any action is better than no action at all.
- Norman Vincent Peale

Live a Life of Bold and Courageous Action Inspired by Powerful Dreams.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Be Boldly Decisive

Dangers of Pessimism

Ignore Your Critics

Have Confidence in Yourself
       

Labels are for Cans, Not People

When we label anyone 'bad', we will have more trouble
dealing with him than if we could have settled for a lesser label.
- William Glasser

Call a plant beautiful, and it becomes a flower.
Call it ugly, and it becomes a weed.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Read about the power of naming.

Labels have the negative value of making smaller boundaries for people.
- Michael Graves

People always want to put a label on you;
they always want to compare you to something.
- Carrot Top

Labels are for cans, not people.
- Anthony Rapp

I try to look for the good in everybody,
regardless of the way they're labeled.
- Richard Thompson

Further reading: Judging Others

Categorizing People

Perspective

See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil

What Do You See?
     

Sow a Few Seeds

Judge each day not by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

Look around for a place to sow a few seeds.
- Henry Van Dyke

It is only the farmer who faithfully plants seeds in the Spring,
who reaps a harvest in the Autumn.
- B. C. Forbes

Actions are the seed of fate.
Deeds grow into destiny.
- Harry S. Truman

Gardening is all about optimism.
I put a seed in the ground.
I consistently tend it,
confident I will see the results, in time,
of the nurture I have provided.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Plant trees for your great-grandchildren -
for future generations.
Create the legacy of a better world.
Leave this world a better place than you found it.
Literally planting trees for
your great-grandchildren is a wonderful idea,
but far more important...
use this symbolism - this imagery -
to represent the kind of legacy
you want to leave to future generations.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Pay It Forward

For Our Grandchildren

Optimism and Hard Work

Tending the Garden of Our Lives
     

Meander Calmly through Life

Life is a Journey - Enjoy the Journey.
Life is not a race to test
who can finish first or who can end up with the most loot.
Rather, life is best enjoyed as a meander -
watching the view to left and right - above and below -
as the days slowly move past in dress review.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It is better to travel well than to arrive.
- The Buddha

March on. Do not tarry. To go forward
is to move toward perfection.
March on, and fear not the thorns,
or the sharp stones on life's path.
- Khalil Gibran

The journey between what you once were
and who you are now becoming
is where the dance of Life really takes place.
- Barbara De Angelis

Further reading: Be Flexible

The Secret of Happiness

Loving Life 

Choosing to Love Life

Simple Pleasures

Enjoy Life
      

A Great Relationship is a Co-Creation

Love allows your beloved the freedom to be unlike you.
Attachment asks for conformity to your needs and desires.
Love imposes no demands.
Attachment expresses an overwhelming demand - "Make me feel whole."
Love expands beyond the limits of two people.
Attachment tries to exclude everything but two people.
- Deepak Chopra

The greatest gift that you can give to others is the
gift of unconditional love and acceptance.
- Brian Tracy

If you love something, set it free;
if it comes backs it's yours,
if it doesn't, it never was.
- Richard Bach

True love is a process of co-creation
in which neither feels ownership or superiority.
Jealousy is a highly destructive force
for love and relationships.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The next time you say, "my wife," "my husband," "my children," or even, "my friend," pause for a moment and ask yourself whether there isn't just a tiny bit of possessiveness in that statement.

Further reading: Can You Make Them Change?

What is Love?

Generous Love

Our Loved Ones
      

Labor Day 2018

Labor Day in the United States is a public holiday celebrated on the first Monday in September. It honors the American Labor Movement (Labor Unions) and the contributions that workers have made to the strength, prosperity, laws and well-being of the country.

The world is moved along, not only
by the mighty shoves of its heroes,
but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes
of each honest worker.
- Helen Keller

There is magic in respecting others.
Respect customers, vendors, bosses, employees, co-workers.
Respect parents, spouses, sons, daughters.
Respect the trash collector, the mayor, the bank teller, the truck driver.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There is no hope for the workingman outside of organization.
- Peter J. McGuire, co-founder of the American Federation of Labor and reported "father" of the American Labor Day holiday

A truly American sentiment recognizes the dignity of
labor and the fact that honor lies in honest toil.
- Grover Cleveland

The labor movement means just this: it is the last
noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth.
- Wendell Phillips

Further reading: Labor Day 2017

Working Together

What You Do Makes a Difference

Cooperation
              
 

In Service to All

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

Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Bear with each other and forgive one another.
- Colossians 3:12

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

Religion is a blessing when, and only when,
it provides a focus for a compassionate community
to minister to its members and to the world at large.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: True Religion is about Helping Others

Love One Another

Peace

Doing God's Work

A Common Denominator of All Religions...
    

Create Your Own Day Today

Fear not for the future,
weep not for the past.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley

History is a relentless master.
It has no present, only the past rushing into the future.
To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.
- John F. Kennedy

The mind exists in time, in fact the mind is time;
it exists in the past and the future.
And remember, time consists of only two tenses,
the past and the future.
The present is not part of time,
the present is part of eternity.
- Osho

Life cannot be lived fully or joyfully if
our thoughts are focused on regretting the past,
preoccupied with anticipating the future,
or lost in the mind-fog of unconscious habitual behavior.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today's Affirmation: I Create Today As a Celebration of My Life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Life Really Is Good

Giving Thanks for the Commonplace

The Power of Appreciation

Feeling Blessed

Appreciating Today