Posted on by BWThomas

Building on our strengths, while we work on our weaknesses is this the secret to success?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Building your talents into real strengths also requires practice and hard work, much like it does to build physical strengths. Tom Rath

Do we focus on our strengths or our weaknesses? Tonight, I am giving a speech to Speechcrafters; this group is taking a six-week course in public speaking with Toastmasters. My speech will be about putting humor in speeches.

I’m one of the least funny speakers, and I’ve found there is nothing as unfunny as trying hard to be funny. As I’ve put this speech together I’ve come across some things that make sense to me about humor.

A female comic says no one comes up to her after her routine and asks for her number, but the male comics have throngs of women wanting to date them. It seems men like women who laugh at their jokes, and women like men who make them laugh. Over the years the humor in a relationship changes, but sharing a laugh is no less important. Whereas during courtship men were the humor producers and women the appreciators, in long-term relationships it can be harmful for men to use humor. When women are the humorous partner it seems relationships thrive.

One of the reasons is men often use disparaging humor directed at others, whereas women use self-deprecating humor, which might bring relief to a tense situation. Women who use humor report greater marital satisfaction. According to Dr. John Gottman, one of the best ways for wives to lower their husband’s heart rate is to crack a joke to relieve tension, and couples who deescalate the conflict in this way are more likely to have a stable marriage.

As relationships progress a man’s humor becomes less important and a woman’s sense of humor becomes a blessing. In the beginning, it was about attracting a mate but after marriage, it is about sympathy and attunement to the other person’s feelings and perspectives. A genuine laugh is one of the best and most honest ways to convey, I’m with you, and we are in this together.

Build upon strengths, and weaknesses will gradually take care of themselves. Joyce C. Lock

A few years ago I volunteered to be part of a comedy night. I’d always wanted to try it and when the opportunity presented itself I took it. I worked hard putting together material, and bought a couple of books like, “The Comedy Bible.” I prepared, knew my material, and didn’t get one laugh. But, I did get compliments on my material, along with a few pointers from funny men who got a lot of laughs.

Tonight I’m going to tell new Toastmasters to focus on putting together a good speech, not to focus on telling jokes, but to tell true stories that the audience can relate to. They might get a laugh, they might not, but either way, it is okay.

If humor is not our strength and we work hard to give humorous speeches we might sacrifice what we are good at. If we work hard to give speeches that focus on our strengths and we get a laugh that’s a win for everyone.

We should do this in our lives; focus on our strengths and not our weaknesses. When we focus on our weaknesses we often forget to work on our strengths and we try to become someone we are not. We become the proverbial square peg in a round hole.

We only have so much time and energy, and how we spend it will determine our results. If we spend our time trying to become better at what we will never be best at, is that as good as focusing on what we are already good at and improving that?  If we focus on our strengths I think we will have a better life than if we focus on our weaknesses, and we shouldn’t discount small improvements that add up to significant improvements over time.

Build on your strengths, work on your weaknesses. Minh Tan

You cannot build performance on weaknesses. You can build only on strengths. Peter Drucker

Sometimes we’re tested not to show our weaknesses, but to discover our strengths. Sasha Gollish

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

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Thank you to everyone who reads 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

Choices in actions and choices in attitude, we are blessed if we have the ability to choose.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Life is a chess match. Every decision that you make has a consequence to it. P.K. Subban

Do we get to, want to, have to, or should do things in our lives, and do how we look at these things change them? I have to water my dahlias becomes I get to water my dahlias. I have to phone Mom becomes I get to phone Mom. It won’t be long and watering dahlias won’t be an option, they will be done for the year, but I can enjoy them now. 

We cannot turn every have-to into a want-to. Sometimes we just have to do it and get it over with and go about our life. Do we have to go for a walk, usually not, but we may want to, or think we should, and if we are lucky we get to. There are people who do not get to say,” Let’s go for a walk,” because they are unable to walk. How lucky are we if we can and do? Many people cannot water or weed their gardens because they do not have one. Not everyone gets to cook today, some because they are not able; because they are no longer in their own home, and some because they have no food to cook.

We may have things on our list we don’t want to do, but feel we should, we must, or we have to do. Is our life the sum of the choices we have made? If we want a better life do we need to make better choices? What if we chose to go for a walk every day? What if we chose to eat for health? The two choices that lead to the greatest amount of happiness in our lives I think are the choice of who we choose as a spouse and what we choose as our livelihood. Perhaps if we realized what a momentous choice it was when we made them we would be so filled with fear we wouldn’t make a choice at all. We make our choices and then we live with them and hopefully make the best of them.

Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you. John C. Maxwell

When we visit somewhere with breathtaking vistas of mountains, oceans, and scenery that take our breath away we think what would our lives be like if we could live here? Life would still be life with all its challenges but does living amongst beauty add to our lives? There is beauty everywhere if we look for it. It might not be the grandeur of snow-covered mountain peaks, but we can stroll in a park, a public garden, or if we are lucky our own garden.

Having our own garden to sit in is a joy; to be surrounded by greenery and flowers gives us a lift. My garden needs tending because the weeds are taking over, and if we let them they do take over. If we weed every week it isn’t that daunting but with going away and not weeding since we got back I have to get out there and create order out of chaos.

I wonder if our life isn’t always moving towards one of two extremes, too orderly, or too chaotic. Too orderly has never been one of my failings and I’ve sometimes thought it might be better to be too orderly than too chaotic if one had to choose, but too orderly may be harder to live with. It is finding the balance that is the challenge.

Choices, choices, choices, if we are lucky we have choices to make, if we are wise we make the right ones. The challenge is to know which choice will be the best one over time. Tonight I can work in the garden or go to the gym but doing both will be a challenge. I think the garden should win out. I could have weeded this weekend but Saturday it rained, and yesterday we had visitors. I could have, I would have, I should have, but I didn’t do it so it is still to be done. I get to, I want to, I have to, and I should, so I will and then it will be done until it needs to be done again.

Is making our lives better as easy as choosing what is the next thing we must do, can do, should do, get to do, or want to do and then do it?

The quality of your life ultimately depends on the quality of your decisions. Ray Dalio

The hardest decisions in life are not between good and bad or right and wrong, but between two goods or two rights. Joe Andrew

Nothing happens until you decide. Make a decision and watch your life move forward. Oprah Winfrey

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

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Thank you to everyone that reads my books, and a special thank you to those that 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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Life happens to all of us, how we react to it is what we control

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

In the end, it’s not the years in your life that counts. It’s the life in your years. Abraham Lincoln

Sometimes things happen that jerk us up short and we feel mortal. Someone younger than us, considered healthy or healthier than us, dies of a heart attack. A relative is in the hospital with something that seemed to come out of nowhere. We wonder if this could happen to us too, and of course, we know the answer is yes. We aren’t special; we don’t have some protective magic protecting us from the hard things in life.

We realize that health really is our first wealth, and what should we do to be healthier? What do we want to accomplish, if retirement is looming we wonder what will we do with our time no longer taken up by working. Do we have a passion to pursue, an interest to discover, or a hobby to take up? If we are alone we may wonder if we have another thirty or forty lonely years ahead of us, if we aren’t alone we worry about when we might be.

If we’ve watched our parents as they’ve aged and they’ve had reasonable health, reasonable resources to live on, and had hobbies and interests then aging may not be as scary for some of us as it is for others. Getting old is not fun but it’s the best option we have, and if we can do it gracefully, and healthily with mind and body intact it may be an enjoyable stage in life.

We’ll need to trust that we can keep ourselves healthy enough, and have enough income to more than scrape by. In old age, I think financial security is a big thing because we aren’t in most cases able to physically make more money but our investments can produce fruit. We aren’t planting the money trees anymore but we can harvest them.

We might not be having big adventures when we reach advanced age, but we are watching our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren have theirs. If our family is doing well we will feel grateful and blessed. No one only gets blessings to be grateful for, everyone gets challenges to overcome, deal with, and make the best of.

Don’t try to add more years to your life. Better add more life to your years. Blaise Pascal

Is trusting we can get through all of life and deal with the trials and tribulations that come along with the joys the way to look at life? If we can believe whatever comes we can deal with, whether highs or lows it will be better for us. We may think why someone doesn’t do this or that to improve their health, wouldn’t it be better if they ate this way or that way? If there truly is a better diet we should follow it to be an example of what is possible, giving advice might make us feel better, but what do we know about their health? We need to trust them to make the best decisions for themselves, and even if we know they aren’t making the best decisions, it’s their life. They will seek out advice that may help them or not, it is their life, not ours. We need to be our own control board, but we can’t be someone else’s.

I am trying to curb my advice-giving ways. Who am I to know how someone else should live, what decisions they’ve had to make, what they have to deal with? It is probably better if we can be with people where they are and encourage them to do what they can do, not what we think they should do. This might be the hardest way to support them, to keep our opinions and advice to ourselves while we support them in their time of need.

Sometimes we know the outcome is not good. In truth, we know the outcome is not good for all of us; we will all have to face the reality of our own demise. Is the best way to face our death making the most of our life? I didn’t mean for this to be a morbid post. But, death is part of our reality, our own, and those we love. How can we live so when the time comes we are ready, we’ve made the best of the time we’ve had? We made phone calls while we could, we visited when possible, we laughed and held hands, encouraged others, and let them encourage us. It isn’t only about living more years, but putting more life into our years that counts.

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life will always be hectic and complicated. Stop waiting for life get easier or better in order to be happy. Learn to be happy now. Karen Salmansohn

Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it. Charles R. Swindoll

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

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Thank you to everyone that reads my books, and a special thank you to those that 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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Choices, making the right choice, are we making the best of the choices we’ve made?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Life is about choices. Some we regret, some we’re proud of. Some will haunt us forever. The message: We are what we choose to be. Graham Brown

Getting back into the swing of things after a break always takes a bit of time. How many of us who couldn’t go to the gym during covid are back to the routine we were before? I’m not; gym time is taken up by other things.

Life changes and we change with it, sometimes we love the changes, and sometimes we don’t. Some things we can change and some things we can’t. Life is constantly evolving; we aren’t the only person in our life, and we must consider other people.

We may even have moments when we ask ourselves why we are working so hard. What are we trying to prove or accomplish, and what is being sacrificed? We may have other times when we ask ourselves why we aren’t working harder, and why we aren’t accomplishing more. We may think hard work will bring certain rewards, but we don’t always see the results we hoped for. Sometimes every step forward seems like a couple of steps backward, and we see others get bigger results with seemingly less work. Comparing ourselves to others is one of the biggest ways to be unhappy.

Every choice comes with a consequence. Once you make a choice, you must accept responsibility. You cannot escape the consequences of your choice, whether you like them or not. Roy T. Bennett

We need to be okay with ourselves, who we are, who we’ve been, what comes easy, and what we struggle with. There are many things about ourselves we can’t change no matter how hard we try. We have the bone structure we have, the ancestors we have, and the family we were born into, adopted by, or grew up with. We are where we are in the world, and we may be happy with where we are or want to change it. We may have many choices to make in life or only a few.

We think we will be happier with more choices but research doesn’t seem to hold this to be true. This may be why our society is not as happy as we think it should be, after all, we have so much choice, and instead of making us happy we always feel we could have and should have made a better choice, which leads to unhappiness.

There might have been a time when there was a limited pool of people to choose as our mate and we made the best choice. Now there are so many choices some people can’t choose from the array of options because what if there is a better choice? In a store, there might be too few choices, but we can be in stores where there are too many choices and we get confused. Picking the best pair of jeans out of ten works, but what about out of ten thousand?

Much of life is making a choice and then making the best of it. If we decide we are having chicken for dinner then we can make the best chicken dinner we are capable of. If we can’t choose what to make for dinner, and five-thirty rolls around without dinner started we have fewer options than we had earlier. In a pinch, we might opt for scrambled eggs and toast which will fill us up but not thought of as dinner food. If we had all afternoon to make dinner this may be a letdown, but if we just got in after a hard day, a quick easy meal instead of take-out might be a win.

Choices, choices, choices, we may be frustrated by too many, or too few choices. Life is a balancing act and we are told the better we balance it, the better our life will be. But, we see people whose life is totally out of balance and they are incredibly successful. Shouldn’t we aspire to that kind of success? Chances are we will all have some successes and failures in life. We will have to deal with how our life unfolds and make the best of it. Is there a choice we can make today that will move us in a better direction?

Look for your choices, pick the best one, then go with it. Pat Riley

May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears. Nelson Mandela

Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely. Roy T. Bennett

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

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Thank you to those that read my books, and a special thank you to those that 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

Making plans, celebrating milestones, and making the best of it when our plans don’t work out.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley, and leave us nought but grief and pain, for promised joy. Robert Burns

The best-laid plans go oft astray. But, what really goes astray are the wishy-washy plans. It turns out I’m a flake, not an intentional one, but one nonetheless. My sister’s birthday is today and I asked my niece what she was planning for her mom’s birthday. “Nothing yet, but I’ll get back to you.” I hadn’t heard anything by Saturday and my husband said, “We should have a barbecue on Sunday, and yesterday being our son’s first wedding anniversary we set it up.

Yesterday at about two o’clock my niece called me, “Did I get the text about dinner?” I was so busy pruning bushes in the garden I hadn’t checked my phone. Dinner to celebrate my sister’s birthday was an hour and a half away, and my son and his wife would be arriving at our place to celebrate their anniversary in a couple of hours. I apologized to my niece and will call my sister today. I hope we have a good laugh over it and there are no hard feelings.

Feelings are easily hurt and one of the ways we hurt people’s feelings is by trying to do too much. We have good intentions, but people don’t see our intentions they only see the results, a botched birthday celebration.

A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. George S. Patton

On Friday a friend and I were planning to attend the Horticultural Society plant sale Saturday morning. She volunteered to help out at 6:30 in the morning and I told her I probably won’t end up going if we aren’t going together. My garden needs pruning more than it needs more planting. Saturday I accompanied my grandson and daughter to the park. He’s now old enough for the swing and he loves it. Two little girls wanted to pet our dog Lulu and she loved the attention. Then I filled four garden waste bags with dead tree limbs. I didn’t end up going to the plant sale but if I had all that dead wood would still be in our garden.

Next weekend I am at the Bread and Honey Festival for the Mississauga Writers Group so no gardening will get done. My son looked at what I’ve accomplished and said, “You must have worked really hard.” Don’t we love it when someone notices and we get a little credit for our accomplishments, a pat on the back, and recognition in some way?

Can we host a barbecue in July for my sister and niece? I will start planning it now and hope nothing derails the plans. Happy birthday, Sis from the flakey one!

Chaos is roving through the system and able to undo, at any point, the best-laid plans. Terence McKenna

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. E.M. Forster

It’s not your plan that’s important. It’s your ability to adapt to the changing conditions that’s going to determine your success. Jon Butcher

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

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Thank you to everyone that reads 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

The dance between chaos and order is playing out in our lives.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Chaos breeds life, while order breeds success. Franklin P. Adams

We had a weekend of rain so I didn’t get out for a walk, of course, that is an excuse, it didn’t rain every second of every day, but any excuse will do when we want one. I did get the front closet cleaned out. Old shoes and boots we haven’t worn in years finally got thrown out.

There is something cathartic about clearing out clutter, so why don’t I get to it more often? Some of us are much better about living without clutter than others. I’ve seen shows where people live with mounds of stuff everywhere. I’ve wondered how they manage, they aren’t managing or they wouldn’t be on a show.

We might envy the compulsive cleaner but that is a problem as well. What is the line between a well-kept home, and a home that is so clean it is uncomfortable to be in because we might leave a footprint?

Life is messy; our dog goes outside and comes in with muddy feet. Our one-year-old grandson leaves a mess behind him wherever he goes. Cooking is messy, but how can we be healthy, if we don’t cook? Many hobbies are messy, but what kind of life is it without creative hobbies? Can we live in organized chaos, and is this actually the best way to live?

Organized chaos may be different for each person, but somehow we need to be able to live without our routines becoming too rigid because rigidity is not good for our souls. I wonder if we are all struggling with a chaotic life and if we get too much order in it, all the spontaneity and fun might be gone, if we have too much chaos in our lives maybe it is hard to function.

Chaos and order are not enemies, only opposites. Chaos and order combined equal balance. Richard Garriott

Do we need to embrace chaos in our lives because coming up with the perfect morning routine like the perfectly organized coat closet can be daunting? Life gets in the way and we have to be okay if we can’t get everything on our list done so we can do other things that are required for our life.

An extra hour in the morning is like a golden gift but how long will it take before this hour is filled with tasks that need to be done, and I think if only I got up an hour earlier. Maybe we are hardwired to never be satisfied, we are looking for ways to make things better, and if we are satisfied we think we are no longer ambitious enough, but perhaps we can become a satisfied striver. We are setting goals and reaching them, and then setting new goals.  If we have a comfortable life, we might think it is a little boring, if we have too much excitement we crave peace, if we eat out all the time, we crave home cooking, if we have home cooking all the time we long to go out.

Finding a balance that works for us is our challenge. Everyone is quick to tell us what works for them, there are lots of gurus who tell us to buy their system, but if something is going to work for us it will have to fit into our unique life, and life is always changing as we go through different stages.

Can we find peace as we juggle chaos and order?

In all chaos, there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order. Carl Jung

It is only in the dance between chaos and order that life progresses. Harrison Owen

Chaos precedes order and order precedes chaos and beauty is somewhere between. Amy Larson

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

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Thank you to everyone that reads my books, and a special thank you to everyone that leaves 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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Document your days, celebrate your life, and discover things about yourself you might only be able to do by keeping a journal.

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

I’ve spent the weekend scribbling, drawing, and coloring with markers in my illustrated journal. There are some examples of beautifully illustrated journals on the internet, but I wonder if trying to make them too beautiful might not defeat their purpose. We lead messy lives and one of the problems we have in life is trying to make things seem more perfect than they are.

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 everything out, all that angst out on the page, maybe we want to color in the blank space, or maybe we don’t. This art is now called Neurographic Art and was developed by a Russian psychologist, artist, and architect, Dr. Pavel Piscarev in 2014. He has trademarked the name and developed some practices around it, but this is not new and many people have scribbled lines. He’s given it a name and to teach it you must be certified.

This is somewhat like Zentangles where the name is trademarked but the patterns are not trademarked they have been used in knitting, masonry, architecture, etc, throughout the centuries. What they’ve done is put them in a book, named and provided the steps to create them, which is very helpful because figuring out a complicated pattern is tricky.

In 2014 I picked up a book on Zentangles and they are great to add to an illustrated journal. Lines, circles, and dots create a pattern. Four patterns create a tile, but we can do anything we want with them, and combining Neurographic lines with Zentangle patterns seems like a winning combination. Someone is going to come along and trademark a name for that if they haven’t already.

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, and goals, and to 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.

My son is talking about ChatGPT and it has been mentioned at Toastmasters as well. Some may think how great to have a computer program that will write a book and when I publish it will be purchased by millions. Most writers are not getting rich from writing and publishing books even when they are traditionally published. For many writers, the real benefit of writing a book was the journey of writing the book. Books change us and make us look at the world and our understanding of our place in it. The benefit of ChatGPT may be the questions we have to ask to get it to write what we want and coming up with the questions may be what is beneficial to us.

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 I’m surprised by what is in them. There are events written about in my journal I don’t remember until the journal jogs my memory.

A written journal or an illustrated journal may be a way to examine our lives, we may get more out of life by looking for things to put into our journal, and we may 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, as well as other memorabilia that we can glue or tape in.

How do we document our lives, is there a new practice we would like to try? Is there an old practice we’d like to pick up again? Will keeping a journal help us to live well from the inside out? Will it change our lives in ways we can’t imagine?

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 some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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Thank you to those that read my books, and a special thank you to those that 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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Marriage creates families, we need to be careful as we become in-laws, we don’t become out-laws.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Two amazing women can love the same incredible man in completely different ways. One is his wife, the other is his mother. Unknown

This weekend a friend co-hosted a bridal shower for her daughter and another friend and I helped out. We got together on Friday evening for pizza and salad, cutting fruit and my friend made meat flowers for the charcuterie board. On Saturday we were there early to help set up and being part of it was much better than just coming as a guest.

We don’t have a name for the mother-in-law’s relationship that I know of. In Punjab these two mothers-in-law are called Kumanies, in Hindi they are Samdhans, my friend said Compadre is a term she heard that is used to refer to the mother-in-law relationship. She is my Compadre, is nicer than she is my daughter’s-husband’s-mother. As mothers-in-law and fathers-in-law, we have a relationship.

We have many conversations in our house about what makes one a second or third cousin. As I looked into this I can see why we just go with first names, after all with different names from each culture, it is easier to just be the mother-in-law, or father-in-law, or just the in-laws, or sometimes the out-laws. Family relationships are fraught with drama and it is lovely when people get along as my friend and her Compadre appear to.

Interference, is the reason why in-laws are hated. Live and let the couple live. Sabeena Azeem

Our grandson turns one tomorrow, how time has flown by, my daughter-in-law came by yesterday and we discussed his birthday party we are having next week. We are lucky when the people are children pick as partners are wonderful and we have great relationships with them. If we get along with their families as well, it is even better.

Some families are contentious, and hard to get along with and nothing is ever good enough. I’ve been lucky to have lovely in-laws, and my son and daughter have in-laws they get along with. If we are lucky we will have a long relationship with our in-laws and our children’s in-laws. Once we share grandchildren the relationship is cemented for life. We can’t make people like us but we can do our part to be likable and not interfere.

Our family expands and we have more and more people to love. We might need to ask ourselves are we easy to love, do we offer help and advice that isn’t wanted?

American couples have gone to such lengths to avoid the interference of in-laws that they have to pay marriage counselors to interfere between them. Florence King

No one should come between you and your spouse, they should come alongside of you but not between you. Ashley Micilwain

In many of the stories, husbands who don’t stand up for their wives often end up destroying their marriages. Veena Venugopal

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

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Thank you to everyone that reads my books, and a special thank you to those that 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

Comfortable lies and uncomfortable truths. Will the truth set us free? Do we know the truth when we hear it?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

We’re all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding. Rudyard Kipling

To lie is to make an untrue statement with the intent to deceive, or to create a false or misleading impression. There are lies of omission, commission, and lies of influence. Is it possible to go through life without ever telling a lie?

We can lie to ourselves or to others, we can lie about the facts, or what we believe to be the facts, and our values.

What if we don’t see things the same as someone else? Does that mean one of us is a liar?

Is it a lie to tell someone we are having a good day because we want to have a good day even though we are not yet having a good day? Is it a lie to focus on what is good in our lives instead of bad even if the good is not yet evident? Wouldn’t wallowing in self-pity be less of a lie but more disastrous to our well-being?

If we don’t always feel loving towards those we love are we lying? If we grow and change in our lives does that mean we were lying about who we were or who we are now?

We are told by Dostoevsky, “Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything. Mark Twain

Is the lie telling ourselves we are worthy of something we don’t have, or telling ourselves we don’t deserve more, or maybe even what we do have? Don’t we often try to convince ourselves we’re better than we are? We act better, look better, have better intentions, a better work ethic, more knowledge, and better habits, we are less biased, more compassionate, and grateful than we really are.

Some people think if we believe in anything we can’t see, smell, taste, or touch we believe in a lie. Some people are told their faith is a lie, and it is easy to think what someone else believes in must be a lie if they don’t believe what we believe.

Some visionary people can get us to believe in what seems like an impossible and improbable dream, do we believe in a lie? Some people have faith they will be healed and are but if someone had faith but wasn’t healed did they believe in a lie?

How much of the truth do we have to tell someone who asks us a question before they can’t say we left something out, and that we told a lie by omission? If we believe something about someone that isn’t true is it our lie or theirs?

Liar seems to be leveled everywhere at almost everyone, and it might be true we are all liars in big and small ways. When we see someone we haven’t seen in a long time we tell them they look good. Would it be better if we told them, “Wow, you’ve really deteriorated since I saw you last?”

Is telling ourselves we think we can, a lie in the beginning that through hard work, determination, and perseverance becomes the truth? What if we do okay but never reach the pinnacle of success we told ourselves we’d reach, was that a lie?

We love people with a vision, but what is the difference between a prophet and a false prophet initially?

If we see ourselves as honest, trustworthy, fair-minded, and even-handed, but the standards used to judge these things are not looked at the same by everyone, who is wrong?

If we keep our commitments and only commit to things consistent with our values will we at least have personal integrity? Do we often get into trouble by promising more than we can deliver, but do people also expect more than is reasonable? If someone has unmet expectations about us, does that mean we lied about who we are and what we could do?

We tell lies when we are afraid… afraid of what we don’t know, afraid of what others will think, afraid of what will be found out about us. But every time we tell a lie, the thing we fear grows stronger. Tad Williams

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people. Virginia Woolf

The truth is messy, it’s raw and uncomfortable. You can’t blame people for preferring lies. Holly Black

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it and 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 to everyone that reads my books and a special thank you to those that 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

Let your light shine and be willing to be seen in all your glory.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

You are the light of the world like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. Mathew 5:14

The future belongs to those that believe in their dreams. Often we have the most hesitation and begin to doubt ourselves the most when something is almost finished.

My husband said to me, “Everything is complete for your book.”

“Well, I’m not happy with one of the paintings.”

When I showed it to him, he said, “What’s wrong with it?” I showed him another one I thought I would swap it for; he didn’t like that one better. I’d even thought of painting a new one. It is understandable why some people put what they’ve written in a drawer and leave it there. They never hang up their paintings,(I was like that for years) they only sing in the shower and don’t tell anyone about their dreams or aspirations.

The Bible tells us don’t hide our light under a bushel. What is the point of hiding our abilities, talents, dreams, and ambitions from other people and sometimes even from ourselves? What progress is made if we don’t put forth our best efforts and learn, grow, develop our talents, and develop as people?

We have a few short years to do everything we want to do. I was listening to a podcast yesterday on retirement, he was cautioning us on not buying into longevity bias, we might live a long life, but what if we don’t? What do we want to accomplish, see, and do? Do we have a plan, even the beginning of a plan is better than no plan at all?

Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world. Don’t let anything stand in the way of the light that shines through this form. Risk being seen in all of your glory. Jim Carey

We can take all the time in the world, or we can make a decision and start to make things happen. It took my whole life to self-publish one book, but after March 7th I will have four self-published books out in the world. What changed, I changed and decided to set goals, and with the heavy lifting of raising children out of the way I have the luxury of time to work on my projects.

It took me so long to complete one book, and part of that was necessary, but part of it was procrastination and not setting goals. One of the things I’ve learned is when we start making decisions in one area of our life we start making decisions in other areas of our lives. As Jim Rohn says, “We eat the apple, we go for the walk, we look after our finances, but if we don’t eat the apple, maybe we don’t go for the walk, and we don’t bother to look after our finances, and instead of everything getting better, it is getting worse.” It’s our choice and those choices add up over time and they can add up to a satisfying, well-lived life, or one of regret.

Whatever it is we want to do, we need to get doing it, time is going, and even if we start now we probably won’t fit everything in. Inspiration is all around us. We don’t know where life will lead us, or what opportunities will come if we take the next step, and if we dig deep we probably know what our next step should be.

Light must come from inside. You cannot ask the darkness to leave; you must turn on the light. Sogyal Rinpoche

Your heart is the light of the world don’t let your mind hide it. Mooji

Love is a weapon of light, and it has the power to eradicate all forms of darkness. That is the key. When we offer love even to our enemies, we destroy their darkness and hatred… Yehuda Berg

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it and will 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 to those that read my books, and a special thank you to those that 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.