Thought
of the Week:
"People fall in love, the age difference means little other than an attribute which can be attached to something to conclude its value. Only in America do we place such nonsensical standards to love. Get a life of your own, enjoy a partner who adds something to your life. Learn to live and enjoy. Save the slander for your own dirty thoughts. A thought for the Day: "The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives."
-William James, a Harvard Psychologist
"Minds are like parachutes; they only function when open."
-Lord Dewar
Stop assigning
blame.
This is the first step. Stop assigning
blame and leave the past behind you. You know whose fault it is that
your life isn't perfect. Your boss. Your teachers. Your ex-lovers.
The ones who hurt you, the ones who abused you, the ones who left
you bleeding. Or even yourself. You know whose fault it is — you've
been telling yourself your whole life. Knowing whose fault it is that
your life sucks is an excellent way to absolve yourself of any responsibility
for taking your life into your own hands.
Forget about it. Let it go. The
past isn't real. “That was in another country, and besides, the wench
is dead.” If we're not talking about something that is real and present
and in your life right now, then it doesn't matter. Nothing can be
done about it. If nothing can be done about it, then don't spend your
energy dwelling on it — you have other things to do. I may sound cruel,
I may sound simplistic, I may sound like I'm saying you should just
“get over it,” by suggesting that you should let go of your past.
I'm sorry for that. But life won't hold still and wait for you to
lick your wounds. The race is still being run. Get up and keep moving.
You can't do anything about yesterday. You can do something about
tomorrow. And about the next day. Focus your energies there. “I don't
have time to write.” “I can't dance.” “I can't talk to new people.”
“I'm not attractive.” I hear this all the time. I always hear the
people around me sabotaging themselves, drawing lines and borders
and boxes around themselves. To which I say, make the time; dance;
just talk to people; be attractive! Yes, again, it's simplistic of
me to say that. But it's simplistic of you to so easily say what you
cannot do! We're excellent pattern-matchers. That's what the human
mind does — it's a pattern-matching engine. So we look at ourselves,
at our history, at our behaviors, and we draw straight lines between
the points — we assume that just because we've done things a certain
way in the past, we'll always do them that way in the future. If we've
failed before, we'll always fail. Screw that.
Surprise yourself.
No — amaze yourself.
You don't have to keep doing the
things you hate. Why go home and beat yourself up for, say, not going
over and saying a few words to someone you find really attractive?
Can any damage they could do to you by rejecting you possibly be any
worse than the damage you're going to do to yourself for missing the
chance?
Find the demon.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
It's the little voice in the back of your head that's always whispering,
“You can't.” You know the demon. You may think you hate the demon,
but you don't. You love it. You let it own you. You do everything
it says. Every time there's something you want, you consult the demon
first, to see if it will say, “You can't have that.” What you don't
realize is that your demon doesn't know anything. It's an idiot. It's
nothing but a parrot, repeating back to you anything negative that
it's ever heard, anything that makes you hurt, makes you squirm. If
a teacher once told you “You'll never accomplish anything,” it was
listening; it hoards words like that and repeats them back to you
to watch you jump. It doesn't know what it's saying. It doesn't care.
Exorcise yourself. You can take me literally or not, as suits you.
But do, please, the next time you hear that voice in your head, imagine
it, visualize it, as something physical that you can get hold of;
tear it out of you, feel its fingers weaken and lose their grip on
your spine, and grind it to dust, to nothing, under your boot heel
on your way out to dance in the streets. You can. You think you can't;
but it's telling you that. You can. You don't exist. You just think
you do. We're nothing but the stories we tell ourselves. We know in
our hearts what kind of people we are, what we're capable of, because
we've told ourselves what kind of people we are. You're a carefully-rehearsed
list of weaknesses and strengths you've told yourself you have. (Self-confidence,
for example, is a particularly nebulous quality you can easily talk
yourself out of having.) You owe no allegiance to that self-image
if it harms you.
If you don't like the story your
life has become — tell yourself a better one.
Think about the person you want
to be and do what that person would do. Act the way that person would
act. Amazingly enough, once you start acting like that person, people
will start treating you like that person. And you'll start to believe
it. And then it will be true. Welcome to your new self. You are a
product of your environment. Most people realize this — usually, in
the form of having something else to blame — but they tend to forget
one important fact: Humans are the masters of changing their environment.
What this means is that if your environment affects you, and you can
affect your environment, then obviously, you can affect yourself.
Your environment includes people.
Figure out who in your life isn't good for you, whose presence tears
you down more than it builds you up, whose nearness is poison to you
— and get rid of them. Get them out of your life.
I don't care if it's your best
friend, your boss, your mother, your lover — if they are harming you,
if they are doing nothing but reinforce everything bad you tell yourself
about yourself, then your relationship with them needs to radically
alter or it needs to end.
Your environment includes goals.
Don't set yourself pie-in-the-sky impossible goals and then beat yourself
up over not achieving them — set yourself goals that will be good
for you, not a source of pain. Attainable goals. Set them and meet
them. Don't tell yourself you can't — that's the old story, that story
you used to tell yourself about what a poor sad victim you were and
how you could never change anything about your life. You can meet
your goals. This is the new story.
Trying to clean your house? Good
for you — a clean house can really affect your state of mind for the
better. But don't say “Today I'm going to clean the entire house from
top to bottom,” when you don't have the time and energy to — don't
set yourself up for failure; don't feed the demon. Just say, “Today
I'm going to wash all the dishes and clean off the kitchen counter.”
And do it. Don't tell yourself, “This month I'm going to write that
novel.” Tell yourself, “Today I'm going to write five pages.” And
do it. Take your dreams and break them down into small pieces and
you'll have them in your hands before you know it. And you'll find,
as you start meeting your goals, that you like it. That it feels good,
makes you feel confident and capable. You'll develop a hunger for
it.
Your environment includes yourself
— your physical presence. Do what you know you need to do — treat
yourself better. Sleep, eat right, exercise. This doesn't mean you
have to stop staying out late at night now and then, it doesn't mean
you can't have a candy bar, it doesn't mean you have to stop sitting
around watching television — it just means start doing the things
that are good for you as well as the things that are bad for you,
every so often. It's not an all-or-nothing proposition; you don't
have to devote your life to being a health nut. Just try eating more
fruits and vegetables, the occasional vegetarian meal; go for walks
in the park on the weekends. You'll feel better and be more alert
if you're a little healthier, and once you start feeling a little
better, you'll start wanting the things that make you feel better.
You'll see.
Your environment includes your
appearance. If you're not happy with yourself, if you're angry with
the person in the mirror, it can honestly help to literally change
who you see when you look in the mirror. Try a different hairstyle,
new glasses, new jewelry, new clothes. It doesn't have to be expensive
— there's a whole universe full of possible You's waiting to be found
in thrift stores, if need be. If you're deciding to become the person
you want to be, then decide what that person is going to look like.
Dress the part. It's not shallow, it's not about vanity, it's about
self-transformation — even the most primitive tribes understand the
value of costumes and masks for ritual, for change, for becoming someone
else. You are not an object. You are a system. Like with any system,
if you change the inputs — change what goes into it — you'll change
what comes out. Despite everything I've just said: Self-examination
can be paralysis. Don't “remember to breathe” — just breathe. It's
a Tao thing. It's the paradox at the center of all this — remember
that, “Am I living up to being the person I want to be?”, is not a
question the person you want to be would ask. If I can leave you with
just one thought, it's this: Stop wasting your time fretting over
not being happy.
Just
be happy.
Michael Montoure is
a writer and a web developer living in the Pacific Northwest.
"Look at everything as though you
were seeing it for the first time or the last time. Then your time
on earth will be filled with glory."
-Betty Smith
"A society must ask, seek and demand,
that each individual give something of himself From the sum of these
small offerings, It can then build itself anew. If all of us light
the candle of our souls, the world will be filled with light."
-Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
"Life is short ... Break the
rules, Forgive quickly, Kiss Slowly, Love Truly, Laugh uncontrollably
and never regret anything that made you smile."
"The past is never dead - it is
not even past."
-William Faulkner,
author
HOW NEGATIVE EMOTIONS CREATE ACIDITY:
Have you ever been so upset with someone or something that you get
an upset stomach? All negative emotions create an acidic environment.
Have you ever heard anyone say you are letting your problems "eat
away at you" or "get the best of you"? Fear is the underlining cause
of most disease. It will undermine your life and your health. Fear
causes anger. Anger causes hate. Hate will consume you with continual
suffering. Love and understanding cleanse and heal the body creating
an alkaline environment within you.
http://www.ionizers.org
Emerson said "Earn your living"
- earn the right to live.
It is sometimes astonishing that
Nature permits the members of the human race to continue their existences,
and does not render them harmless or discontinue the human species
as she has done with other species.
When you understand that the external
world has nothing to do with your real self, and you act accordingly,
you then return to your original state.
Zen saying
Forgiveness ... Giving up all hope
of a better past.
"Anyone who has never
made a mistake has never tried anything new."
Albert
Einstein
You can achieve anything
you desire IF and only IF, what you desire is part of life's greater
plan for you. Everyone is put on this planet for a reason. Find out
what that reason is - and doorways will open for you.
Silva
Ultra Mind
"History repeats
itself because nobody listens."
Anonymous
"Those who bring sunshine
to the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves."
James
Barrie
Experience is not
what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you.
Aldous Huxley
Resentment is like
drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.
Nelson Mandela
As long as you don't
forgive, who or whatever it is will occupy rent-free space in your
mind.
Isabelle Holland
* Do not believe in
anything simply because you have heard it.
* Do not believe in
anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
* Do not believe in
anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
* Do not believe in
anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
* Do not believe in
traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
* But after observation
and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is
conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and
live up to it.
Gautama Buddha
Women do not realize
that they are all beautiful because they are all real. Mothers, sisters,
wives, etc. with big hearts and love are the ones that we all should
really admire. They are our real models that deserve to be followed.
The Ordinary Person
thinks that they will be Happy when they get what they NEED. The ZEN
Master Is Always Happy. For the Master knows that whatever He Gets
- He Needs.
"The definition of
a beautiful woman is one who loves me."
Sloan Wilson
"Life is your
choice, your "decided-upon" mental attitude. Take control of your
emotions. Do not allow something so temporary as a negative emotion
to dominate you, even for a second of your LIFETIME."
Scott Shaw
"For Nietzsche
there are two basic types of morality: master morality and slave morality.
By this, he means that moral codes arise from people's social origins.
Master morality sees the noble as good and emphasizes heroism, courage
and individual greatness as can be found in the aristocratic morality
of the ancient Greeks. Slave morality is the morality of the weak.
What harms the weak is called "evil", and what helps them is called
good. Christian ethics are identified with slave morality. Nietzsche
thought that each individual needs to create their own moral system:
the point of morality is to enable each individual to sublimate and
control their passions, in order to emphasize the creativity inherent
in their being."
www.philosopher.org.uk
"For every failure,
there's an alternative course of action. You just have to find it.
When you come to a roadblock, take a detour."
Mary Kay Ash, Founder
of Mary Kay Cosmetics
"I get up every
morning determined to both change the world and to have one hell of
a good time. Sometimes, this makes planning the day difficult."
E.B. White
"Just remember
this: Never make a decision out of fear, for in that case it will
be the wrong choice.
I may not have gone
where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed
to be."
Douglas Adams
"What you want to
do, and what you can do, is limited only by what you can dream."
Mike Melville
"A person who aims
at nothing is sure to hit it."
Unknown
"I believe-
That I don't have to change friends if I understand that friends change.
I believe- That no matter how good a friend is, they're going to hurt
me every once in a while and, I must forgive them for that. Whether
it's praise, love, criticism, money, time, space, power, punishment,
sorrow, laughter, care, pain, or pleasure... the more you give, the
more you will receive."
Mike Dooley
"Christ lies
hidden from the eyes of the crowd. Only with the eyes of the soul
can he be seen."
Philokalia, Macarius
the Great
"Do you have
any idea... of how powerful you REALLY are? Do you have any idea of
how far your thoughts reach? Do you have any idea of how many lives
you've already touched? Do you have any idea of how much you've already
accomplished? Do you?"
"UNIVERSE" by Mike Dooley
"You may not
feel happy in this moment, but moments pass."
"Argue for your limitations
and they are yours. Argue for your possibilities and they are yours
as well."
"The most handicapped
person in the world is a negative thinker."
Heather Whitestone, former
Miss America... she is deaf.
"I have always been
delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start,
with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning."
J.B. Priestly (1894-1984)
English author
"Faith can move mountains.
Doubt can create them."
Howard Wight
"Simplicity,
simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three,
and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a
dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail."
Henry David Thoreau
"If I had my
life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and
stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would
ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies."
"Octogenerian"
Nadine Stair
"Every blade
of grass has its Angel that bends over it and whispers: Grow, grow."
The Talmud
"What doesn't
kill me makes me stronger."
Albert Camus
"Think what you have
always thought and you will get what you have always gotten."
"You are only
one thought away from a good feeling."
Sheila Krystal
"You CAN BE HAPPY
No Matter What."
"Don't Sweat the
Small Stuff." Richard Carlson, Ph.D.
