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Posts tagged ‘optimism’

Jan 19

A Single Sunbeam

“Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take with you nothing that have received–only what you have given.”― Francis of Assisi

“The deeds you do may be the only sermon some persons will hear today.”― St. Francis Of Assisi

Preach through simple acts
A smile
Conversation
Questions
Listening
Kindness
Pep in your step
Generosity
Reflection
Gratitude
Connection
Laughter
Fun
Encouragement
Scatter peace, light and joy with a happy heart
The power of a single sunbeam.

“A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.”― St. Francis of Assisi

Jan 17

Default Setting

“Grace is a power that comes in and transforms a moment into something better.”― Caroline Myss

“It is as if joy were the default setting of human emotion, not the furtive, fugitive glimpses it becomes in lives compromised by necessity, familiarity, “maturity,” suffering.”― Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer

When you push too many buttons on the car settings or your computer gets jammed up with malware, cookies, temporary files, wiping it clean is often the only option to fix it. Reimaging or resetting to factory settings. Going back to the default, before clutter, noise, junk slowed it down.

Wipe the slate clean each day. Shake off the dust of yesterday and carry forward what matters. Return to default settings of joy, optimism, awe and wonder. That’s where we started then wandered off course. Open and invite ease, expansion, growth, acceptance, exploration, discovery and continuous unfolding rather than perfection, completion, autopilot.

Clear your cache, hit the reset button, start fresh. Each day, imperfectly, with intention followed by action, stitching the fabric of life and self together with grace, enthusiasm, delight and love.

“We all come into the world unfinished, still stitching ourselves together.”― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

Jan 16

Keep Moving

“Stop calling your heart broken; your heart works just fine. If you are feeling–love, anger, gratitude, grief–it is because your heart is doing its work. Let it.”― Maggie Smith, Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change

“Commit yourself to the present. Loosen your grip on the life you had before—before a loss, an upheaval, a change that called everything into question—so that you can be here, where you’re needed, right now. KEEP MOVING. Do something today that will bring you joy even if you know you will not do it well.”― Maggie Smith, Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change

We don’t make our life out of perfect circumstances, conditions, relationships.
Stop waiting to move for the timing of “someday when.”
That place is fictional and delays us from doing the daily work, reflection and rest.
Start wherever you are today.
The uneven ground you stand on now.
Move out from there – consistency, stumble, practice, mistakes, repetition, breakthrough, growth, repeat. Better than the day before.
Don’t allow a bad moment or hour to take a foothold.
Footholds become strongholds.
Let it be and let it pass. Like a river flowing.
Few days are end-to-end harmonious.
A shift in perspective can increase the volume.
Gratitude, hope, optimism, enthusiasm are powerful daily practices not platitudes.
Tough, resilient, grit to keep moving imperfectly.
They pull us through everyday frustration, struggle, grief, difficult, loss, dry seasons.
Not to deny them but to acknowledge and not become them.
Our emotions are telling us something more than the obvious.
Anger is fear.
Grief is love.
Keep making your life each ordinary day, weaving joy into the mundane, laughter into the chaos, gratitude amidst loss and change.
Perpetual becoming, transformation is hard work.
Get to it.

“Don’t wait for your life to magically come together–it’s your work to do. Every day, every moment, you are making your life from scratch. Today, take one step, however small, toward creating a life you can be proud of.”― Maggie Smith, Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change

Jan 15

2 Comments

Why Shouldn’t We?

“Why shouldn’t we, so generally addicted to the gigantic, at last have some small works of art, some short poems, short pieces of music […], some intimate, low-voiced, and delicate things in our mostly huge and roaring, glaring world?”― Elizabeth Bishop

“Do you really want to look back on your life and see how wonderful it could have been had you not been afraid to live it?” – Caroline Myss

The day calls.
To not only get thing done.
But to discovery of what lies before us.
Pausing to notice.
Loving without expectation.
Wonder in awareness of beauty.
A song. A poem. A flower.
Fullness in the ordinary, simple and imperfect now.
Awe in possibilities overflowing.
Expand your thinking, open your heart and hope with great abandon.
Bask in details.
Delight in immensity.
Start where you are this moment and move out from there.
See what happens when we look with fresh eyes, awakened senses.
Why shouldn’t we?

“Just let go. Let go of how you thought your life should be, and embrace the life that is trying to work its way into your consciousness.”― Caroline Myss

Jan 10

Enthusiasm Habit

“A warm smile is the universal language of kindness.” – William Arthur Ward

“SUCCESS TONIC

  • 1 tsp confidence
  • 1 tsp courage
  • 2 tsp patience
  • 4 tsp prayer
  • 4 tsp perseverance
  • 4 tsp joy
  • 6 tsp enthusiasm

Take one teaspoonful of this tonic three times daily.”― Sivananda Saraswati

Enthusiasm, encouragement, hope, joy, optimism are multipliers, catalysts, expanders.
Expend and extend, daily.
A practice, a habit, a commitment.
An energy that creates and outlasts rather than contracts and fizzles.
Filling the well of others and self too.
Found in loving without conditions.
Love in action.
Start with a smile.

“Enthusiasm is the electricity of life. How do you get it? You act enthusiastic until you make it a habit.”― Gordon Parks

Jan 3

3 Comments

Lionheartedness

“And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far into the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“Don’t crave immediate results. Take the difficult route which puts your patience under fire and upgrades your lionheartedness.”― Hiral Nagda

With the year fresh and intentions at peak, remember what’s good already.
What doesn’t need to changed or fixed.
Our math is bad – counting only what is missing and not what is overflowing.
Growth and change keep us engaged in life.
We are a work in progress, a painting never complete.
Starts, middles, ends. Start again.
Giving and receiving.
There are hard paths but not everything needs to be hard.
Remember to rest, reflect, rejuvenate regularly.
Be kind to yourself and to others. Be kind!
Relax and find wonder in each day.
Slow down and pause to let joy in.
Long paths, ordinary days, doing the work and the play all make up the journey and the destination.
You have arrived and are not done.
Keep going and growing.
Move out into each day with grace, lightness, hope and lots of humor.
Lionheartedness in bloom.

“Everyone is flailing through this life without an owner’s manual, with whatever modicum of grace and good humor we can manage.” – Anne Lamott

Dec 29

Life Distilled

“Poetry is life distilled.”
― Gwendolyn Brooks

“Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
“Even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night.”
You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.

Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.”
― Gwendolyn Brooks, Selected Poems

To what will you pay attention to this day?
What thoughts will shadow or light the way?
Who will you listen to?
The past, others, self-doubt?
The utility and necessity to guide and direct what we can.
Our thoughts first and foremost.
May enthusiasm, hope, gratitude, laughter, optimism, color, beauty and joy be your guides.
To live fully in the along.

“This is the urgency: Live!
And have your blooming in the noise of the whirlwind.”
― Gwendolyn Brooks, The World of Gwendolyn Brooks

Dec 26

2 Comments

Wonder-Filling

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

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”― W.B. Yeats

Do not move onto the next thing.
We tend to bounce too quickly.
Missing what remains, not done yet.
Overflowing with delight.
Christmas is a season, not a few days.
A state of mind, heart and spirit.
Spend the next weeks reflecting back as well as hoping forward.
Slow back into ordinary days and make room for magic in all of them.
Flex your awe, flaunt your wonder.

“Enthusiasm is a supernatural serenity.”― Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

Dec 23

A Burst of Joy

“Be a burst of joy.”― A.D. Posey

A Voice from I Don’t Know Where by Mary Oliver

It seems you love this world very much.
“Yes, I said. “This beautiful world.”

And you don’t mind the mind, that keeps you
busy all the time with its dark and bright wonderings?
“No, I’m quite used to it. Busy, busy,
all the time.”

And you don’t mind living with those questions,
I mean the hard ones, that no one can answer?
“Actually, they’re the most interesting.”

And you have a person in your life whose hand
you like to hold?
“Yes, I do.”

It must surely, then, be very happy down there
in your heart.
“Yes,” I said. “It is.”

May beauty that resides alongside and within overtake you often.
Shifting into wonder, delight, gratitude, peace.
An ease, slowing and receiving
A heart full, overflowing.
“Yes” your first response.
A burst of joy, color, swirls.
May awe be your guide today.

Dec 19

1 Comment

Take Flight, Soar

“For God does not want to be believed in, to be debated and defended by us, but simply to be realized through us.”― Martin Buber

“Live each day to the fullest.
Get the most from each hour, each day, and each age of your life.
Then you can look forward with confidence, and back without regrets.
Be yourself, but be your best self.
Dare to be different and follow your own star.
Don’t be afraid to be happy and enjoy what is beautiful.
Love with all your heart and soul. Believe that those you love, love you.
When you are faced with decision, make that decision as wisely as possible, then forget it.
The moment of absolute certainty never arrives.
Above all, remember that God helps those who help themselves.
Act as if everything depended on you and pray as if everything depended on God.” – S.H. Payer

When small things look too big, take flight.
Change your view.
To see the whole.
Wind beneath wings.
Soaring and delighting.
Daring and savoring.
Live this day to the fullest.
Then do the same tomorrow.
When tomorrow comes, not any sooner.
Today is the canvas to paint on.
Colors of awe, wonder, love.

“By means of all created things, without excaption, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, when in fact we live steeped in its burning layers.”― Teillard de Chardin

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