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Posts from the ‘optimism’ Category

Jun 6

Children of Your Soul

“Cherish your vision and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.”― Napoleon Hill

“Life reflects your own thoughts back to you.” – Napoleon Hill

What we see is filtered through our experiences, disposition, limiting beliefs.
Influenced by others, what we consume and let in.
Attitude to  thoughts to words to actions.
All in your control.
Shift focus, attention and effort.
One filled with hope, awe, and wonder.
Rooted in beauty, goodness and light.
Optimism more than pessimism.
Expanse more than narrowness.
Today rather than someday when.
Mindfulness over autopilot.
Change your thoughts, change your life.
Choose well.

“Do not wait: the time will never be ‘just right’. Start where you stand, and work whatever tools you may have at your command and better tools will be found as you go along.”― Napoleon Hill

Apr 8

Grace, Light, Love

“Grace is not part of consciousness; it is the amount of light in our souls, not knowledge nor reason.” – Pope Francis

“Love is the water of life; jump into this water.” – Rumi

Death to life.
Grace to light.
Lost and found, again and again.
Love wide and deep.
Self and others, both.
Resurrection and redemption, for all, not some.
Easter people.
One more day.
Every day.

“Easter is a time when God turned the inevitability of death into the invincibility of life.” – Craig D. Lounsbrough

Feb 20

Most and Least

“There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect.”― G.K. Chesterton

“Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don’t have to like it… it’s just easier if you do.”― Byron Katie

A shift.
A different angle.
A new route to the same destination.
Attitude adjustment, rotation, tune-up.
Diverse. Divergent. Creative.
Off the beaten path.
Make something delicious from the ingredients you choose from this day.

“Make the most of the best and the least of the worst.”― Robert Louis Stevenson

Feb 19

Endeavor into Wonderment

“We should always endeavor to wonder at the permanent thing, not at the mere exception. We should be startled by the sun, and not by the eclipse. We should wonder less at the earthquake, and wonder more at the earth.”― G.K. Chesterton

“But I believe good things happen everyday. I believe good things happen even when bad things happen. And I believe on a happy day like today, we can still feel a little sad. And that’s life, isn’t it?”― Gabrielle Zevin, Elsewhere

May radical unreasonable optimism be your song to sing today.
A sabbath from “reality,” from judgment, criticism, comparison, measure, transactions, to dos.
No rules and regulations.
Cup not half full but waterfall full on, overflowing.
A crowbar to open the windows painted shut.
Fresh crisp air to expand your lungs, open your chest, feel your ribs.
A canvas to fill with swirls, shapes and colors that clash, merge and burst.
A dance on holy ground, an offering, an unfolding.
Into the world you go.
Awake, curious, on fire.
Open to the promise of a new day.
And your place in it.

“Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.”― G. K. Chesterton

Nov 6

Already There

“The funny thing about the mind is that if you ask a question and then listen quietly, the answer usually appears.”― Yongey Mingyur, The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness

“Let your own experience serve as your guide and inspiration. Let yourself enjoy the view as you travel along the path. The view is your own mind, and because your mind is already enlightened, if you take the opportunity to rest awhile along the journey, eventually you’ll realize that the place you want to reach is the place you already are.”― Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness

Enjoy the path you are on today.
Go off trail, wander a bit.
Look around, listen quietly, inquire with openness.
Your thoughts, assumptions and opinions are your compass.
Choose them well, invite change, allow unknowing.
Beauty, flow and blessings amplified with new eyes.

“The opportunity to experience yourself differently is always available.”― Yongey Mingyur, The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness

Oct 24

Step 1: Enjoy

“Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.”― Meister Eckhart

“It is essential to our well-being, and to our lives, that we play and enjoy life. Every single day, do something that makes your heart sing.”― Marcia Wieder

Summer returned for the weekend for a warm embrace.
The dance between fall, summer, winter has begun.
We know where it’s going, so when summer visits in fall, you dive in head first.
With the weather cooperating, we put up my great nephew Blake’s birthday gift from September for the first time.
Kids don’t need much to find joy in the day.
Add a bouncy house to the mix and delight on steroids ensues.
Next time you walk by a playground, sit down on the swing and push off.
Once you get going, you’ll remember how to move your legs to gain momentum.
Begin again every single morning.
We sit on the banks of a river of joy, enter the flow.

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”― Rumi

Oct 17

A Bit Simpler

“I really must become a bit simpler. Let myself live a bit more. Not always insist on the results straight away. I know what the remedy is, though: just to crouch huddled up on the ground in a corner and listen to what is going on inside me. Thinking gets you nowhere. It may be a fine and noble aid in academic studies, but you can’t think your way out of emotional difficulties. That takes something altogether different. You have to make yourself passive then, and just listen. Reestablish contact with a slice of eternity.”― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill

Optimism does not deny reality nor ignore circumstances.
Not naïve or simplistic.
Resilience, strength, a daily practice, a decision.
Acknowledging what is present, choosing to put energy into persistence, hope and gratitude.
Create or criticize.
Choose well.

“I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.” – Winston Churchill

Aug 10

2 Comments

Kindled

“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.” – Aristotle

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” – Plutarch

Stoke the embers of your dormant imagination.
Flex the muscles of delight.
Taste and savor.
Put down your knowledge and seek wisdom.
The brilliance in a forest, the sky, a flower, another human, most certainly a dog.
Be of good use by celebrating this very day.
Invite others to the party.

“To know much and taste nothing-of what use is that?”― St. Bonaventure

Aug 7

Velcro

“We must not wish for the disappearance of our troubles but for the grace to transform them.”
― Simone Weil

“Your brain is like Velcro for negative experiences but Teflon for positive ones.”― Rick Hanson

As the sun rises on this day, set your course, put intentions in play.
So when the sun sets, you can look back in gratitude, even if all didn’t work out exactly as planned.
May your mind be Velcro for positive experiences, allowing the negative to slide away.
See the good in self and others.
Awake to the beauty of a summer day.
Open hands.
Full heart.
Joy. Zeal. Zest.

“True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Aug 2

Hidden Light

“The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“We are here because we are born with the capacity to find the hidden light in all events and all people, to lift it up and make it visible once again and thereby to restore the innate wholeness of the world.” – Rachel Naomi Remen

Seek, search, uncover.
Explore, pursue, hunt.
Inquire, listen, open.
Hear the poetry.
See the light.
Resign to nothing less.
Pieces, all of them, to wholeness.

“Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,

overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way

to get from here to there.”

― Elizabeth Alexander

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