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Discovering wisdom on our journey.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Every missed chance becomes a memory filled with regret. Unknown

Do we regret what we don’t do more than what we do? Does this mean we should follow every whim, every crazy idea that comes into our heads? I don’t think so, but over the years, a still small voice has spoken to us, prodded us, and encouraged us. When have we listened and been glad we did, and when have we not listened and regretted it?

Looking back over a lifetime, there are missed opportunities and u-turns we wish we’d taken. Here we are, for better or worse, and we can go forward, but we can’t go back.

I heard of a lady crying in a shop saying she’d been unhappy in her marriage for fifty-four years. She envied the person who was leaving a relationship at almost age seventy-five. The person leaving a relationship at almost seventy-five no doubt has regrets of her own, but it is the courage to take action the lady envies. The courage to say enough, there is only so much time left, and I want something different than what I have.

Grey divorce is a phenomenon of our time; as people reach a certain age they want something more, or at least different out of life. It takes courage to stay and courage to go, who has the most courage might not be evident at first glance.

Regret about yesterday takes away the beauty of today. Unknown

Courage to take action in life and knowing which actions to take is where we build a good life. We will never take advantage of every opportunity. We will not always make the best decision, and I doubt anyone gets a life with no regrets, but living a life with few regrets seems a good goal.

What are the opportunities in front of us, what are the choices ahead of us to make the best of the years to come?  Who can we be an example to, who can we encourage, and who do we turn to for support and encouragement? Regrets are painful reminders of what we think might have been, but if we embrace the lesson we can take a step toward wisdom. We don’t get wisdom from information, but from our journey, and no one can spare us the lessons we learned.

The weight of regret is often heavier than the pain of failure. Unknown

Regret in love is not loving enough, or loving too late. Unknown

Regret is the scar we carry from the battles we didn’t fight. Unknown

Thank you for reading this post. Please return 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.

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Letting our light shine and becoming a lighthouse, not a weather vane!

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world. William Shakespeare

What changes will we make this year, what changes will happen we didn’t choose but must deal with?

I’m reading, “The Other 90%,” by Robert K. Cooper. He says his grandfather asked him two questions when he was still a young boy to help him be his best.

What is the most exceptional thing you’ve done this week?

What’s the most exceptional thing you will do next week?

That is putting ourselves on the spot and we might not have an answer but if we made it part of our mission to do one noteworthy thing a week we could probably do it. Even asking ourselves the question might help us better orient ourselves in the world, especially if we are getting to the age where we have the joy and privilege of interacting with our grandchildren.

We might decide like Robert Cooper’s grandfather did after having his third heart attack. He’d lived by the motto, “Give the world the best you have and the best will come back to you.” In living a life where he got very good at fitting in and going along he thought he was giving life his best. Still, after three heart attacks, he began to look at life differently and wondered what kind of life he could have had if he’d kept looking deeper and questioned yesterday’s definition of his best.

What if he’s right and we can learn more about the potential hidden inside of us? What if we can choose to be more than we’ve become? Listening to Tony Robbins last night he said more or less the same thing, if we continue to learn and develop throughout our lives, we will be capable of doing more things. There is always something to learn and it isn’t about fame and fortune although many people have found it by solving problems that need to be solved.

What if we are called to be a lighthouse and not a weather vane? I think of people who have been bright lights in my life. Hopefully, we’ve all had bright lights in our lives, and been a bright light in someone else’s. It might not be what we accomplish in life that is as important as that we are always moving toward something even if we never attain it.

All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle. St. Francis of Assisi

If we dare ask ourselves tough questions and answer them how would we change our life? If we don’t like the answer to the question about what exceptional thing we did last week, last month, or last year, we could plan to do something we would be proud of. We might make a call we’ve been putting off, heal a breach in a relationship, or implement a plan we’ve been thinking about.

We need to keep growing, what if, “Our life is a garden, our thoughts are the seeds, we can plant flowers, or we can plant weeds,” is true? Many beautiful gardens become unkempt, what if one of our biggest jobs is to become better with age, and be a lighthouse to those coming after us? Can we become a light in our little corner of the world, where it matters most, in our families?

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. Plato

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 light from within. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

There is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it. Amanda Gorman

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.

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 Happy New Year! What a year 2025 will be!

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. Joshua J. Marine

Today is the day we take final stock of 2024 and set our goals for 2025 if we haven’t already made them. Some of us have had many dinners and gatherings with friends and family and need a bigger notch on our belts! Normalcy will soon be here and fun, frivolity, and overeating will be over.

We catch up over food and drinks about how life is unfolding. Yesterday we saw two great nephews who have grown into men, each with a girlfriend. How time has flown and the years are kind to some and cruel to others. Keeping a positive attitude and a merry heart in times of adversity is a huge challenge and it seems as we get older, harder. Perhaps that is because we don’t have time to improve things, opportunities lost are truly lost, and we are beset by what could have been if only…

I wonder as I see people I’ve known a long time or known about, how some relationships go through the ups and downs of life and some disintegrate. We can’t spend our lives trying to make someone happy, nor expect them to spend their life making us happy. Happiness is our challenge and we find it amidst the humdrum of daily life, or we don’t find it at all.

Some new mothers find the demands of new motherhood demanding without fulfillment, and some find it the most fulfilling time of their lives. Being grandparents is one of the happiest times for my husband and me, we can’t imagine the void in our lives, but we wouldn’t know what we were missing.

Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict. William Ellery Channing

There is sad and happy news all around us. Some families have fallen apart over what seems like small things, and some have stayed together when we don’t see how they could get through it.

Even a big challenge like cancer, some people will talk about, and some people won’t. Does what we are willing to talk about define us? Should we keep everything close, but when we do, are we alone in our struggles? Does sharing our burdens lighten our loads?

Isn’t one of the problems in our society, the embellishment of so many lives on social media, and thinking so many people are better off than us? We are comparing the worst or at least the reality of our lives, to the embellished version they put out into the world. This isn’t new; people have decorated one room in their house to look opulent when they had almost nothing in the rest of the house. They roasted fat to make the neighbors think they were eating better when they all had hardly anything to eat.

Is there a point where putting our best foot forward, is aspirational until it becomes a lie? When we can accept ourselves the way we are, the good, the bad, the richer, the poorer, happy, and the sad, are we better off? Isn’t adopting a positive attitude a bit of a lie, or is it finding the silver lining in adversity, and we get more of what we focus on?

As we go into a New Year are we at peace with who we are, the life we’ve lived, the mistakes we’ve made, and the choices we still have? Pretending we are more than we are, is not the same as becoming more, can we be happy and grateful for where we are, even as we aspire for more? Can we embrace who we are, where we’ve come from, the choices we made that worked out, and ones that didn’t, accepting everything about ourselves while still harboring hopes and dreams for tomorrow, believing we can deal with what comes?

Our attitude, diligence, habits, and decisions shape our lives. Successful lives deal with hard things, and unsuccessful lives deal with hard things, there will always be hard things to deal with, and how we deal with them might be the deciding factor. It might mean success if we can get through the hard things, and keep going when we want to quit.

Whatever this New Year holds, I hope we have the strength to get through it keeping the good things in our lives intact.

Happy New Year!                                                                                             

It is not good for all our wishes to be filled; through sickness we recognize the value of health; through evil, the value of good; through hunger, the value of food; through exertion, the value of rest. Greek Proverb

Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:24

There are two ways of meeting difficulties: you alter the difficulties, or you alter yourself to meet them. Phyllis Bottome

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

To subscribe, comment, 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.

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Change is coming and we can’t always choose the changes, but what changes can we choose?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

To be able to look back upon ones life in satisfaction, it to live twice. Khalil Gibran

Where do we get our inspiration? We often get inspiration from others, and being part of a group can inspire us more than being on our own. This is my experience with Toastmasters and the Mississauga Writers Group. We can get so involved in the group we don’t accomplish our individual goals, but learning to say no is also a skill we need to develop.

As one woman eloquently said, “I wouldn’t want to deprive someone else of the opportunity.” Learning to manage our time and energy is one of the skills we need to learn in life. Sometimes we are stuck not knowing how to reach the next step until we get more information.

It was gratifying on Saturday when a new member approached me and said he created a KDP account with Amazon and published his book, “Being Lolo.” I’d mentioned to him it was how I published mine. All he needed was information, and maybe meeting someone who had done it, spurred him to do it too.

We don’t know what we can do until we do it, and holding your book in your hand is a wonderful experience. My two-and-a-half-year-old grandson comes into where I’m writing, pulls down my books, turns to the back cover, and says, “That’s you, Grandma,” and I love it every time he says it.

Finding a group of like-minded people is wonderful. If we’ve felt we didn’t fit in, finding groups we fit into can be even more special. At a potluck on Saturday we were a group of unlikely friends, we’ve met through Toastmasters, we are from all over the world, diverse in all ways but Toastmasters brings us together. We love hearing other people’s stories, and their accomplishments spur us to step out of our comfort zone.

The daughter of a Japanese Diplomat said, she has always felt like she didn’t fit in, and maybe we are a group of misfits who have found a group we fit into. Some of us might like being part of a group more than others. As the only spouse attending said, “We try to have separate interests.” I think she is correct we need separateness in our togetherness.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love; let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Khalil Gibran

Building our life never stops until it does, and until that time comes we don’t know if we have years or days left, so we should make the most of it. It might seem terrible to die without reaching our goals, but how much worse to live without having goals?

How many people have been surprised by living much longer lives than they thought they would? If we don’t plan and this isn’t a good surprise, wouldn’t that be tragic?

Your life is an island separated from all other islands and continents. Regardless of how many boats you send to other shores or how many ships arrive upon your shores, you yourself are an island separated by its own pains, secluded in its happiness. Khalil Gibran

If there is a group we’ve thought about joining, what is stopping us? Getting so busy we don’t have time for our family is not good, but so is not making the most of the life we have by reaching out, and expanding our horizons. We all have some “What ifs” in our lives. What if we started making choices to move in the direction of our dreams? Small, hesitant choices, test the water, what if a bigger life is out there waiting for us to come looking for it?

What if being too comfortable is part of the problem, we are resilient, and adventurous creatures, what if in the coming year, we choose to enlarge our comfort zone or step out of it? What would that look like, what changes would we have to make, do we know what changes we would like to see in our lives, or is that what we need to discover?

A New Year is coming soon, what changes will happen, what opportunities will we pursue, and what will we create? Small changes can alter the trajectory of our lives, for better or worse. But if we feel like a small boat bobbing in an ocean without direction, wouldn’t we rather steer toward something we want, even if it takes a little work to figure out what that is?

Maybe we need more people in our lives, more fun and adventure, creativity, or something we can’t name yet. When we look back on 2024 what kind of a year has it been? Can we learn to control what we can and deal with what we can’t? Maybe someone important to us passed this year, and we are dealing with the hard truths of life. We are never ready to face loss, it comes and life is forever changed. Had it happened later we would still not be ready for it.

Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother. Khalil Gibran

The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master. Khalil Gibran

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh, and the greatness which does not bow before children. Khalil Gibran

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 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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Creating an Illustrated Journal to celebrate our life, document our days, and excavate our soul.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open. Natalie Goldberg

Has creating an Illustrated Journal been something you’ve done or would like
to do? I’ve kept journals for many years, mostly written, and I believe they
have helped me in ways too numerous to mention. Most of my journals are written but sometimes we can’t find the words to say what is in our heart and mind.

Long ago I gave up the page-day Diary in favor of the blank page Journal,
but I picked up a few yesterday that inspire me, for 2025 I might try a page-a-day guided journal, and one I like is called “Fit Happens.” It includes gratitude, goals, fitness, and inspiration with a two-page spread for each day. I purchased it at Dollarama.

Our journal is a place, to be honest with ourselves; we can pour our heart
and soul onto a page in words, art, or both. Sometimes it’s hard to find the
words and a picture might let us get all our angst out on the page in a
scribble, maybe we want to color in the blank space, or maybe we don’t. Georgia O’Keefe tells us, “I found I could say things with colour and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way.”

Zentangles are patterns we can add to our illustrated journal.  Lines, circles, and dots create a pattern. Four patterns create a tile, we can incorporate lines and patterns in our journal in any way we choose, and can become a mindful meditative practice. Creating mandalas is another way of expressing ourselves.

Writing is another powerful way to sharpen the mental saw. Keeping a journal of our thoughts, insights, and learning promotes mental clarity, exactness, and context. Stephen Covey

Art is for all of us, and expressing ourselves on the page might be one of
the best ways to sort out our feelings, fears, goals, and aspirations, and help us deal with the problems and challenges in life. Art isn’t only for those whose artwork will end up in a museum or gallery. It doesn’t need to be hung up on our walls, but it can be.

The benefit of art is in making it, expressing ourselves on the page, and when we keep that art in a journal we can look back on it and see our progress. The words and pictures will bring us back to that day. We think we remember everything about our life but I read my journals and am surprised by what is in them. There are events written about in my journal I don’t remember until the journal jogs my memory. We might think we’ve always looked at things the way we see them now, but if kept over a long time, our journal will document how our view on things has changed.

A written journal or an illustrated journal is a way to examine our lives,
we may get more out of life by looking for things to put into our journal, live more fully, and drink more deeply from the cup of life. Does our life call out to be documented in some way? Isn’t this why we love taking photos? They can also be included in our illustrated journal and other memorabilia we can glue or tape in.

My idea of an Illustrated Journal is to excavate the past, document our
present, and plan our future. As a scrapbook, life planner, and vision
board nothing is too small or too big to be included.

Will creating an Illustrated Journal help us to live well from the inside
out? Will it change our lives in ways we can’t imagine? Is it true the more you
put into life the more you get out of it? Would creating an Illustrated Journal
be a way to get more out of life?

In the journal, I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any
person” I create myself. Susan Sontag

Documenting little details of your everyday life becomes a celebration of
who you are. Carolyn V. Hamilton

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. William Wordsworth

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

Does luck favor those who believe they are lucky?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Don’t minimize the importance of luck in determining life’s course. Alex Trebek

Where does luck fit in our lives, do we consider ourselves lucky, or unlucky?

When a situation could have been terrible but isn’t what can we call it but luck?  Last Thursday I planned on giving a speech at Toastmasters about the exhilaration one feels after a close call. When I was nineteen a girlfriend and I drove down Highway 401, I was in the passenger seat, when she hit black ice and the car skidded out of control. A police officer was speaking to the driver of a car he’d pulled over. Our car’s front end came within inches of his legs as it did a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree donut coming to a stop in the same lane, going the same way we started. The police officer didn’t motion to us to pull over so we drove off. It is times like that when time seems to stand still and I still feel lucky that we didn’t end up in a horrific accident hitting the police officer and parked car.

On Wednesday night I went for a bike ride and as I was heading home riding down a path, a woman turned the corner to come down the path so I moved to the right, and my handlebar must have touched the wire fence on the right because the next thing I know I was picking myself off the pavement. It happened so fast that I felt momentarily stunned, but I picked myself up, mumbled, “I’m okay,” to the woman,” I wasn’t expecting that,” got on the bike and rode home.

Bruised but not broken, another instance of wow, that could have been so much worse. My face was swollen and bruised enough that I didn’t go to Toastmasters and give my speech, which was going to be about how fear, especially a fear of death, also results in a fear of life.

You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from. Cormac McCarthy

Luck often comes if we are prepared for it through hard work. But, if a bullet misses killing you by a quarter of an inch you’re lucky. When things could have been terrible but aren’t, we are lucky. If we are born healthy, into a good family, and in a great country, we are lucky.

There are things we work hard for and if luck comes our way we might prosper, but some circumstances in life come down to luck. We might do better in life if we feel we are lucky than if we feel we aren’t. Some of us might feel if something bad happens we are unlucky, and some might feel lucky because they escaped a worse outcome. A lot of life is about perspective, and feeling lucky or unlucky might be one of those things. We can look at almost any situation and think if I was lucky that wouldn’t have happened, or wow, I’m so lucky, because it could have been worse. Is it true, that luck favors those who believe they are lucky?

If you are lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it. Bette Davis

Luck is a thing that comes in many forms and who can recognize her. Ernest Hemingway

All of us have bad luck and good luck. The man who persists through the bad luck – who keeps right on going – is the man who is there when the good luck comes – and is ready to receive it. Robert Collier

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.

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Loving what is, be grateful, be happy.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The more you practice the art of thankfulness, the more you have to be thankful for. Norman Vincent Peale

Don’t worry, be happy. We’ve all heard it but it isn’t easy to calm our mind when something keeps going round and round. I was listening to a speaker (I can’t recall her name) on YouTube the other day. She said, “We need to be careful of what we say because what we say matters. To recognize what we are saying she recommended adding, “And I like it like that, or that’s just the way I like it.”

So when we say we are fat, and add silently, and that’s just the way I like it, maybe we will change what we say to something we do want. “I’m healthy and getting healthier would be a better thing to say. I’m working on my fitness. What if we took our negative self-talk and flipped it to the positive? What if we count our blessings instead of our fears?

Can this make a difference in our lives, relationships, and mental health? How hard is it to shift our inner dialogue from negative to positive and start focusing on the positive?

What if we silently added, “And that’s just the way I like it,” to some of the thoughts going around in our head, would we realize if we are going to be happy with what we are thinking we have to think about it differently?

We might have a problem that is overwhelming us, but focusing on the problem, instead of focusing on a solution, is part of the problem. Perhaps we need to ask how could we improve this situation. Some situations can’t be made better but they must be dealt with and finding a positive way to go forward might be one of the hardest things we will do in our lives but we still have to do it.

I am happy because I’m grateful. I choose to be grateful. That gratitude allows me to be happy. Will Arnett

How do we go forward after losing someone? We need to figure this out because we will all lose people in life. Can we focus on what they brought to our lives and how lucky we were they were a part of our lives, the blessings they brought instead of the empty hole left by their leaving?

Sometimes we ask questions like, what if the worst thing happens, but what if instead, we asked, how can I prepare, how can I improve the situation? It might take some thinking and maybe a piece of paper to work out a positive framework for our feelings. How does our statement change if we exchange should to could, and what to how?

Byron Katie in “Loving What Is” tells us to ask four questions:

Question One: Is it true? What is the reality of it? Whose business is it?

Question Two: Can you absolutely know that it’s true? When do you think that it’s true? And it means that __________. What do you think you would have if reality were (in your opinion) fully cooperating with you? What’s the worst that could happen? What’s the should? Where’s your proof?

Question Three: How do you react when you think that thought? Can you think of one stress-free reason to keep the thought?

Question Four: Who would we be without the thought? The turnaround – as long as we feel that the cause of our problems is out there – as long as we think someone else is responsible for our suffering – and the situation is hopeless. It means we are forever the victim.

It might take real effort to turn our thoughts from negative to positive, to count our blessings instead of our fears, and to find a way to love the reality of our lives.

The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. When the mind is perfectly clear, what is is what we want. If we want reality to be different than it is, we might as well try to teach a cat to bark. Byron Katie

Reality is what it is, and we can like it, or hate it, but what we can’t do is change it if it is not in our control, and part of what leads to suffering is when we can’t accept what we can’t control.

But, we can control a lot, and can we start by counting our blessings instead of our fears? If we get more of what we focus on, don’t we want more things to be grateful for?

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. John F. Kennedy

Living in a state of gratitude is the gateway to grace. Arianna Huffington

Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance. Eckhart Tolle

Thank you for reading this post. Please return, 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.

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Luck and good management, sowing and reaping, and where preparation meets perspiration.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant. Robert Louis Stevenson

Where does luck play in our lives and what role does god management play? When we hear about the lives of the rich and the famous it does seem they were at the right place at the right time, and they were prepared to take advantage of the luck that came their way. What were they doing to make that lucky break possible?

My son showed me a short video last night of a mother and her daughter taking an ice bath, the daughter looks to be about three. If we are willing to take ice baths what else might we accomplish in life?

I love to hear stories of how author’s books were discovered. A book has to be found, opened, read, and thought to be worth the read to become a great book. But, no one can find the book if it hasn’t been written, and no one can take our great invention, discovery, or idea and turn it into something bigger if we didn’t do something with the small kernel of an idea when it came to us.

How often have we seen something and wish we’d thought of it, but how often have we seen something someone else is doing and we did think about it, but didn’t do anything with the idea?

How many thoughts have we had that if implemented would have elevated our lives? We can’t do anything about opportunities that came in the past we didn’t take advantage of, but what would our life look like if we took advantage of the opportunities as they come in our future?

What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action. Meister Eckhart

What if we fail? What if playing it safe is a big failure in life? What if living a life with audacious goals is living the good life? What if we regret what we don’t do more than what we do?

We might write a book that doesn’t sell, but we’ve still written a book. We might start a business that doesn’t become a big success, but we still started a business, and if we’ve started one we can start another, just like we can write another book. What if collecting failures is something we have to do on our way to success? We have to get in the game to win the game, and too often we sit on the sidelines waiting for someone to do something, but if anything is going to change, we have to be the ones to change it.

How often do we think about what we could have done differently in the past, but what if we start thinking about what we can change in the future? We have no power to change the past, but what if we have a lot more power than we think to build our future? We have however much time we have and it will pass whether we do anything with it or not.

This is the month to plant a garden, and those who don’t plant now won’t enjoy the benefits of the garden later. Life is all about sowing and reaping, but we can’t reap what we didn’t sow!

What seeds can we plant today to reap in the future? What seeds are we planting that we won’t reap, but our grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren will reap?

You cannot hold on to anything good. You must be continually giving – and getting. You cannot hold on to your seed. You must sow it – and reap anew. You cannot hold on to riches. You must use them and get other riches in return. Robert collier

Life is an echo. What you send out comes back. What you sow, you reap. What you give, you get. What you see in others, exists in you. Zig Ziglar

If you don’t like the crop you are reaping, check the seed you are sowing. John C. Maxwell

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Posted on by BWThomas

Living life, making choices, and asking questions.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Spring flowers, trees in bloom, and getting out into the garden, what a wonderful weekend. The plants at my local store look lovely, and it’s time to plan what to plant.

This year we are making a little garden for our grandson. Four tires are in the backyard waiting to be painted and then we’ll assemble three on the bottom and one on top. Once we fill it with soil we can take him to pick out what he wants to plant.

I can hear him now, “This one, this one, and this one.” He happily played in his sandbox while I gardened on Saturday, and he was having so much fun when his father asked if he wanted to go to the park he said “No.”

I think about how Mom and Dad managed the farm when we were little. But when I was taking the tires out of bags, I had my grandson sit on the step and each time we went back for another tire he’d sit on the step.

He’s a big helper; he wants to help with everything. He helps crack eggs for breakfast, peel the garlic, and put it in the garlic press, and his favorite is to spin the lettuce.

Mom always said, “If you don’t let them help when they are little they won’t want to help when they are big.” It is so much fun watching him develop, and enjoy the little things in life. I hope he remains exuberant and willing to do things all his life. Is there a better motto for life than, “I do it.”

We don’t see things the way they are. We see them the way we are. Talmud

Watching him I wonder where my, “I do it,” went. That whatever is out there I could learn, master, and go on to the next adventure. I think of things to do, then think of the effort and cost, and wonder if it is worth it. We censor ourselves which is good and bad, we need good judgment to live a good life, but we also need a sense of adventure, getting out of our comfort zone, and doing things we haven’t done.

It might be true that a library and a garden help us lead a contented life, but is there room in our lives for adventure? Are we trying new things, going to new places, eating new food, and meeting new people? Fitting everything into our life is a challenge. We can’t do everything, see, and experience everything, but could we do more? Is it time for many of us to decide what is important to do in the next few years?

Is there one thing we want to do in different areas of our life we haven’t done yet? The best time to do it might have been twenty years ago, but the next best time is now. Spring is a great time to think about who we want to be, what we want to do, and what is possible.

Is there an adventure in our future? Do we need to get out of our comfort zone? What do we still want to do we haven’t done?

Define success on your own terms, achieve it by your own rules, and build a life you’re proud to live. Anne Sweeney

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Albert Einstein

Sometimes the questions are complicated, and the answers are simple. Dr Seuss

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 Amazon and Goodreads. 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

Directing our days is directing our lives. We are where we are because of the choices we’ve made.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

It is not enough to be busy… The question is: what are we busy about? Henry David Thoreau

Are we saying yes to life? As opportunities come along do we say yes or no to living an adventurous life? We might think adventure never knocks at our door, but is that true? Aren’t there always things we could be doing, learning, and experiencing?

One of the things I do is look at things I’d like to do and say, “That’s too expensive.” But at some point in our lives, it becomes do or don’t do, we’ve put off the things we want to do so long it is time to make it happen or know it will never happen.

Travel is one of the things we’ve wanted to do but haven’t done much of. But next year we are planning a trip to England. Many people are well-traveled but we’ve always used the excuse that it is hard to get away from a business – which it is, but every time we’ve taken time off it has worked out well.

Living a good life is up to us to interpret in our way, no two lives are the same, and we’ve made choices that have brought us to where we are. What would we like more of and what would we like less of in our lives? Would we like more fitness and health, that might mean less chips and ice cream, more walks, and less TV.

Do we want to go through life hand in hand with our partner, or do we have individual goals? Does one want one and the other partner wants the other? How do we make it work if we want to be out doing things in the world and our partner thinks we should be happy at home?

This weekend I said no to a walk with a friend, because my sister-in-law was coming over, or so I thought. But in the end, I did nothing on Sunday afternoon. I could have had a lovely afternoon walk, laughed, and stopped for tea.

It is easy to put off going for a walk, calling a friend, trips we want to take, exercising, and reading the books we say we want to read. The things we have to do, we do, but what about the things that feed our soul, expand our mind, and benefit our body? They often wait patiently, and if we aren’t careful they might never happen, because they aren’t urgent so we must fit them into our lives deliberately.

What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important. Dwight Eisenhower

How good are we at sorting out the important from the urgent? We get to decide what we do with our time, but if we don’t decide what to do with it others will decide for us, or the time will fly by with nothing accomplished.

Somehow we need to balance our lives between the urgent, and the important, our goals and dreams, and our partner’s goals and dreams. Today is the day we have, to plan and schedule the life we want, to make the most out of what is possible. It takes a plan and a schedule to get things done, and we should stop and smell the roses along the way.

Is there something we need to put into our schedule that we haven’t found the time to do?

A plan is what, a schedule is when. It takes both a plan and a schedule to get things done. Peter Turla

Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days. Zig Ziglar

Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week. Anonymous

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 for leaving 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.