Dare to step away from the crowd and think independently and follow your inner voice. It’ll make all the difference.
Month: September 2020
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Discovering the Hero in Your Story
“My fiction is almost always inspired by a character’s need or desire to rise above him- or herself. No one is perfect and some of us have much adversity in our lives; it is those people who struggle to rise above their nature or background that I find the most interesting and heroic.
Today’s Smile 😃
Joe: “My wife ask me if it was time we thought about a new baby.”
Pete: “What did you say?”
Joe: “I was happy. I told her the one we have is a real pain in the neck.”
🤗 A Better Life ~ Fall in Love Today
I always feel better when I fall in love each day. I may fall in love with a sunrise or sunset, the hummingbirds that visit my yard, gazing at a simple wild flower, or seeing a couple laughing and holding hands. Fall in love with this wonderful gift called life each day. It changes everything.
🌾 Today’s Poem ~ If
If
Rudyard Kipling
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,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream- -and not make dreams your master;
If you can think- -and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on! ‘
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings- -nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And- -which is more- -you’ll be a Man, my son!
🍎 Today’s Health Question ~ Want to Get Out of a Sour Mood?
Answer: Getting Out in Nature is the Prescription
Research in a growing scientific field called ecotherapy has shown a strong connection between time spent in nature and reduced stress, anxiety, and depression.
It’s not clear exactly why outdoor excursions have such a positive mental effect. Yet, in a 2015 study, researchers compared the brain activity of healthy people after they walked for 90 minutes in either a natural setting or an urban one. They found that those who did a nature walk had lower activity in the prefrontal cortex, a brain region that is active during rumination — defined as repetitive thoughts that focus on negative emotions.
👊 Today’s Power Thought ~ Life’s Lessons
The most important life lessons often come from life’s toughest tests. I wish it were easier, it isn’t. Learn, grow, become better, never bitter.
Today’s Poem ~ How Did You Die?
How Did You Die
Edmund Vance Cooke
Did you tackle that trouble that came your way
With a resolute heart and cheerful?
Or hide your face from the light of day
With a craven soul and fearful?
Oh, a trouble’s a ton, or a trouble’s an ounce,
Or a trouble is what you make it,
And it isn’t the fact that you’re hurt that counts,
But only how did you take it?
You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what’s that!
Come up with a smiling face.
It’s nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there-that’s disgrace.
The harder you’re thrown, why the higher you bounce
Be proud of your blackened eye!
It isn’t the fact that you’re licked that counts;
It’s how did you fight-and why?
And though you be done to the death, what then?
If you battled the best you could,
If you played your part in the world of men,
Why, the Critic will call it good.
Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,
And whether he’s slow or spry,
It isn’t the fact that you’re dead that counts,
But only how did you die?
🤗 A Better Life ~ Do You Use a Checklist?
Do you use a check list? I do? I feel great when I put a check next to all the items on the check list. How often does that happen – I refuse to disclose on the grounds it may incriminate me. LOL.
Check lists are great for helping us to organize. They take away from our sense of peace if completing all items determines our self worth. Using a check list as a guide for the day is a good thing. Letting it dominate the day is not a good thing. Unexpected things happen that need our attention happen. Unexpected phone calls, emails, etc., are common. Go with the flow. It makes life a bit easier.
🌞 Today’s Inspiration ~ What is Your Choice?
“All your life, you will be faced with a choice. You can choose love or hate…I choose love.”
