Random Thoughts:

"Its a dog eat dog world out there,
and I'm wearing milkbone underwear."

(~Words of Wisdom from Norm Peterson)

Being challenged in life is inevitable,
being defeated is optional.
~ Roger Crawford


The real voyage of discovery
consists not in seeking new landscapes...
but in having new eyes.
~ Marcel Proust


Dream as if you’ll live forever.
Live as if you’ll die tomorrow.
~James Dean

Life at its essence boils
down to one day at a time.

TODAY is the day!


Life is a process of accumulation.
We either accumulate the debt...
or the value,
the regret or the equity.
~ Jim Rohn


Vision is the spectacular
that inspires us to carry out the mundane.
~ Chris Widener


A journey may be long or short, but it must start at the very spot one finds himself.

Faith is all dreamers need
to see into the future.


There is only one basic human right,
the right to do as you damn well please.
And with it come the only basic human duty,
the duty to take the consequences.
~ P.J. O’Rourke


Education is a lifelong journey
whose destination expands as you travel.


You will become as small as your controlling desire;
or as great as your dominant aspiration.
~ James Allen



All change is not growth;
all movement is not forward.
Ellen Glasgow
(1873 - 1945)

THE NEW FOOTPRINTS:

Now imagine you and the Lord Jesus are walking along the beach together. For much of the way the Lord's footprints go along steadily, consistently, rarely varying in the pace. But your prints are in a disorganized stream of zig zags, starts, stops, turnarounds, circles, departures, and returns.

For much of the way it seems to go like this. But gradually, your footprints come in line with the Lord's, soon paralleling His consistently. You and Jesus are walking as true friends. This seems perfect, but then an interesting thing happens; your footprints that once etched the sand next to the Master's are now walking precisely in His steps. Inside His large footprints is the smaller "sand print," safely enclosed. You and Jesus are becoming one; this goes on for many miles.

But gradually you notice another change, the Footprints inside the larger footprints seem to grow larger. Eventually it disappears altogether. There is only one set of footprints. They have become one; again this goes on for a long time.

But then something awful happens. The second set of footprints is back. This time it seems even worse than before. Zig zags all over the place. Stop...start. Deep gashes in the sand. A vertiable mess of prints. You're amazed and shocked.

But this is the end of your dream. Now you speak:

"Lord, I understand the first scene with the zig zags, fits, starts and so on. I was a new Christian, just learning. But You walked on through the storm and helped me learn to walk with You."

“That is correct," replied the Lord.

"Then, when the smaller footprints were inside of Yours, I was actually learning to walk in Your steps. I followed You very closely."

"Very good. You have understood everything so far."

"Then the smaller footprints grew and eventually filled in with Yours. I supposed that I was actually growing so much that I was becoming more like You in every way."

"Precisely."

"But this is my question, Lord. Was there a regression or something? The footprints went back to two, and this time it was worse than the first."

The Lord smiles, then laughs. "You didn't know? He says.

"That was when we danced."

Roles - and How We Play Them

Whenever I'm disappointed with my spot in life, I stop and think about little Jamie Scott. Jamie was trying out for a part in a school play. His mother told me that he had his heart set on being in it, though she feared he would not be chosen.

On the day the parts were announced, I went with her to collect him after school. Jamie rushed up to her, eyes shining, with pride and excitement. "Guess what, Mum," he shouted, and then said those words that remain a lesson to me: "I've been chosen to clap and cheer."

By Marie Curling
from A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul
Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy.
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.
~ Richard Bach


There’s many a pessimist who got
that way by financing and optimist.


People are like stained-glass windows.
They sparkle and shine
when the sun is out,
but when the darkness sets in,
their true beauty is revealed only if
there is a light from within.
~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross


What I hope I have and what I pray for is...
Humility.
Humility says there were people before me...
who found the path.
~ Maya Angelou

Are You Strong Enough to Handle the Critics?

It is not the critic who counts,
not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles
or where the doer of deeds could have some them better.
The credit belongs to the man
who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood,
who strives valiantly,
who errs and comes short again and again
because there is no effort without error and shortcomings,
who knows the great devotion,
who spends himself in a worthy cause,
who at his best knows in the end the high achievement of triumph
and who at worst, if he fails while daring greatly,
knows his place shall never be with those timid and
cold souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

The truth is that life is hard and dangerous;
that he who seeks his own happiness
does not find it;
that he who is weak
must suffer;
that he who demands love
will be disappointed;
that he who is greedy
will not be fed;
that he who seeks peace
will find strife;
that truth is only for the brave;
that joy is only for him
who does not fear to be alone;
that life is only for the one
who is not afraid to die.

~ Joyce Carey


We shall never cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place
for the first time.

~ T.S. Eliot



A pessimist is someone
who looks at the land of milk
and honey and sees only
calories and cholesterol.


We learn wisdom from failure
much more than from success;
we often discover what will do
by finding out what will not do;
and probably he who never made a mistake
never made a discovery.

~ Samuel Smiles

These Things I Wish for You

We tried so hard to make things better for our kids
that we made them worse.

For my grandchildren, I'd know better.

I'd really like for them to know about hand-me-down clothes
and homemade ice cream and leftover meat loaf.

I really would.

My cherished grandson, I hope you learn humility by surviving failure
and that you learn to be honest even when no one is looking.

I hope you learn to make your bed and mow the lawn and wash the car --
and I hope nobody gives you a brand-new car when you are sixteen.

It will be good if at least one time you can see a baby calf born
and you have a good friend to be with you
if you ever have to put your old dog to sleep.

I hope you get a black eye fighting for something you believe in.

I hope you have to share a bedroom with your younger brother.
And it is all right to draw a line down the middle of the room,
but when he wants to crawl under the covers
with you because he's scared, I hope you'll let him.

And when you want to see a Disney movie and your kid
brother wants to tag along, I hope you take him.

I hope you have to walk uphill with your friends
and that you live in a town where you can do it safely.

If you want a slingshot, I hope your father teaches
you how to make one instead of buying one.

I hope you learn to dig in the dirt and read books,
and when you learn to use computers,
you also learn how to add and subtract in your head.

I hope you get razzed by friends when you have your first crush on a girl,
and that when you talk back to your mother
you learn what Ivory soap tastes like.

May you skin your knee climbing a mountain, burn your hand
on the stove and stick your tongue on a frozen flagpole.

I hope you get sick when someone blows smoke in your face.

I don't care if you try beer once, but I hope you won't like it.

And if a friend offers you a joint or any drugs,
I hope you are smart enough to realize
that person is not your friend.

I sure hope you make time to sit on a porch with
your grandpa or go fishing with your uncle.

I hope your mother punishes you when you throw a baseball
through a neighbor's window, and that she hugs you and kisses
you when you give her a plaster of paris mold of your hand.

These things I wish for you -- tough times and
disappointment, hard work and happiness.

By Lee Pitts from Chicken Soup for the Golden Soul

None are more hopelessly enslaved
than those who falsely believe they are free.

~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


In times of so-called WAR...
TRUTH is the first casualty.


Timid men prefer the calm of despotism
to the boisterous sea of liberty.

~ Thomas Jefferson


Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

THE UNQUIETMIND PREMISE...

The Unquietmind is a state of consciousness and an attitude. It is one of the most primal and intrinsic of emotions -- the motivation from which springs human curiosity, demands for justice, and efforts toward improvement of self. It is darkness and light. Depending on the stimuli, the Unquietmind can wear the grim look of a man attending his own hanging, or the carefree happiness of a man pitching dog turds into the neighbor's yard -- the dog's owner.

The Unquietmind is the sudden rancorous bile that pools in the back of the throat of a just and humane person when s/he sees inequity, incompetence or repression. The Unquietmind is the shriek of joy when a politician's absurd statements are finally proven to be prevarications.

The Unquietmind was the reason a lone man halted (however temporarily) a column of tanks in Tiananmen square in Beijing, by the power of his will. He was probably among the thousand that Amnesty International estimated were killed between that day, June 4th and the 5th in 1989. Knowing what frail creatures humans are beneath our greatness, it is likely that an hour later -- if he wasn't killed immediately -- the man considered what he had done and crapped himself, shaking in fear. Nevertheless, when the opportunity was there, that man did what he could. In the face of pure mortal terror, he behaved in accordance with what he believed.

The Unquietmind is at the core of every peace-loving man or woman -- turned freedom fighter -- that ever pitted Molotov cocktails or rocks against the rifles of government troops. The Unquietmind can cause a meek bystander to abruptly take up a sign and march in protest, or approach strangers with a petition, because he or she has become aware that something incredibly important is at stake.

Of course, the issues at hand aren't always life and death or (more importantly) freedom versus slavery. The Unquietmind can be stirred to action by any of a multitude of everyday evils that cross our paths: willing ignorance, lethargy, victimization of the innocent, abuse of power.

A carefully tuned Unquietmind can lead to raucous laughter in the face of the teacher or preacher or congressman who is articulating preposterousness in a public forum. It can sharpen the stick of sarcasm poked in the eye of a supervisor or bureaucrat or cop who is engaged in ludicrousness above and beyond. An Unquietmind can be merely mischievous, when a single clever, well-timed act will do the job.

In the remote past, the world was moved along by a few women and men that were strong, wise, frugal and inspired -- all elements of an Unquietmind. They built civilizations by galvanizing the teeming hordes to choose freedom over slavery and science over ignorance and assumption. They taught the value of investing in self-interest over the willingness to be a sacrifice to whatever priest or god came along demanding blood -- since they knew to look farther ahead than the next meal.

These are the days of the common man, of democracies made up of the collective uninformed voting for the undeniably unqualified, of the unsophisticated led by the spin doctors to vote for themselves bread and circuses and leave the consequential matters to the "experts". People are being trained to believe anything except what their own senses (and sensibilities) tell them. Most of humankind are mental slaves, and won't be inspired to care.

There will always be a few of us who are not slaves -- who will insist on doing our own thinking and making our own decisions -- who have the Unquietmind. We will not be dragged so willingly into the darkness.

~Anonymous
The Unquietmind

THE STATION...

Tucked away in our subconscious is an idyllic vision. We are traveling by train - out the windows, we drink in the passing scenes of children waving at a crossing, cattle grazing on a distant hillside, row upon rows of corn and wheat, flatlands and valleys, mountains and rolling hillsides and city skylines.

But uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day, we will pull into the station. Bands will be playing and flags waving. Once we get there, our dreams will come true and the pieces of our lives will fit together like a completed jigsaw puzzel. Restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes - waiting, waiting, waiting for the station.

"When we reach the station, that will be it!" we cry. "When I'm 18!" "When I buy a new 450s Mercedes Benz!" "When I put the last kid through college!" "When I have paid off the mortgage!" "When I get a promotion!" "When I reach retirement, I shall live happily ever after!"

Sooner or later, we realize there is no station, no one place to arrive. The true joy of life is the trip. The station is only a dream. It constantly outdistances us.

"Relish the moment" is a good motto, especially when coupled with Psalm 118:21 "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it!" It isn't the burdens of today that drive men mad. It is the regrets over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin theives who rob us of today. So stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot more often, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more, cry less. Life must be lived as we go along. The station will come soon enough.

~ Robert J. Hastings
Chicken Soup for the Soul

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The greatest good you can do for another
is not just share your riches,
but reveal to them their own.
~ Benjamin Disraeli



It's not what you look at that matters...
It is what you see...

~ Henry David Thoreau


True wisdom is less presuming than folly.
The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind;
the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not;
he knoweth all things but his own ignorance.

~ Akhenaton


The greatest good you can do for another
is not just share your riches,
but reveal to them their own.

~ Benjamin Disraeli


It's not what you look at that matters...
It is what you see...

~ Henry David Thoreau


True wisdom is less presuming than folly.
The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind;
the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not;
he knoweth all things but his own ignorance.

~ Akhenaton

I asked...

I asked God to grant me patience.
God said, No.
Patience is a by-product of tribulations.
It isn't granted, it is earned.

I asked God to give me happiness.
God said, No.
I give you blessings.
Happiness is up to you.

I asked God to spare me pain.
God said, No.
Suffering draws you apart from worldly cares
and brings you closer to Me.

I asked God to make my spirit grow.
God said, No.
You must grow on your own.
But I will prune you to make you fruitful.

I asked God for all things that I might enjoy life.
God said, No.
I will give you life so that you may enjoy all things.

I asked God to help me LOVE others,
as much as God loves me.
God said...
Ahhhh, finally you have the idea.

Stop telling God how big your storm is.
Instead...
tell your storm how big your GOD is.

Accept the challenges...
so that you may feel the exhilaration of VICTORY!


It is not what happens that determines the major part of your future.
What happens, happens to all of us.
It is what you do about what happens that counts.

~Jim Rohn


Achieving your vision doesn’t mean
you’ve reached the end of time.
It simply means
that you’ve come to a new starting place.

~Nido Qubien


Our doubts are traitors,
and make us lose the good
we oft might win
by fearing to attempt.

~William Shakespeare


Keep you face to the sunshine and
you cannot see the shadows.


When you choose the behavior...
You choose the consequence.

~ Dr. Phil McGraw


He who angers you... controls you!


You can tell how big a person is by what it takes to discourage them.


The miracle of the seed and the soil is not available by affirmation;
It is only available by labor.

~ Jim Rohn

A Warrior’s Song:

The sun kissed a mountain top
And glistens on its face of snow.
And slowly climbs into the sky above
And lights the valley below.

For each of us that this day awakes
A miracle takes place.
For once again we walk our earth
And own all upon its face.

And the past regrets and foolish fears
Of yesterday’s cloudy mind,
Are washed away by the light of day
And seem so far behind.

For each of us is reborn each day,
Our life renews again.
And with the help of God we will find a cause
That makes us want to win.

For a man without a goal in life
Is a man already dead.
His mind wanders from place to place,
And he walks with feet of lead.

He has no reason to stretch his mind,
No spirit to stir his soul.
His name is not even in the book,
When destiny calls the roll.

Better to take the wine of life
And drink both deep and long --
Greet each day ‘cause you’re here to stay,
And sing your warrior’s song.

For the battle of life is joined, and
You might fight long and true.
For in the strife, it’s the game of your life
And the only loser is you.

Grid up your loins with courage
And answer the trumpets call,
And win or lose, you can stay in the end,
This was the greatest of all!

~ William E. Bailey