Don't Die...

Don’t die with your music still inside you.

Listen to your intuitive inner voice and find what passion stirs your soul.

Listen to that inner voice, and don’t get to the end of your life and say,
 "What if my whole life has been wrong?".

 - Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

Abuse

Those who abuse use blaming to confuse and control you. They use blaming to keep you in line and conform to what they want to do. They use it to punish you because  their reality they believe in is not a "kind person's" reality.

If you ever experienced the abuse in any way, realize that what you felt about yourself was a projection from another person's reality, and you bought into it at that time.

You can stop it at any time if you're willing to.

- Neville Goddard

Power

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

 - Marcus Aurelius

Circle of Life

The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning.

-  Ivy Baker Priest

Courage

Courage is not the absence of fear,
but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.

- James Neil Hollingworth

Make a Difference

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

- Robert F Kennedy

Generosity and Pride

Generosity is giving more than you can,
and pride is taking less than you need.

-Kahlil Gibran

Self Actualization

You become what you think about all day long
and those days eventually become
your lifetime.

- Wayne Dyer

Gift

A gift consists not in what is done or given,
but in the intention of the giver or doer.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Greatness

Keep away from people
who try to belittle your ambitions.
Really great [people] make you feel
that you, too,
can become great.

- Mark Twain

Too Soon Old

I've been spending a fair amount of time in senior residences/nursing homes lately, and I can't help but feel for the elders sitting patiently - or not so patiently - as people bustle by them, as though they are invisible. I love this poem -- it reminds us that inside every aged, wrinkled body is a youthful soul who has lived, loved -- and still does.

What do you see nurses? .. . . .. . What do you see?
What are you thinking . . . . . When you're looking at me?
A crabby old man . . . .. . Not very wise,
Uncertain of habit . . . . . With faraway eyes?

Who dribbles his food . .. . . . And makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice . . . . . 'I do wish you'd try!'
Who seems not to notice . . . . .. The things that you do.
And forever is losing . . . . . A sock or a shoe?

Who, resisting or not . . ... . . Lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding . . . .. . The long day to fill?
Is that what you're thinking? . . . . . Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse . . . .. . You're not looking at me.

I'll tell you who I am. . . . . . As I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, . . . .. . As I eat at your will.
I'm a small child of Ten . . . .. . With a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters . . . . .. Who love one another.

A young boy of Sixteen . .. . . With wings on his feet.
Dreaming that soon now . . . . . A lover he'll meet.
A groom soon at Twenty . . . . . My heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows . .. .. . .. That I promised to keep.

At Twenty-Five, now . . . . . I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide . .. . . . And a secure happy home.
A man of Thirty . . . . . My young now grown fast,
Bound to each other . . . . . With ties that should last.

At Forty, my young sons . . . . . Have grown and are gone,
But my woman's beside me . . . . . To see I don't mourn.
At Fifty, once more, babies play 'round my knee,
Again, we know children . . . . . My loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me . . . . . My wife is now dead.
I look at the future . .... . . . Shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing . .. . . . Young of their own.
And I think of the years . . . . . And the love that I've known.

I'm now an old man . . . . ... And nature is cruel.
Tis jest to make old age . . . .. . Look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles . .. . . . Grace and vigor depart.
There is now a stone . .. . . Where I once had a heart.

But inside this old carcass . . . . . A young guy still dwells,
And now and again . . . . .. My battered heart swells.
I remember the joys . . . . . I remember the pain.
And I'm loving and living . . . . . Life over again.

I think of the years, all too few . . . .. .. Gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact . .. . . That nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people . . . . . Open and see.
Not a crabby old man . . . Look closer . . . See ME!!


- Dave Griffith

Life Lesson

In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.

-  Henry Miller

Lessons

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers. 

- Khalil Gibran

Life

In three words I can sum up everything
I've learned about life:
it goes on.

- Robert Frost

Gratitude

Two kinds of gratitude:
The sudden kind we feel for what we take;
the larger kind we feel for what we give.

-  Edwin Arlington Robinson

Dr Seuss Wisdom

Credit:  http://www.mamiverse.com/dr-seuss-quotes-19331/

1.     Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.

2.     Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.

3.     Why fit in when you were born to stand out?

4.     Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.

5.     You’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.

6.     Think and wonder, wonder and think.

7.     Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So… get on your way.

8.     Unless!

9.     THINK! You can think any THINK that you wish…

10.   If you never did, you should. These things are fun and fun is good.

11.   You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.

12.   You are you. Now, isn’t that pleasant?

13.   Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.

14.   It is better to know how to learn than to know.

15.   Everything stinks till it’s finished.

16.   The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.

17.   A person’s a person, no matter how small.

18.   I meant what I said and I said what I meant.

19.   Only you can control your future.

20.   Be awesome! Be a book nut. 

21.   Be who you are and say what you mean. Because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.

22.   Oh, the things you can find if you don’t stay behind!

23.   It’s opener, out there, in the wide, open air.

24.   Teeth are always in style.

25.   Today I shall behave, as if this is the day I will be remembered.

26.   Will you succeed? Yes you will indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed.

27.   From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere.

28.   Step with care and great tact. And remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.

29.   Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.

30.   You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…

Hope

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.

 ― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Dream Big

Seasons

Live in each season as it passes;
breathe the air,
drink the drink,
taste the fruit,
and resign yourself to the influences of each.

- Henry David Thoreau

Relationships

The light shed by any good relationship illuminates all relationships.

- Anne Morrow Lindbergh