Posted on by BWThomas

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.

To subscribe, comment, 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

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.

Posted on by BWThomas

We make mistakes, we correct them, we change our course, and we try to fix what’s broken.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to error that counts. Nikki Giovanni

Sometimes we think we’ve done everything the same but the outcome is not the same, and if a mistake was made, most of the time we are the ones that made it.

This happened to me when I received the author’s proof of my next children’s book. It wasn’t quite the same size as my first one. It was printed in Canada and the first one was printed in the U.S. but that wasn’t the problem, the problem was the size I chose for the first one was 8.5 inches by 8.5 inches and the size I chose for the second one was 8.25 inches by 8.25 inches. My Files were created to 8.5 inches so why did I choose 8.25 inches when setting it up?

Purchasing an author’s proof lets us see what the book will look like and we can make any changes before it is published. Yesterday, I realized the error and changed the size with the click of a button. It is easy to assume we’ve done everything right but when we double-check our work often we find something we’ve overlooked, or does this only happen to me?

There is a lot of human error that impacts our lives, sometimes it is as inconsequential as a book not being the same as a previous book, but there are many times when the error is consequential in ours and other people’s lives.

We might not be able to prevent errors from happening, we have to deal with them and correct them when we can, and live with the consequences when we can’t.

I remember when I used to sew and that first cut in the fabric, especially if it was nice expensive fabric was hard. That first cut committed us and if we made a mistake sometimes we had to start all over with new fabric.

You need to give yourself permission to be human. Joyce Brothers

How do people handle decisions that are important, sometimes life or death? How do they deal with that type of responsibility? Their decisions impact lives, businesses, and economies. Their decisions have intended and unintended consequences.

We may think if we were in power we wouldn’t make that decision, we would consider more carefully what we think needs to be considered. Everyone will not be happy with the decisions made by the decision-makers, and the decision-makers realize this and have to live with the decisions they make, and so do we.

We may work to influence the decision-makers, and complain, or we might work in our circle of influence to make our little part of the world the best it can be. Laws are changed all the time that were brought in, and it can be funny to look at old laws that leaders must have thought were necessary and good for society when they were brought in.

Do we realize we make mistakes but expect others not to? Is that realistic? Are we judging the past by what we now believe, and judging history and the decisions made more harshly than we should?

I am not afraid of making mistakes. But my mistakes were those that I could afford. That’s very important: mistakes will happen but you must ensure that you keep them within limits you can afford. Rakesh Jhunjhunwala

Do not take yourself too seriously. You have to learn not to be dismayed at making mistakes. No human being can avoid failures. Lawrence G. Lovasik

The greatest mistake a man can ever make is to be afraid of making one. Elbert Hubbard

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you 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 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

Spring is coming, can spring come to our hearts as flowers bloom and trees bud?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The beautiful spring came, and when nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also. Harriet Ann Jacobs

On the weekend it felt like spring but it’s winter out there again, a blanket of snow covers everything. But, spring is coming and a pot of crocus, tulip and hyacinth bulbs are beginning to bloom in the kitchen. At the Horticultural Society before Christmas we potted up bulbs, I placed mine in our cold cellar and brought them up about a week ago and they are already starting to bloom.

Watching things grow is one of life’s delights, and it won’t be long before we can get into our gardens. Looking out at our garden some of the spring bulbs are already poking their heads out in sunny places.

When we live with the seasons we live with a rhythm and if we are out of step with the seasons life is harder for us than it needs to be. Everything in life has its season, and discourse between people seems to be in a winter of discontent right now. Perhaps it is necessary for polarizing views to polarize before we can find a way to process them and move in a positive direction.

Do we make life hard for ourselves when we worry about things that aren’t ours to worry about? Some things are in our control but most things are not. If we focus on what is ours to control and let other people focus on what is theirs to deal with, does this give us a better life?

Where does our business end and someone else’s begin? When should we keep our thoughts to ourselves about other people’s ideologies, practices, and habits? It might be challenging in families when we don’t see things the same. We might not have grown up in the same culture, the same religion, or the same expectations. We don’t always see dealing with authorities in the same way. Our expectations in life might be different because we are different people and we can’t expect everyone to see things our way.

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant. Anne Bradstreet

The easiest thing in the world is to mind someone else’s business instead of our own. We can see the changes that should be made in their lives even when we don’t see the changes we should be making in our own. The only person we can change is ourselves even if we think we aren’t the one that needs to change.

We think if they only saw things how we see things, the right way, and this is one of the things that cause the most disagreements.

Who wants to be reminded every day about how they see things wrong? We might not even think this is what we are doing, we are only discussing our view, but it comes off as disrespectful and judgmental. We didn’t mean to hurt someone we love with our words but there we go, doing it again. We might think what, we never get to have an opinion, but what if we should think a little longer before we speak and consider how what we say might be taken?

Everything is so polarizing right now, where is the middle ground? We aren’t even having the same discussions sometimes, we didn’t say what someone thinks we said, and we didn’t mean what they think we meant. It is as if we are living in the Tower of Babel times, where we really aren’t speaking the same language. How do we find the middle ground so we can talk about difficult issues that need to be discussed, and fix difficult issues that need to be fixed?

As winter leaves and spring arrives, can we find hope, renewal, and respect in our discourse with other people? Can we somehow find a wider view that includes everyone, find a way to work together, and not think the worst of everyone else’s intentions, and only the best of our own?

Spring is the time of plans and projects. Leo Tolstoy

The world’s favorite season is the spring. All things seem possible in May. Edwin Way Teale

When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. Ernest Hemingway

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 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

Reach out and touch someone. Encourage someone, by helping others we might help ourselves.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life forever. Amy Poehler

Today is Blue Monday, the third Monday after New Year’s. We might be looking in the mirror and we still don’t look like we want to look. What if we never look like the fantasy we have in our minds? What if we need to learn to love ourselves, warts and all? That doesn’t mean we can’t improve, but the closer we hold the magnifying glass to ourselves the more imperfections we will see. Do we need to stand further from the mirror and magnifying glass? What if we are healthy and attractive for our age and stage in life, we can do what we want, we can be a blessing to our family, and we can live a good, long, and healthy life?

What if we work as hard as we can, we get some success, but it is never the fame and fortune we dreamed of? We can retire comfortably, live wherever we want, take vacations with our family, and see the sights of the world. We don’t have to be rich to do these things, we may have to manage our money well which is of course what we should have done all of our lives, and how some people have become rich.

Most of us live pretty rich lives if we think about it. We can afford to buy some of the finest mattresses so we too can sleep like millionaires and even billionaires. We can afford transportation that takes us where we want to go, perhaps our transportation is not as lavish, but it gets us there. If we stand on the same beach or mountain top, in the end, does it matter if one trip was first class and the other economy? Sometimes more fun is had at the family/economy resort than at the more expensive resort.

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

Does fun come with a price tag? We can put one on it and say – that’s not for us. Being part of a group is fun but we often think I can’t join a group, it’s only for serious… We should join groups because we meet like-minded people who also struggle to call themselves… When we have hobbies, interests, or aspirations we can feel alone in our pursuit of them. Being part of a group helps us to realize everyone struggles, it is part of growth, but we are no longer alone in our struggle.

I gave a test speech for a Toastmaster’s contest yesterday, which means the contestants had to evaluate a speech and I gave the speech they evaluated. My daughter said, “On a Sunday, I would have said no.” On Saturday I went to my writer’s group, and my family said, “Why is it always on Saturday, I wouldn’t go.”

If everything we want to do needs to be convenient we will never do it. Life isn’t about convenience, it’s about getting involved, being a part of something greater than ourselves, being encouraged, and encouraging others.

If today is Blue Monday for any of us, maybe we need to look at our life, see what’s missing, and see how we could add something to our life. Joining a group or volunteering with like-minded people might be an excellent place to start. An animal shelter might need a dog walker, food banks might need volunteers, or other organizations might be looking for members or volunteers. Sometimes when we want something we need to find a way to give. Give a compliment to someone, encourage someone, or call someone we haven’t spoken to in a while. If we reach out and touch someone, and make a difference to someone, we might find we make a difference to ourselves.

Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work. Vince Lombardy

Working together, tiny stars light the universe. That’s the power of teamwork. Unknown

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you will help them become what they are capable of becoming. Goethe

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you 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 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

Living the good life. What does success look like?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success. Napoleon Hill

What does a successful life look like to us? Do we think public success is more important than private success?

When an opportunity comes our way are we saying yes, or are we hanging back thinking we are not ready? Do we feel we have to be shameless self-promoters or someone that hides our light under a bushel? Is there a part of us that wants to be pushed into the limelight without appearing to seek it ourselves? I am not talking about the myriad of people who what to sell us something, although their courses might help us they also might not. I feel if someone has a course to offer me on how to write a best-selling book if they really knew how to do it they’d be writing the best-selling book instead of trying to teach me how to do it.

We don’t know what will happen in our lives, what we will have to face, and what opportunities will present themselves. What we do have control of is the books we read, the thoughts we think, and the actions we take. It may take a lot of time to create a masterpiece, but time will go by whether we create it or not. The biggest masterpiece should be the life we build, the relationships we have, and the legacy we leave behind. The legacy includes our children and what we have done to make the world better for future generations.

I’ve always wondered about people who poked fun at one-hit wonders like getting one big hit is easy or something to make fun of, and the people poking fun have no hits. We often think who do we think we are to think we could do… Who do we think we are to hide our gifts, waste our gifts, or never bother to use our gifts? Years ago many people built their lives using what they had, their works of art were useful, furniture, quilts, clothing, houses, gardens, and fields of grain.

Now when we think of creativity we often think of writing, art, singing, and playing an instrument. The art of living and creating is everywhere, when I went to school we had Industrial Arts, and Home Economics because those were arts needed to build a good life and added value to people’s lives and to society.

The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself. Gilbert K. Chesterton

It seems to me we don’t appreciate the arts of living well, we encourage everyone to have higher education so they can work eighty hours a week, and make good money, but what is left to build a good life with? If our identity gets too wrapped up in a job, and something happens to the job where does that leave us? If there are too many people competing for good jobs and we can’t get one we deem good enough, where does that leave us? If looking after and raising our own children is not a worthwhile endeavor where does that leave us?

Creating a happy home is worthwhile, providing nutritious food and raising healthy children is worthwhile, and building a safe society is worthwhile. Writing a book in the evenings instead of reading to our children might not be the best use of our time. We only get a few short years when reading to our children is important, taking them to the park, and getting them involved in sports. Those years pass quickly and the relationship we built with our children lasts a lifetime.

Being a creative mother and father is creating a life for our children and raising them to be the best people they can be. When that is accomplished we have time for personal creative pursuits, and nothing we do in life is as important as raising the next generation.

We need to find balance in our lives and part of a great life is creating something for the next generation. If we are lucky we will live longer than our working days and what do we have when we quit working if that has always been the priority in our lives?

The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works, is the family. Lee Iacocca

Any success you achieve at the expense of your family is not real success. Dave Willis

True wealth, success, and happiness can only be achieved by balancing our business life and the duty we have to our self and to our family. Joseph C. Kunz Jr.

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you 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 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.

Posted on by BWThomas

Cheerful givers and grateful receivers make the world go around

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed. Maya Angelou

Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much. I don’t know who said this but it seems like something any of us might say at times during our lives. Tonight is the Toastmasters Christmas celebration we are each supposed to bring food or drinks. No one needs to provide everything – just one little contribution and we will have more than we can eat and drink.

Most of life is like this. No one does everything but all the contributions create something. We are expecting a big storm and if the weather is bad we will meet on zoom, it won’t be as nice as meeting in person but we will still laugh, joke, and spend time together.

If we want to get more out of life we need to give more. It seems to me the happiest people are the givers, and the more they give, the more they get out of life. I’m watching the building of Toy Mountain on the news. Some of the contributors are driving in from afar to make their contribution of toys and money to make someone’s Christmas better. It is a real joy I see on their faces. They are happy to contribute, and happy they are in a position to contribute.

We must give more in order to get more. It is the generous giving of ourselves that produces the generous harvest. Orison Marden

One of my goals is to become more generous. On Tuesday, the Horticultural Society had its Christmas party. I know a few people, but I haven’t been attending regularly, and a lot of the people I don’t know, so I hang back – standing on the periphery – but I could be involved and then I would know everyone. I tell myself I don’t have time, but is this true? I thought I would be there early enough to be one of the greeters but I was one of the last to arrive. We can do just a little less than our best like I did by arriving what ended up to be late to be a greeter, or we can do a little more than we think we can by making more of a contribution, and enjoying it more. It’s our choice and the more we give the more we get.

If we are going to stay in touch with friends we need to make the effort. It is easy to not bother to pick up the phone and say hi, to invite people out to dinner, or to host a get-together, but it also isn’t that hard to do, and the rewards we reap by having a network of friends are priceless.

Life rewards the doers, and there is always something to do if we are willing. There are things to do in our families, our communities, our country, and our world. It is up to us what choices we will make, but those choices build our lives. We may look at someone else’s choices and wonder how they are so lucky, but is it really luck? Often there is a lot of unseen work, dedication, and discipline that goes into the lives of those we envy.

In life, we will be both givers and receivers, and we can’t have one without the other. If we accept gratefully and give cheerfully we can be grateful for the contributions we can make to others and that they can make to us.

I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver. Maya Angelou

Only by giving are you able to receive more than you already have. Jim Rohn

Love beautifies the giver and elevates the receiver. Sivananda

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

The magic of Christmas is created by those toiling behind the scenes.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work. Vince Lombardi

Being part of a group can widen our horizons, we meet people we would meet no other way, and we feel connected to others. On Saturday I was part of a Christmas market hosted by The Mississauga Arts Council. It was a fun event, meeting other creators, talking to the people stopping at our table, selling a few books, and giving out candy canes to the kids.

It is very inspiring but also humbling when meeting people who have accomplished so much in their lives. Sometimes it makes us wonder about the choices we’ve made, the path we’ve chosen, and our contribution to society. Comparisons are odious and one of the things we have to do in life is to be comfortable with ourselves, come to terms with the choices we’ve made, and go forward and build our life inspired to be more than we are.

I shared a table with two very accomplished people from the Mississauga Writers Group. Deep Ganguly is a world-renowned traditional Bamboo Flautist, and in his own words, “As a musician, I am happy I write a bit.” Jeanette Chau is a professional engineer, an author of My Mom is an Engineer books, a Dragon boat racer, a member of the 7th Toronto Regiment RCA, and a former president of the Mississauga Arts Council. It was fun to spend the day with such wonderful, warm, encouraging, and entertaining people.

There was an array of goods for sale, handcrafted items of all kinds, wooden pens, jewelry, soaps, knitting, art, books, floral arrangements, I’m sure I’ve missed some, and a tarot card reader. Choirs entertained us and it would be easy to spend more than we made on the beautiful items for sale.

If we don’t continue to widen our circle it can become smaller and smaller. There are all kinds of groups we can join and each group may feed our soul in a different way. Being part of a group might not be for everyone but they enrich my life in ways I can’t see how could be enriched any other way.

We build our communities by participating, and we each have something to contribute. One of the best things we can do with our lives is to use our gifts to make a difference. We need everyone’s gifts to build a great society, and every contribution is important.

Only those who have learned the power of sincere and selfless contribution experience life’s deepest joy: true fulfillment. Tony Robbins

Events don’t just happen it is hard work that makes them happen. Everywhere we go where we see wonderful Christmas displays, wonderful music programs, and charity events there is a lot of work behind the scenes. Christmas is magical because of all the hard work put into it to make it magical.

Christmas is the most fun when our children are young, but now my husband and I have a grandson, and the magic of Christmas is becoming important again. Here’s to everyone that is making Christmas, Christmas, to all the toil that goes on behind the scenes. For all the commercial aspects of Christmas, there is still something that brings out the best in us, we become friendlier, and we do wish glad tidings to all.

The more we give to life, the more it gives back to us.

Greatness is not found in possessions, power, position, or prestige. It is discovered in goodness, humility, service, and character. William Arthur Ward

You’re happiest while you’re making the greatest contribution. Robert F. Kennedy

You have brilliance in you, your contribution is valuable, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do, and you must. Seth Godin

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. 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 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.

Posted on by BWThomas

Changing our minds is the power within us to change our lives.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

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

How long do we need to wait until we see results? When do we see the results of what we are doing? When do we see the results of what we are planting? It is taking so long to realize our dreams, or did we quit dreaming a long time ago? Are we not reaching goals because we haven’t set them? My husband and I have set a goal to go to England in 2024.

We sometimes want to do things and that is our goal, “wanting to do things, not doing things.” I wonder if this is what I have done with the trip to Europe I’ve been thinking about since High School. I still think of it as a trip to Europe, not a specific country, or a group of countries, that starts at one point and ends at another.

How many of us have done this with our lives? We want success but it is hazy and off into the future, with no definition. If we haven’t defined what success would be in our lives how can we get it? If we are honest with ourselves haven’t we gotten what we’ve aimed at, what we specifically wanted and went after? Sometimes when we’ve gotten what we thought we wanted, we found we didn’t want it after all. We divorced people we at one time said we couldn’t live without. We leave professions we worked hard to get into. We sell our dream home.

The power to change your life lies in the simplest of steps. Steve Maraboli

When we were young we thought if we made the kind of money we are making now, we’d be rich. Many of us are rich; we don’t recognize it as rich, because to be rich, we have to have more than anyone else. Because of the society, we have built we can go anywhere we want to if we can pay the fare. We don’t need to own our own boat, plane, or even automobile. We go to the grocery store and food from around the world is at our fingertips. We didn’t have to plant it, tend it, or harvest it and yet we can put it in our basket and take it home.

Growing up we heated our house with wood and cooked with wood. How easy it is to turn the burner on and have instant heat. To make a cup of coffee in the morning was a big deal growing up. Mom had to start the fire before she could boil the water to make the coffee. Mom and Dad had to milk the cows before we had cream. They had to raise and kill the pig before curing the bacon, raise the chickens, gather the eggs, grow the wheat, harvest it, and bake the bread before a bacon and eggs breakfast could be made.  

There was a degree of self-sufficiency most of us don’t have anymore, but there was also a great deal of work. My post gets out to you with very little effort on my part. I put it out into the world and how it finds its way to those who read it is a miracle of technology and innovation. There is no way I could do it by myself.

How often do we hear someone lament, or lament ourselves we’re just a cog in a wheel? We can look at that negatively or positively a wheel with just one cog broken is a broken wheel. The regular person has never had a life so good with everything we have at our fingertips. Most of us are not locked into specific jobs or professions except by our own choosing.

How much better could our life be if we made a conscious choice to make it better? If we treated people the way we want to be treated what would that look like? Do we need to treat ourselves better? We make sure our dog doesn’t get a grape or chocolate because it isn’t good for her and yet don’t we sometimes fill ourselves up on things we know aren’t good for us?

What if the thoughts we think are where we hurt ourselves the most? Could it be that if we think better thoughts we have a better life even if nothing on the outside changes?

The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking. Albert Einstein

Change your thinking. Change your life! Your thoughts create your reality. Practice positive thinking. Act the way you want to be, and soon you will be the way you act. Les Brown

Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. George Bernard Shaw

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you 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 everyone that buys and reads my books. 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.