Halloween

If human beings had genuine courage,

they'd wear their costumes every day of the year,

not just on Halloween.

~ Douglas Coupland ~

Self-Image

The starting point for both

success and happiness is a

healthy self-image.

Playing the Violin

Life is like playing the violin solo in public

and learning the instrument as you go along.

~ Samuel Butler ~

Music

Music is probably the only real magic

I have encountered in my life.

There's not some trick involved with it.

Its pure and its real.

It moves, it heals, it communicates

and does all these incredible things.

~ Tom Petty ~

Every Day

Every day is a new opportunity.

You can build on yesterday's success

or put its failures behind and start over again.

That's the way life is, with a new game every day,

and that's the way baseball is.

~ Bob Feller ~

What Life Expects

In the Auschwitz death camp, a group of inmates told Victor Frankl

that they no longer expected anything from life.  Frankl responded

that they had it backward.  "Life expects something of you,

and it is up to every individual to discover what it should be."

Point of View

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.

~ Zhaungzi ~

Never Be In A Hurry

Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly

and in a calm spirit.  Do not lose your inner peace

for anything whatsoever, even if your whole

seems upset.

~ Saint Francis de Sales ~

Dreams & Tasks

A vision without a task

is but a dream.

A task without a dream

is drudgery.

But

Dreams and tasks together

are the hope of the world.

 

 ~ Written by an English Lord in 1730 ~

Doing the Impossible

Never tell a young person that

something cannot be done.  God may

have waited centuries for someone

ignorant enough of the impossible

to do that very thing.

~ Dr. J. R. Holmes ~

Good Humor

Good humor is a tonic for mind and body.

It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression.

It is a business asset.  It attracts and keeps friends.

It lightens human burdens.  It is the direct route

to serenity and contentment.

~ Grenville Kleiser ~

Mother Earth

     I just returned from Albuquerque, New Mexico where I attended the annual Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta with my wife, sister, and brother-in-law.  We were fortunate to take a hot-air balloon ride where we flew for about 1 1/2 hours, and rose as high as 9,000 feet.  Upon landing, we were treated to a champagne toast, a French custom for hot-air ballooning, and our pilot read the following Irish Balloonist Prayer:

The winds have welcomed you with softness

The sun has blessed you with it's warm hands

You have flown so high and so well

That God has joined you in laughter

And may set you gently back again

Into the loving arms of Mother Earth

     Flying silently above the land brings a form of serenity and calm to what is often a frenzied existence on earth.   You may not have the opportunity to ride in a hot-air balloon (although I strongly suggest that you put it on your Bucket List), but we all should strive to duplicate that serenity and calm in our lives as we go about our activities here in the loving arms of Mother Earth.  

Don’t Get Discouraged

Don’t get discouraged; it is often

the last key in the bunch that

opens the lock. 

You’re the One

You never work for somebody else. 

Someone else might sign your check

But you’re the one who fills in the amount. 

Things You Wear

Of all the things you wear,

Your expression is the most important. 

~ Janet Lane ~

It's Your Life

It's your life, your one and only life -

so take excellence very personally.

~ Scott Johnson ~

Turn It Around

I was restless.  I was doing okay,

but I was restless.  One day it dawned 

on me that I had been looking at life

 through the wrong end of the telescope.

It was up to me to turn it around -

to make it bigger, better, more satisfying.

~ Arnold Swartzenegger ~

Something You Create

People talk about "finding" their lives.

In reality, your life is not something you find -

it's something you create.

~ David Phillips ~

Look Inside

For awhile I looked outside to see

what I could make the world give me,

instead of looking inside to see

what was there.

~ Bell Livingstone ~

Freedom

That's what freedom is all about-

a chance to be better.

~ Albert Camus ~

Look For The Helpers

    

     It is difficult to express what I am feeling about the series of devastating events that have occurred recently.  The horrific hurricanes that caused so much loss of life and damage and the awful carnage caused by the shooting in Las Vegas are difficult to comprehend and can really hinder our ability to maintain a positive attitude.

     Sadly, these events are not the only things that we may have to face in a lifetime.  During my years, I have experienced the assassinations of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the Vietnam War, the tragic events on 9/11, numerous terrorist attacks and natural disasters caused by hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, and earthquakes.  When you live through these tragedies they are not history, but real-time events that will live with you forever.  Such will be the case with the natural disasters we have seen ravage Texas, Louisiana, Florida, the Caribbean Islands, and Puerto Rico.  Similarly, the man-made disaster in Las Vegas will be etched into our subconscious forever.   As each specific event occurred, you first were struck with the sadness of what had happened and the concern how we, as a country or the world collectively, could ever recover from such a difficult circumstance.

     As history has shown us, we were able to recover but not without difficulty.  Damaged buildings and infrastructure can be repaired, but repairing the emotional and psychological scars is much more extensive and difficult. It is at times like these when we must look for the good that occurs when bad things happen.  The children television star, Mr. Rogers, is quoted as saying, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”  

     There is no question that television has allowed us to witness so many people who helped during and immediately after these disasters.  It gives me comfort to see that there are so many more good people who are willing to help their fellow human beings than there are those who inflict harm.  That should be the basis upon which we can begin to build confidence that we will be able to overcome the devastating effects from these events. 

     Keeping a positive attitude in these troubled times is not meant to suggest that we should stick our heads in the sand and ignore troubling things that go on around us.  Rather, we should recognize that it is troubling times that are the challenges each of us will face in our lifetime.  It is these challenges that we must overcome.  If we do not, we lose our direction and will lack the ability to rise above the sadness and grief that we all are feeling.  Look for the helpers…they will give us hope.

Prayers

Thoughts and prayers are with the victims

and families of the Las Vegas shooting.