Write Your Life

Don't live your life to please other people.
- Oprah Winfrey
[Be of service, but don't be a doormat.]

It does not do to dwell on dreams, ...
and forget to live.
- the movie Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

You get what you settle for.
- the character Louise in the movie Thelma and Louise

Be the Melody in the Symphony of Your Life.
Write the melody and the lyrics.
Be the soloist and the conductor.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

This is your life.
In the symphony of your life, you are the star.
You write the melody and the lyrics.
You are the soloist and the conductor.
You are merely a bit player in other people's lives,
but in your own life, you are the star.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: What guides you and maintains your direction?

The Melody Within Your Soul

Where Are You Going?

How to Choose Your Life Purpose
    

Your Thoughts are the True You

What we think, we become.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.
- The Buddha

A man is but the product of his thoughts -
what he thinks, he becomes.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The ancestor of every action is a thought.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as
your own unguarded thoughts.
- The Buddha

Further reading: Life Is A Mirror

Your Inner Thoughts

Choose Not To Stress
            

Life Is How You Deal With Circumstances

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

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

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

Further reading: Calm During Storms

When It's Darkest

Beyond Your Worries

Choose Joy Anyway

Count Your Blessings - Not Your Troubles
     

Mastering Your Life

How different our lives are when we
really know what is deeply important to us,
and keeping that picture in mind,
we manage ourselves each day
to be and to do what really matters most.
- Stephen Covey

Only one who devotes himself to a cause
with his whole strength and soul
can be a true master.
For this reason mastery demands all of a person.
- Albert Einstein

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

Self-disciplined begins with the mastery of your thoughts.
If you don't control what you think,
you can't control what you do.
Simply, self-discipline enables you
to think first and act afterward.
- Napoleon Hill

Further reading: How to Choose Your Life Purpose

Live Your Inspired Life

Master of My Fate

Master of My Emotions

Laugh at Life
                

Walk Humbly With Your God

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

The higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero

Know that you are loved.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When you share your last crust of bread with a beggar,
you mustn't behave as if you were throwing a bone to a dog.
You must give humbly, and thank him for allowing you
to have a part in his hunger.
- Giovanni Guareschi

Further reading: Know that You have been Blessed

Have a Conversation With God, Today

Keep the Divine Spark Burning
        

Immerse Yourself in Nature

Whenever you find yourself sad, spend time alone with nature.
Go to the ocean. Go to the woods. Go to a garden. Go to a park.
Breathe in the outdoors. Breathe in the peace.
Breathe in the clean air that is without fears, without needs, without expectations.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy,
if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you,
if the simple things in nature have a message you understand,
Rejoice, for your soul is alive.
- Eleanora Duse

For every person who has ever lived,
there has come, at last, a spring he will never see.
Glory then in the springs that are yours.
- Pam Brown

Those who find beauty in all of nature
will find themselves at one with the secrets of life itself.
- L. Wolfe Gilbert

Further reading: Beauty is whatever gives joy

Seek

Keep Perspective

Beauty is Everywhere
      

Fully Awake

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

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

One does not become fully human painlessly.
- Rollo May

My idea of education is to unsettle the minds of the
young and inflame their intellects.
- Robert M. Hutchins

Further Reading: Embrace Change

Stay Flexible

Welcome Upheaval
    

Life is Now

Life is now.
There was never a time when your life was not now,
nor will there ever be.
- Eckhart Tolle

Carpe Diem (Seize The Day)
Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day;
live life to the fullest;
make the most of what you have.
It is later than you think.
- Horace

"Seize The Day" (Carpe Diem) is sometimes interpreted as an invitation to party irresponsibly - without regard for the consequences. My interpretation of Carpe Diem is to seize the day in the sense of honoring the importance and sanctity of each day we live. It is so easy to delay the important parts of living until another day. But don't do that... Do something truly important Today.

Make Today count. Today - each Today - is the most important day of your life.

None is a failure who is enjoying life.
- William Feather

Further reading:  Cherish This Moment

Be the Melody

Live in the Present

Live Deeply
         

Question and Experiment

We Gain All Genuine Insight From Questions and Experiments.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Take the attitude of a student,
never be too big to ask questions,
never know too much to learn something new.
- Og Mandino

You've got to experiment to figure out what works.
- Andrew Weil

Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions.
All life is an experiment.
The more experiments you make the better.
What if they are a little coarse,
and you may get your coat soiled or torn?
What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled
in the dirt once or twice.
Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Further reading: Ask Questions

Kindle Your Fires

Observe

Keeping Curiosity Alive
  

Choose With All Your Strength

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

As you awaken,
may your dreams greet you by name,
and may you answer, "Yes!"
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Happiness is a choice.
You grieve, you stomp your feet,
you pick yourself up and choose to be happy.
- Lucy Lawless

To know what you prefer
instead of humbly saying Amen
to what the world tells you you ought to prefer,
is to have kept your soul alive.
- Robert Louis Stevenson 

Further reading: Honor Your Heart

Choose Your Attitude

Courage has a Quiet Voice
       

Love Without Judgement

Know the power and the peace of saying,
"I love you just the way you are."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Love is granting another the space to be
the way they are and the way they are not.
- Werner Erhard

Love is saying "I feel differently," instead of "You're wrong."
- Anonymous

Love is the absence of judgment.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

We all hate it when someone tells us we're wrong. "Them's fightin' words." So we end up hating the person who said that we were wrong.

There are two great reasons for never saying, "You're wrong," to someone you love...

First, it opens the door to anger and hatred. Why do that to someone you love?

Second, virtually everything is a matter of perspective and opinion. Whether the subject is politics, religion, sex, the kids' homework, or anything else, there really isn't a "right" way, just the way you prefer.

Further reading: Acceptance Makes a Great Relationship Even Better

The #1 Secret of Great Relationships

You Can't Make Them Change

Presidents Day and Washington's Birthday 2019

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman,
before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.
- John Quincy Adams (sixth 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]

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

Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble.
- George Washington (first President of the United States)

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)

With self-discipline most anything is possible.
- Theodore Roosevelt (26nd President of the United States)

Further reading: Save Only the Best of the Old Ways

Independence Day

Hold Your Anger

Make a Difference, Vote
      

The Test of Morality

Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
- Colossians 3:12

Compassion is the basis of morality.
- Arthur Schopenhauer

The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures
is not to hate them,
but to be indifferent to them:
that's the essence of inhumanity.
- George Bernard Shaw

It is my choice to care deeply about others.
No kindness is too small to be important -
the smile to the bank teller,
the sincere "thank you" for all kindnesses received,
the reassuring hand on the shoulder of a loved one or friend.
There is compassion in selfless generosity,
but there is also compassion in heartfelt empathy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Full Measure of a Person

What Does Compassion Look Like?

Feed the Children

Take Charge of Your Life - 9 Secrets for Getting Un-Stuck

Be of Service
       

Strength From Storms

Being defeated is often a temporary condition.
Giving up is what makes it permanent.
- Marilyn vos Savant

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

If I could tell the world just one thing
it would be we're all okay,
and not to worry cause worry is wasteful
and useless in times like these.
I won't be made useless.
I won't be idle with despair,
I will gather myself around my faith.
Light does the darkness most fear.
- Jewel

Expect to have hope rekindled.
Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways.
The dry seasons in life do not last.
The spring rains will come again.
- Sarah Ban Breathnach

Today's affirmation:
I gather strength from life's storms.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Serenity Rather than Fear

Tested by Storms

Calm During Storms
      

Be Open To Beauty

Even from the darkest night, songs of beauty can be born.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

See beauty in the familiar.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Beauty is whatever gives joy.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Choose to See Beauty and Joy:
Much in life can be seen as ugly or beautiful - it's our choice.
Why would we choose to see any part of life as ugly?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We live in a wonderful world that is
full of beauty, charm and adventure.
There is no end to the adventures that we can have
if only we seek them with our eyes open.
- Jawaharlal Nehru

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

Further reading: Pay Attention to the Natural World

Beauty and Adventure in the Commonplace

Have Eyes for Beauty
      

Valentine's Day 2019

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

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

You are my ground and you are my rainbow.
You are my butterfly and you are my ecstasy.
You are the start of my journeys and always my destination.
You are my home - the place to which I always return.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The greatest lovers are like twin blooms,
each reflecting the passion and the glory of the other.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: A Loving Relationship

Marriage

Love and Relationship

7 Secrets of Happy Couples
   

Meet Obstacles With Gentleness And Time

Resistance creates suffering.
Stress happens when your mind resists what is...
The only problem in your life is your mind's resistance to life as it unfolds.
- Dan Millman

When you encounter difficulties and contradictions,
do not try to break them, but bend them with gentleness and time.
- Saint Francis de Sales

A man who is a master of patience is master of everything else.
- George Savile

Do not attempt to conquer the world with force,
for force only causes resistance.
- Lao Tzu

A tree that is unbending, is easily broken.
- Lao Tzu

Read the Aesop fable The Oak and the Reeds

Further reading: The Secret of Happiness

Enjoy the Journey

The River of Life
    

Lincoln's Birthday 2019

When I do good, I feel good.
When I do bad, I feel bad.
That's my religion.
- Abraham Lincoln

About morals: I know only that
what is moral is what you feel good after
and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.
- Ernest Hemingway

Needless to say, the Lincoln/Hemingway test for whether an action is moral only applies to people who are fundamentally moral.

If I had eight hours to chop down a tree,
I'd spend six hours sharpening my ax.
- Abraham Lincoln

If you look for the bad in people
expecting to find it, you surely will.
- Abraham Lincoln

When I am getting ready to reason with a man,
I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself
and what I am going to say
and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
- Abraham Lincoln

Further Lincoln quotes: Making Friends of Enemies

Power Tests Integrity

Planting Flowers

The Freedom of Others
      

Courage to Cope

Life is not what it's supposed to be.
It is what it is.
The way you cope with it is what makes the difference.
- Virginia Satir

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

Understanding does not cure evil,
but it is a definite help,
inasmuch as one can cope
with a comprehensible darkness.
- Carl Jung

Humor can help you cope
with the unbearable so that
you can stay on the bright side of things
until the bright side actually comes along.
- Allen Klein

The most effective way to cope with change
is to help create it.
- L. W. Lynett

You must do the things you think you cannot do.
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.
You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror.
I can take the next thing that comes along."
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Today's affirmation:
Standing in the inspiring vision of my future,
I boldly take every step - large and small -
with courage and intent.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Confidence and Action

The Quiet Voice of Courage

Hold Fast to Your Dreams

Creating Your Future 
      

Choose Never to Hate Others

You have heard that it was said,
"Love your neighbor and hate your enemy."
But I tell you: Love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you.
- Jesus (Matthew 5:43-44)

That which you hate to be done to you,
do not do to another.
- Ancient Egyptian Proverb
[Most ancient cultures independently created their own version of "The Golden Rule."]

When we hate our enemies, we are
giving them power over us:
power over our sleep, our appetites,
our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness.
Our enemies would dance with joy if only
they knew how they were worrying us,
lacerating us, and getting even with us!
Our hate is not hurting them at all,
but our hate is turning our own days
and nights into a hellish turmoil.
- Dale Carnegie

An "enemy" is a mirage -
an image of self reflected on the sands of Hell.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Be More Understanding, Hate Less

Keep the Golden Rule

Allow Love to Conquer Hate

Judge Not
       

Your Power

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.
If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him.
If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him,
like a shadow that never leaves him.
– The Buddha

Blessings flow toward gratitude.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Well-being is making its way to you at all times.
If you will relax and find a way to allow it,
it will be your experience.
- Abraham (Esther Hicks)

Our life is what our thoughts make it.
- Marcus Aurelius

The power of your intention, your intent, your word, is immense. We might ascribe this effect to the power of prayer, to natural forces, or to our will to create our desired outcome. In any case, use this power. Believe in what you do, as well as doing it.

Every thought we think is creating our future.
- Louise L. Hay

Further reading: The Power of Your Intention

Create Well-Being

Be an Open Channel

Thinking as Creation
          

Generosity and Kindness

It is in giving that we receive.
- St. Francis of Assisi

Kindness is better than piety.
- Yiddish Proverb

I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Life is an exciting business,
and most exciting when it is lived for others.
- Helen Keller

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Further reading: Be of Service

The Actions of True Love

Love Your Neighbor
      

If You Believe You Can't, Then You Never Can

Those who believe they can do something
and those who believe they can't
are both right.
- Henry Ford
[As always, quotes are selected for the text of the quote, rather than the lives of those quoted.]

The only way to discover the limits of the possible
is to go beyond them into the impossible.
- Arthur C. Clarke

The most difficult thing is the decision to act,
the rest is merely tenacity.
The fears are paper tigers.
You can do anything you decide to do.
You can act to change and control your life;
and the procedure, the process is its own reward.
- Amelia Earhart

Whether the challenge is reaching the moon, sailing around the world, hitting a home run, acing a job interview, or walking again after a stroke, we can usually accomplish what we believe we can. But once we doubt ourselves, success slips beyond our grasp.


Today's affirmation:
I am unstoppable.


Further reading: Life is either a daring adventure or nothing

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams

Power of Thought
     

Curiosity and a Desire to Understand

The ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment...
not authority.
- Thomas Huxley

The scientist is motivated primarily by curiosity
and a desire for truth.
- Irving Langmuir

Science is a way of thinking
much more than it is a body of knowledge.
- Carl Sagan

All truths are easy to understand
once they are discovered;
the point is to discover them.
- Galileo Galilei

What is a scientist after all?
It is a curious man looking through a keyhole,
the keyhole of nature, trying to know what's going on.
- Jacques Yves Cousteau

The saddest aspect of life right now
is that science gathers knowledge faster
than society gathers wisdom.
- Isaac Asimov

Further reading: Seek the Truth

Analysis AND Emotion

Understand More, Fear Less

Stroke of Insight - Jill Bolte Taylor
    

Choose the Truly Meaningful

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

Kindness is more important than wisdom,
and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.
- Theodore Isaac Rubin

How different our lives are when we
really know what is deeply important to us,
and keeping that picture in mind,
we manage ourselves each day
to be and to do what really matters most
- Stephen Covey

Be alert. The most important things in life
are seldom the most obvious.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: All That I May Be

Seeds You Plant

The Purpose of Our Lives
      

Seek Out People Beyond Your Own Circles

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

I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness,
and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.
Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things
cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
- Mark Twain

Travel teaches toleration.
- Benjamin Disraeli

Seek Out People Beyond Your Own Small Social, Political, Religious, and Geographical Circles.
 - Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Dare to dream of your great success

Boldly Sail the Storms of Life

One World

The World is My Family
      

Be a Peacemaker

Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.
- Jesus (Matthew 5:7,9)

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

The Christian gospel is a summons to peace,
calling for justice beyond anger,
mercy beyond justice,
forgiveness beyond mercy,
love beyond forgiveness.
- Wendell Berry

It isn't enough to talk about peace.
One must believe in it.
And it isn't enough to believe in it.
One must work at it.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Further reading: Love All, Judge None

Hatred vs. Love

Cherish the Earth

The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi
     

Movement Energizes

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
- Percy Bysshe Shelley

What's the problem? Sometimes we have a generalized sense that something is not right, without not knowing the true problem. This is especially common when the weather is cold and gray, the days are short, and we are housebound.

If you are feeling the "winter blahs," try...

1. Get more physical exercise, even if it's on the treadmill.

2. Crank up the lights around you.

3. Focus on projects that keep you mentally and physically active and interacting with others.

4. Grant yourself both hot-chocolate-and-a-blanket times and get-out-of-your-chair-and-get-active times.

Movement energizes.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Further reading: Feeling Depressed?

Beyond Your Worries

This is my wish for you...

Tears and Laughter

Is That All There Is - Peggy Lee 
     

Breathe; Let Go; Relax; Forgive

Breathe; let go; relax; forgive.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

When I look back on all these worries,
I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed
that he had had a lot of trouble in his life,
most of which had never happened.
- Winston Churchill

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

Life Is Not Meant to be Serious.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Life Without Stress

Treat Trifles as Trifles

I Will Fear No Evil