Posted on by BWThomas

Getting what we want is easy; knowing what we want is hard.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get. Dale Carnegie

Getting what we want is easy; knowing what we want is hard. I heard this on a podcast, not sure who said it. I watch our fifteen-month-old granddaughter ask for what she wants by pointing and making a sound. Sometimes the sound is close to what she wants, like whawha for water, but other times we look in the general direction to see what she’s pointing at and try to figure out what she wants.

Are we still pointing at what we want, do we give up wanting, or give up clarifying what we want because of general dissatisfaction about everything? Getting what we want might take a bit of work, determination, and time, but what does not knowing what we want cost us?

This morning, an article on the computer is titled, “I waited until the kids grew up to get a divorce and wasted my life.” I don’t know if it is a man or a woman saying this, but it sounds sad. It could be they skipped another divorce, it could be they are estranged from their children anyway, and wonder why they sacrificed those years for kids who don’t appreciate the sacrifice. It could be that no matter what choice they made, they wouldn’t be happy, because they haven’t figured out what makes them happy. Chasing happiness seems futile; it’s an inside job. Depending on someone else for our happiness doesn’t seem like a good way to live.

Does developing a grateful attitude help us build a better life? Perhaps the article should have been titled, “I waited for the kids to grow up, now divorced, and I’m looking forward to this next chapter in my life.” It sounds better to me; it sounds like someone who knew what they wanted, to raise their kids, before they moved on.

True power arises in knowing what you want. Knowing what you don’t want, expressing it clearly and lovingly without attachment to the outcome. Leonard Jacobson

How often do we think, if I were ten or twenty years younger, I’d…? But in ten or twenty years, we might be saying the same thing. At some point, we need to go after the thing we want, or we have to admit we don’t really want it. Maybe it’s something that would be nice to have, or it was someone else’s goal for us, and maybe we’ve embellished the goal, but if we peel back the layers, we can still go after the essence of the goal.

Sometimes we want what we think reaching that goal would give us. We wanted accolades, fame, respect, an elevated life, something more than what is… and that might be what we can’t put our finger on. What is ‘the more’, we are always seeking? When will more be enough, or will more never be enough?

If we have a hole in our life, what is it that’s missing? Can we find a way to bring something into our lives to make it fuller, rounder, and more impactful? Is there someone we can help? Can we join a group of like-minded people? If we make a difference in someone else’s life, will it make a difference in our own?

Parenting is a sacrificial investment, and children might not appreciate the sacrifices parents made, but if we’ve prepared them to make sacrifices for their own children, and look at our investment as a worthy one, even if we aren’t as happy as we’d like to be, we might feel a glow of contentment. We might think selfish choices give us more happiness in the short term, but in the long term, the unselfish choices might be what build a good life. Steadfastness and seeing something through to the end might be how to build a life we are proud of.

At a funeral, everyone commented on the deceased’s devotion to his wife of not quite fifty years. They were a devoted couple, which doesn’t mean they didn’t have their ups and downs, I’m sure, like all couples they did, but they loved each other throughout their lives together, and it was apparent to all. God was the centre of their lives, is that the hole many are looking to fill?

Choices we make will impact our lives; being grateful for what we have and choosing well might be what makes a great life. What do we want, what are we willing to say out loud, and what desires do we keep hidden? If we don’t acknowledge what we want, how will we ever get it?

The hardest thing about getting what you want is knowing what to do with it. Patrick Hennessey

When you know what you want, and you want it bad enough, you’ll find a way to get it. Jim Rohn

If you don’t know what you want, you’ll probably never get it. Unknown

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read more, and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale.

Posted on by BWThomas

Choose love over significance and purpose over happiness to build the life of your dreams.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Life is the flower for which love is the honey. Victor Hugo

Love or significance, happiness or purpose, don’t we want it all, and isn’t that what we were brought up to believe? Trying to find happiness without purpose might be no better than trying to find significance without love.

I watched a movie where the heroine had the best job in the world, she’s a travel writer, and some days she wants to commit suicide. She has holidaying down pat, but she doesn’t have the life people usually take a vacation from.

Love, we all want it, but we can fall into a trap thinking getting married and having children isn’t exciting, isn’t using all of our potential, isn’t a big enough life. What if turning our nose up at love, marriage, and children is turning our nose up at the best life has to offer?  What if this is where real love, purpose, passion, and significance exist?

One of the things we don’t do, or maybe some do, is try to think about the person we’ll be down the road, and what they might have wanted us to do. If, when we were in our twenties, we thought about what our choices would mean when we were in our thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, and older, we might make choices to benefit our future self.

Love is our essential nutrient. Without it, life has little meaning. It’s the best thing we have to give and the most valuable thing we receive. It’s worthy of all the hullabaloo. Cheryl Strayed

What choices can we make to benefit our future self, and are we making them? How do we build a life that works for us, our families, and our society? How do we make the choices that build a good life, and how do we correct if we’ve taken a wrong path?

I watch my daughter come home from work, her daughter’s face lights up as she walks in the door. If she takes too long or goes to the bathroom without first coming to get her daughter, her daughter’s face crumples in tears. Being a mother and father of young children is incredibly demanding, but it is also the most rewarding.

This morning, my grandson was up at four am, he gets to come to the airport and pick up his great-aunt today. We dropped her off at six am ten days ago, but we said it was too early for him to come with us. Do we still get joy from little things? Baking cookies is an adventure when you’re three, making snow angels in the snow, and so many small and mundane things we take for granted.

It takes so little to put a smile on a child’s face. When did we get so jaded? Enjoying the small moments in life is part of living a good life. If we can smile at the little things, make an effort to reach out to someone, move our bodies and feed them well, think good thoughts, and read or listen to good books or podcasts, we can make the most of the life we have. Can we live with passion, purpose, spreading love, and finding significance in how we impact others?

You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. Buddha

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. Lao Tsu

The significance of the law of love is precisely that it is not just another law, but a law which transcends all laws. Reinhold Niebuhr

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read more, and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Anxiety and worry don’t build a good life; habits, action, and gratitude do.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Our anxiety doesn’t come from thinking about the future but from wanting to control it. Kahlil Gibran

How does fear play out in our lives? I couldn’t get up this morning because I wrestled with thoughts about a future that hasn’t unfolded yet. Worrying about diverse groups not getting along and fracturing life as I’ve known it, worrying about the leadership of another country and what it might do to mine, and worrying about aging relatives. All of these worries are out of my control, and what I can do something about, I was too tired to do, because I spent all night worrying about what I can’t control.

What can we control? What we eat, what we think, exercise, how we interact with others, our gratitude for what we have, and how we spend the resources we possess. Do we worry as much about the things we can control as about the things we can’t?

We worry about who moves in across the street, even if we never spoke to the occupants who used to live there. What would life look like if we all looked after the little things that become big things? What if we quit envying what others have and worked hard to build a good life for ourselves? If we think it is too late to do something, we might watch someone else and wonder how they did it.

Sometimes I think we know too much about what won’t work, and so it doesn’t work, but watch people who didn’t know they couldn’t change things do exactly that. We don’t try to do things we know we can’t do, but where did this knowledge come from? Learned helplessness is a big deal; we have to watch we don’t let things we think we know work against us.

One of the reasons I love being a member of Toastmasters is that everyone who joins wants to improve something, and watching them improve makes us know we can improve too. It isn’t only speaking; once we start improving in one area of our life, we can see other areas we can make an effort in.

Never mistake the power of influence. Jim Rohn

It’s a bit like decluttering; we can be overwhelmed by how things have piled up, but if we pick a corner and clear it out, we can look at another corner and know it will look better too, and bit by bit we can take back our space. Everything in life can be improved, and sometimes what most needs improvement is our attitude.

What if every situation in our lives can teach us something? What if controlling ourselves, instead of trying to control others or events outside our sphere of influence, is where our power lies?

Is this the year we take control of things inside our sphere of influence and make them better? Does making an effort to talk to people create a better and friendlier society? Decluttering our space, exercising, and eating better make us healthier. Will focusing on gratitude for what we have, instead of on what we lack, build a better life and help us see opportunities in front of us?

What can we do to make our lives and those around us better? If someone sees us taking control, will they realize they can take control, too? Is there a fine line between help and control? We can help others to help themselves, but can too much help be crippling? How do we figure out whether we are helping or hindering others, especially those we love the most?

Are we listening to people tell us how to think instead of thinking for ourselves? Are we fact-checking what we hear at least a little bit instead of letting fear-mongers make us quake and feel powerless? What can we do to fix some of the little things, which will fix some of the big things?

To listen well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well. John Marshall

Anything you read can influence your work, so I try to read good stuff. S. E. Hinton

Choose your habits well. Habit is probably the most powerful tool in your brain’s toolbox. Ray Dalio

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read more, and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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Thank you for reading my books. Special thanks to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

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Does our life call out for small or big changes?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Change your thoughts and you change your world. Norman Vincent Peale

Yesterday, my Grandson said my face is cracked. When we reach the point in life, our grandson says we have a cracked face. What can we do about it?

Have I been relaxing a bit too much, not getting ready for the day, and skipping makeup? Aging is a natural part of life, and we need to embrace it because it’s inevitable. Moms and Grandmas will have their flaws pointed out by those they love the most. Mom’s two oldest daughters told her she was old when she was about twenty-eight.

There are things we can’t fix, but there might be changes we can make. I’ve spent my life tweaking things, and I think tweaking things helps, but there might be times when big changes are needed.  

Ramit Sethi tells us that too often we spin our wheels trying to fix the system, when what we might need to do is overhaul the system.

How do we know if we can tweak something, or if a big change is what we need? Do we sometimes go for the big overhaul when we didn’t need to be that drastic, or try to tweak when our life calls out for big change?

I’m thinking of this as I watch videos of people discussing grey divorce, which seems drastic, and unless one has huge financial reserves, could be a significant mistake. Am I wrong in thinking that if you could live with someone for thirty years, why jump ship now? Take this job or marriage and shove it might not be the best decision. They are big gestures, but blowing up our lives because we need some change doesn’t mean we should dump everything and start over.

Is “I’m not happy” a reason to end a marriage? Happiness is fleeting, an inside job, and our spouse doesn’t make us happy. If we feel we need more in our lives, what do we need? It probably isn’t a new spouse, even though the excitement might feel good for a while. Wouldn’t a new spouse become an old spouse pretty quickly?

Can we fall in love with our old spouse again? Can we see what we saw in them so many years ago, before the mortgage, kids, bills, and responsibilities piled up? Who were we when we met, when a look across a room held so much promise? Has discontent with ourselves spilled over into discontent with them? What can we do to improve our lives without blowing it up? How can we make ourselves happy, what used to make our hearts sing? Where did we like to go, what did we like to experience, and can we bring it back into our lives?

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. William Shakespeare

One of the joys in life is sitting at the table, holding our grandchildren, and sharing a laugh over their antics. It’s a small thing, but a lot of small things lead to a good life. We might long for grand gestures, but maybe they are overrated, and maybe the small things that any couple can share are underrated. How often have we been touched by a commercial that captures small moments? Tim Horton’s commercials come to mind.

There are also big moments; a friend and her husband celebrate the arrival of a long-awaited grandchild. If there weren’t tears in their eyes, I’d be shocked. There are tears in mine, as I think about it.

We have cataclysmic shifts in our lives; a friend lost her husband before Christmas. She’s ninety-four and doesn’t know how she’ll go on without him. Sometimes we have to deal with what happens, and sometimes we get to choose what happens.

As we take stock of where we are and what is possible, do we need to choose wisely? Can we always make something better or worse, even if all we can change is our attitude?

The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude. Oprah Winfrey

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Maya Angelou

When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves. Viktor Frankl

Thank you for reading this post. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts, click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Do expectations make us unhappy? Is gratitude the path to happiness?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Most folks are as happy as they make their minds to be. Abraham Lincoln

Are our expectations a hurdle to happiness? Dennis Prager, in one of his podcasts, says they are. He said he was in university when one of his professors told him goals and expectations were killers of happiness. He decided to eliminate expectations but not goals from his life. He also says gratitude is the secret to happiness.

I’m thinking of Christmas Day as I write this, and the many expectations we often have; our expectations are so lofty that the reality of how wonderful getting together is gets lost because everyone isn’t acting how we hoped.

What if Dennis Prager is onto something, and our expectations do cause many of our problems, especially the expectations we set for others? If we set a goal for ourselves to not get drawn into a contentious argument, that is a different thing than if we set that expectation for someone else. We do have control over our own actions, but wanting to control other people might be where the problem is.

The fewer expectations we put on other people, the better our lives might be. Even with my books, I’ve tried not to have expectations as to who would buy or read them. I wrote them and put them out into the world, which is as much control as I have. Being content with what is, and being willing to deal with what will be, might be the path to happiness.

Letting go of expectations might be one of the hardest things we try to do. Does it seem like we are giving up, and maybe we are, giving up trying to control others, which will be a good thing.

We can control some aspects of our lives, and other things in our lives we have no control over. We can fight against what we can’t control, but does acceptance of what we can’t change lead to a better life?

Happiness is a choice, you cannot choose what happens, but you can choose your reaction to it and be happy. Unknown

We might think we can’t be happy after certain things happen in our lives. How can we be happy if we lose a spouse? Won’t that seem like a sign we didn’t love them enough? I don’t think so. If we did the best we could while someone is alive, that’s the best we can do. Life is for the living. Mom lived fifteen years after Dad died, and although she missed him, she built a life, much of it centered on quilting. Quilting gave her an artistic outlet and something she could accomplish. She’d always loved fabric and sewing and had the time to create as much as she wanted. Sometimes when I’d call her, she’d be so immersed in her quilting she’d forget what time it was, and would miss lunch.

Did every quilt meet her expectations, or did she not have expectations about how the quilt would look, because you don’t really know how it will look until it is complete? Wondering what the finished product would be was part of the journey, and might be what motivated her to get up and sew every day.

If we can curb our expectations and watch life unfold, dealing with what is, and work toward what might be, without getting disillusioned because it isn’t that thing yet. This might be one of the keys to happiness. Can we Learn to live with progress, not perfection, and find satisfaction and happiness in the small and big things in life without trying to control everything? 

Is being happy a gift to ourselves and others? What can we do to create a happier life, a happier countenance, and a happier family? Is gratitude the antidote we are looking for?

There is no path to happiness: happiness is the path. Buddha

Happiness is a choice. Choose to be happy and you will always find something to be happy about. Sandra Cooze

Happiness is a choice, not a result. Nothing will make you happy… until you choose to be happy. No person will make you happy… unless you decide to be happy. Your happiness will not come to you. It can only come from you. Ralph Marston

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read more, and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts, click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Is a drama-free Christmas possible?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Drama is for fools. The wise stay calm. Maxime Lagace

Years ago, on a whiteboard I printed a quote by Thomas Jefferson, “I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.” Opinions have continued to become increasingly polarized over the years. But the fact he made that quote means they were polarized then. Perhaps we need to learn how to navigate dealing with differing opinions without withdrawing from friends or loved ones. What if this is the lesson we need to learn?

Who knows how to build a fair and just society? Does fairness and justness look the same to everyone?

Conversations at Christmas can get heated, loved ones leave in a huff, or worse yet, aren’t invited because of contentious views.  I’m reminded of a quote by Lynn Robinson, “Would you rather be right, or would you rather be happy?” The quote has stuck, but the book I read it in escapes me.

Many of us would answer, “Of course, we’d rather be happy.” But I wonder if the reverse is true, we think we can only be happy if we are right, and whoever we are talking to must agree we are right.

Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one’s own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others. John F. Kennedy

There are many contentious issues; the issues don’t stand alone, and we have to pick a side. It seems I can only talk about issues with people whose side I align with. People on the other side don’t see the context of the discussion in the same way. We don’t see the history of things the same; we aren’t on the same page, and we aren’t even in the same book.

We like the idea of getting together for Christmas, holidays, and big events, but the reality can be messy and contentious. “Pass the potatoes,” comes with contempt, as people look at someone who voted differently from them as the enemy.

When we know we shouldn’t bring up certain subjects, conversation can seem stilted. What used to be easy camaraderie is uneasy. Am I thinking of a time that didn’t exist? Maybe many of us were never aligned on the same side; we were in the middle of different sides, which almost seemed like the same side until something tipped us to one side or the other.

Becoming a person of fewer words, thinking before speaking, and not commenting on everything, might be the way forward. Are we comfortable with silence, not allowing ourselves to be drawn into a confrontation, and ignoring the jabs coming our way?

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Aristotle

For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness. Ralph Waldo Emerson

We don’t need to share the same opinions as others, but we need to be respectful. Taylor Swift

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more, and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts, click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Courage is standing up for what we believe – but whose beliefs trump?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. William Churchill

I found a book at Value Village, and I trust the author when I read that in 1555, a fifteen-year-old boy named William Hunter was burned at the stake for reading the bible. In 1555, it was illegal for commoners to read the bible. The story goes that he was offered a chance to go free if he would recant his “deed of evil” and promise to never again attempt to read the bible. The bishop of the church offered him forty pounds and the funds to start his own business in exchange for never again reading the bible. He refused and was burned at the stake on March 27, 1555. The only bible in the village was chained to the church altar.

The AI version is, “William Hunter was burned at the stake in 1555 at the age of 19 for his Protestant beliefs, which included the refusal to attend Catholic Mass and his act of reading the bible for himself. His execution was part of the Marian persecutions, and his story is remembered as a testament to his refusal to recant his faith even after being offered bribes and facing threats.”

Looking online, I came across an entry, “There was no consistent punishment for reading the Bible in the 16th century.” Another entry says, “It became legal for commoners to read the Bible in English, in a limited capacity, in 1539 with the publication of the ‘Great Bible’, which was authorized by King Henry VIII and ordered placed in every parish church.

Will AI give us more or less clarity about our history? Can AI be a tool, like any tool, we can use for good or ill, and how we use it will be our choice? Are we as a society strong enough and good enough to wield the tools we have to continue building a good society? One of the problems is, do we agree on what a good society looks like?

Trust your own instincts, go inside, follow your heart. Right from the start, go ahead and stand up for what you believe in. As I’ve learned, that’s the path to happiness. Lesley Ann Warren

This becomes a problem when some want to bring far-reaching changes to build society. My husband is listening to something about promoting a tax on unmarried men after thirty. Someone must be thinking this would push them toward marriage, but what a club to wield, and who wants to live in a society run by some of the people with crazy ideas to improve it?

Improving society seems like a noble goal, but what does improvement look like, and who gets to make the decisions? Aren’t we all afraid of people who want to enforce their ideas on us? It’s always for our own good, and we are told that if we don’t want their ideas forced on us, we aren’t acting in our own best interests.

It is my belief, society is improved by individuals making better decisions to improve their lives and the lives of their families, not by imposing their ideas on others. Wanting to change others instead of changing ourselves doesn’t appear to work, but standing up and even dying for what we believe in has changed the world for the better.

The question begs to be asked: Is there anything I would lay my life down for? This is, of course, a different question than what I would kill for. We build a different society when we die for what we believe than when we kill for what we believe.

What type of society do we want to build and stand up for?

It’s very hard in life, to determine where to draw a line between being nice and not hurting people’s feelings, and standing up for what you believe in. Unknown

Standing up for what you believe in comes at a price but backing down exacts a toll that your soul never stops paying. Lee Goldberg

Don’t be afraid to stand for what you believe in, even if it means standing alone. Unknown

Thanks for reading this post. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts, click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books—a special thank you to those who take the time to leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Change is coming, it’s always coming. Do we embrace it, or fight against it?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. Alan Watts

“Did you enjoy your visit to heaven?” Peter asks someone who just passed as they reached the pearly gates. On the podcast where I heard this, the host and guest burst into laughter.

What more do we want from heaven than a beautiful day filled with sunshine? Why is it preposterous that this is heaven? Yesterday, we got our first snow, and our three-and-a-half-year-old grandson and his one-year-old sister couldn’t wait to go outside and play in the snow. The dog wanted to go out more often because she loves playing in it too.

I wasn’t excited to play in the snow, and this shows how I’ve lost some of the excitement about experiencing new things. The more we embrace what each season offers, the more we enjoy life. If we never had any sour in our lives, would we enjoy only the sweet? I’ve met people who come from countries that don’t experience winter who say winter is their favorite season.

There is a quiet joy that comes from sitting inside, warm and comfy, well-fed and secure, watching the snow come down. I think this is why we see Christmas cards with a little house, smoke coming from the chimney, surrounded by trees covered in snow, and this scene warms our hearts.

I’m not against living somewhere without winter, but I think I would miss it, at least a little bit. My daughter and I just set up a date for next Saturday to take the kids tobogganing, if there is still snow.

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new. Socrates

Are we enjoying everything as much as we can? Do we celebrate enough, the big and the little things? We never know when it might be the last time we see someone. We used to laugh among ourselves when we’d visit Mom and Dad, even in their fifties and sixties, Dad would say, “You never know if you’ll see me again.” It sounded morbid, but it is also true, and looking at life that way might make us make the most of what we have while we have it.

Things pass away in our lives, things that will never happen again. It might be a small thing, like the last time a child asks for something particularly childish as they grow up, that stage passes. My grandson asked for hot chocolate with marshmallows this morning. His Nana sent him home with them, and he’ll get marshmallows in his hot chocolate until they are gone.

Children and grandchildren grow up fast. A friend is expecting her first grandchild in December, how exciting! People move from houses they’ve lived in for years, and away from areas they’ve built their lives. There is a last visit to a store they liked, a short conversation with a store clerk that will never happen again. People come into and out of our lives, things change, and we may want to hold onto what was, but we are onto a new chapter, even if we’d like to cling to the old one.

As we go through the seasons of our life and the seasons of the year, we may think the one just past is better than the one coming up, but we must embrace what is, not what we wish or hope for, but the reality in front of us. When we meet people who have embraced life with its difficulties and challenges, they are often the happiest. They don’t fight against what they can’t change; they make the best of what they have where they are.

I watched Dad do this after he lost most of his right hand in a farm accident. Choices Mom and Dad would never have made were on the table. They sold the farm and moved three times, and Mom moved four. I had thought Mom and Dad would be on the farm till the end, but home was wherever they were.

I wonder if we need a catalyst for change, because we like our comfortable life, even if it is like a worn-out shoe that needs replacing. Embracing change might not be easy; every change comes with challenges, but also opportunities. Once we make the change our life is calling for, we might find we enjoy our new circumstances more than the old, comfortable ones.

Is your life calling out for change? Are you embracing it, planning how to make it happen, and the opportunities change will bring?

Some changes look negative on the surface, but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge. Eckhart Tolle

In any given moment, we have two options: to step forward into growth or step back into safety. Abraham Maslow

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Lao Tzu

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Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Love is a verb; love is a beautiful thing to see, experience, and live.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Love without action is meaningless, and action without love is irrelevant. Deepak Chopra

If we want to see real love, we don’t see it among the young and beautiful; they still have to find out what kind of love they have. Will it get through the tough parts of life, and still be there when they are no longer young and beautiful?

I saw real love yesterday, while visiting the best friends of my husband’s parents. They got married in their late thirties or forties and have been married for about forty-six years. They live in a house with steep stairs, and one of her relatives said she could see an accident waiting to happen, so they got a stair lift installed. One August morning, the lady got up. Her husband was still sleeping, so she made her way downstairs and somehow fell off the chairlift. Her husband heard her fall and ran to help her, only to fall on top of her, and the chairlift then fell on him.  

The next Saturday, a lady from their church knocked on the door to deliver food that she and her husband delivered every Saturday. When she got no answer, she called the church office. Everyone felt that if they were going away, they would have told someone. The police were called, and they had to break down the door where they found the two of them on top of each other, unconscious.  Four days they were like this, and had this lady not been sure something wasn’t right, they would have died a heap on the floor.

Love is a verb: It’s an action requiring your involvement and your active participation. You cannot sit back and expect the world will serve it to you. You cannot expect that your relationship will continue to provide love while you’re not putting in any effort. Love has to be earned and must be continually fought for. Stephen Covey

They are home from the hospital, and they aren’t sure if they will be able to take care of themselves completely yet, but have a lady staying with them for now. As we talked to this couple, they are convinced they are alive only by the grace of God, because both of them survived a fall down a steep set of stairs, and four days without food or water feels like a miracle to them, and it feels like one to me, too.

When people tell us they’ve encountered Jesus or God in their lives, do we believe them? The lady said she encountered a vision of Jesus years ago on a bus and has been led to pray for people who recovered from illness. As the two of them talked to us, during parts of it, they held hands, and tears came to the husband’s eyes, as he said, “She’s my girlfriend.” He didn’t say it because he didn’t know they were married, but because they’ve led a life where, other than work, when you saw one of them, you saw the other.

Had they died in a heap on the floor together, it wouldn’t be as sad as it sounds, because living without each other is, I think, the saddest outcome they can imagine. They are grateful to be alive, to be together, and to be in their own home.

We don’t want to be in our neighbors’ business, and have the police knock down doors when they’ve only gone out for a while. But, I am wondering how the neighbors feel knowing an older couple who lived beside them lay on the floor in a heap for four days. One of the problems might be if we aren’t seeing our neighbors coming and going from their home, not seeing any movement will not make us think something is wrong.

When we have an intuition that something isn’t right, could the voice of God be speaking to us?

Love cannot remain by itself – it has meaning. Love has to be put into action, and that action is service. Mother Teresa

Love is not words; it’s actions, and love isn’t feelings; it’s a decision. Stevin Furtick

Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. John 3:18

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read more and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts, click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books—a special thank you to those who take the time to leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Are we enjoying the small things, which become the big things?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Let me tell you something big: Give importance to little things! Mehmet Murat Ildan

Fitting everything we need to do isn’t always easy, but sometimes I ask myself, what am I so busy doing? Life seems to expand what we have to do to fit the time we have to do it in, regardless of how much we accomplish. How do people who accomplish so much do it? How much of my time is spent smelling the roses, having coffee and a chat, and how much of my day is actually productive?

What makes a productive day? Doing things that can wait until tomorrow or making connections with people that can only happen today? We celebrated a friend’s birthday on Saturday, met some interesting people, and talked to a retired couple who’ve created a great retirement life. On Facebook, I see posts and pictures of people traveling to faraway places, not only retired couples but young people just starting.

Listening to an author the other day, he said he realized he doesn’t love travelling, what he loves is the freedom from work that he feels when he’s on vacation. He was on vacation, playing with one of his kids, having the best day, when he realized he could play with his kids when he wasn’t on vacation, and it would be just as much fun. The vacation gave him the freedom to do it; he just had to build that kind of freedom into his daily life.

When we look at the things in life we get the most enjoyment from, it often isn’t the outside things like what building we are looking at we’ve never seen before, it is who we are with, the sense of adventure of doing something together, and often we can have adventures close to or far from home. Are we saving the enjoyment of things for vacation and holidays when some of that enjoyment we could have any day we choose?

We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee. Marian Wright Edelman

What are we not enjoying about where we live that are open to us? Many things cost a lot of money we might wish we could do, but what about the many simple things that are free or close to free, we might enjoy? The more we enjoy the simple things in life, the better our lives will be. Is an expensive dinner out that much more enjoyable than finding a little café for coffee, tea, and a pastry, cake, or other delectable concoction? Would we enjoy it more if it were in Paris than somewhere local we’ve never been?

We might think creating an adventurous life is something that happens over there, far from where we live, but what if all we need to do is change the way we look at things to bring more adventure and joy into our lives?

Life is about choices and dealing with the hand we are dealt. We might look at other people’s lives and think, they’ve got a really great life, but everyone has their own challenges and problems. We don’t know the struggles someone else is going through, and they often don’t know ours. If we knew everything about someone else’s life, would we still think it is better than our own? When we see people whose lives we think are worth emulating, how can we bring some of that into our own lives?

What would we still like to do in life, where would we like to go, and what adventures do we want to have, close or far from home? If we could live anywhere, where would we choose, and what would make it better than where we live now? Are we getting as much joy out of each day as we can? Are we having coffee and conversations with people while they are with us, and taking our grandchildren to the park? One day, we might have time to take our grandchildren to the park, but they will be the ones no longer wanting to go with us, because they have more fun things to do.

If we have time for them when they are young, perhaps they will have time for us when we are old.

Enjoy the little things in life because one day you’ll look back and realize they were the big things. Kurt Vonnegut

The small things of life were often so much bigger than the great things… trivial pleasure like cooking, one’s home, little poems, especially sad ones, solitary walks, funny things seen and overheard. Barbara Pym

Find magic in the little things, and the big things you always expected will start to show up. Isa Zapata

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts, click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.