Painting by belynda Wilson Thomas

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. Rumi

Change is coming, but is it good change, and is it good for everyone? Who has the right to be the catalyst for change? Do fools walk in where angels fear to tread? What will happen if there are unexpected consequences? We might agree that change is needed, but what changes things for the good, for most people, and what about the people for whom the change is not good?

Am I writing about world events, changes going on in my own country, or changes within my household? Change is always happening, and how do we decide what the good changes will be? What fundamentals do we need to hang on to, and what are the ones we need to change?

I’ve grown up in a democracy all my life, but I told my kids our family wasn’t a democracy, because how can you parent if your kids hold the same amount of power and they would vote for gummy bears over broccoli every day?

To fear change is to fear being challenged. To fear being challenged is to fear growth and new possibilities. Ty Howard

Do we only like democracies when we are the ones in power? When we don’t hold the most power, if our ideas aren’t the most popular, then does democracy no longer seem like a good idea? What if the most popular ideas are not the ones that will build the best country, and who gets to decide which ideas these are?

Will the best ideas win out, even if some bad ideas take hold at times? Can we live in a pluralistic world, and entertain some crazy ideas, but as we see the fruit of those ideas, change to what works better for the society we are building?

Strong, resilient, honest, and truthful people build a good society, and if we want it for our children, do we have to build it for everyone else’s children, too? This is what I tell myself will win out if anything can.

Sometimes it seems the only thing we can do is pray. We can pray for wisdom in our own families, wisdom for our local, national, and world leaders. What if faith is what is needed to get us through the hard times? What if faith in a higher power gives us the strength to go on when we feel like pulling the covers over our heads and rolling over? Is gratitude and faith what we need to carry on with a positive attitude?

If something is wrong, fix it now. But train yourself not to worry. Worry fixes nothing. Ernest Hemingway

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely sticking to it. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life. Amelia Earhart

Change is always tough. Even for those who see themselves as agents of change. The process of starting a new thing can cause times of disorientation, uncertainty, and insecurity. Joyce Meyer

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Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. James Baldwin

Change comes whether we are ready for it or welcome it. How many young people who just finished competing in the winter Olympics have choices to make? Do they spend four years trying to compete in the next Olympics, or do they chart a new course?

Sometimes we welcome change, and sometimes we dread it, but it is coming. Spring follows winter, and winter follows fall. We might have been happy in a stage of our lives coming to a close, and worry about what the next stage will bring.

There’ll be good days, bad days, happy and sad days in every life, no matter whether we are in our first, second, or third act.

Do we get out and face life head-on, or pull the covers over our heads, hoping we won’t have to face whatever is? How do we handle it when the diagnosis isn’t what we’d hoped? The economy takes a turn when we thought we’d finally begin to see some prosperity. We’re getting ready to go back to the gym when something else lays us low, and we have to put it off for at least another few days.

What is the perfect amount of challenge to have in our lives? What is the perfect amount of change? My son and his wife celebrated the Chinese New Year with his wife’s family. The Fire Horse is said to bring change, and the last time we were in a Fire Horse year was 1966. Is it helpful to look for cycles to help us get through life?

Many things are beyond our control, and how we look at what we must face might be the only control we have. When faced with a pile of horse manure, do we only see what is in front of us, or do we think there must be a pony here somewhere?

Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start. Nido Qubein

I’d like to think I’m someone who always sees the bright side, but I don’t think I always do. Keeping a journal helps me to sort things out; sometimes I don’t know what I’m thinking until I write it down.

I started a journal because my grandmother, whom I never met, kept one. She lived through two world wars, the Spanish Flu, and raised children during the Great Depression. She lived from 1900 to 1953, what a time to live. She didn’t get to the years of peace and plenty. We have people in the World today hoping to someday live in peace and plenty, are those of us fortunate enough to live in peace and plenty grateful enough?

When our big decisions are whether to paint the bedrooms White Opulence or White Dove, we might be living a blessed life. If where our grandson will start school is a decision and most of the choices are pretty good, we might be blessed. If getting to the gym, but not a doctor, is on our to-do list, we might be blessed. If we wrestle with what to do in retirement, what neighborhood to live in, or where to travel, we might be blessed.

Is the cup half full or half empty? If we put a positive spin on something, does it make it better? Can we be grateful for what we have, even if we aren’t completely content?

We know what we are, but know not what we may be. William Shakespeare.

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

The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. Abraham Lincoln

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Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle

When we hear children’s words, do we sometimes wonder where they heard that? If we know it first came from us, we might be happy if it sounds good, or look for somewhere to hide, especially if it is in public. “Give me a child until he is seven, and I will show you the man”. Is this a Jesuit Motto or a quote by Aristotle adopted by the Jesuits?

It is scary to think we only have a few years to help a child become who they will be. We don’t consider them adults until eighteen, but the foundation for their lives is set much earlier.

Yesterday, my three-year-old grandson invited his mother to eat potato chips with him and his dad. “I don’t like this flavor,” she said.

“We get what we get, and we don’t get upset,” my grandson said to his mother, or something similar. In life, we often get what we get, and getting upset doesn’t make a difference. Sometimes we must accept circumstances as they are, sometimes we can change them, and knowing which is which might make all the difference. We need to know when to work for change and when to accept what can’t be changed, and if we can tell the difference between the two, the impact on our lives will be immense.

How often do we rail against the things we can’t change while living with things we can change that would make a big difference in our lives? How often have we heard, “Clear the clutter, and clear your mind?” How often do we find someone’s life descends into chaos as their surroundings do? Which comes first, and if we can keep clutter from taking over our lives, can we deal with the slings and arrows that come with life?

You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do. Henry Ford

We might not like the action we need to take in our lives, but if we know it needs to be done, we may as well get to it. If we pull the covers over our heads instead of getting up and getting busy, it leads to feeling worse, instead of better. The longer we take to do what we know we need to do, the worse things get. Sometimes we have to change what we can, and sometimes we have to accept what we can’t, but either way we have to move forward.

I think of the choice Mom and Dad made after Dad lost most of his right hand in a farm accident. Until that happened, I don’t think they considered leaving the farm, but by accepting their new reality, they had a different retirement than they might have expected, and I think it was a pretty good one.

We probably all have some things in our lives we wish were different, but have no power to change. We have choices to work around what we can’t change, and is this where our power lies? If we accept the things we can’t change, and change the things we can, how will it impact our lives? As my grandson told me when I was peeling wallpaper, “Don’t give up”. Eventually, the wallpaper was removed; it seemed daunting to attempt, but now it feels like an accomplishment. Getting started was half done, as it is in many cases, when we finally tackle things we’ve been putting off.

What would make a big change in our lives, how long would it take, and what would it add to our lives?

Tomorrow becomes never. No matter how small the task, take the first step now. Tim Ferris

Do. Or do not do. There is no try. Yoda

If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse. Jim Rohn

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

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving. Mother Teresa

Christmas is coming with all that entails. Santa gets the credit for the presents, Jesus is the reason for the season, but moms do most of the work to make it happen.

I’m not part of the over-the-top Christmas crowd. My daughter, the grandkids, and I put up the Christmas tree last week. On Christmas Day, we have a big breakfast, open the gifts, and then late afternoon, the kids and grandkids go off to Christmas dinner at their spouse’s families.

A big Christmas breakfast has been our tradition; we still get our Christmas morning, and the kid’s spouse’s families get them for dinner. Making Christmas work for everyone can be a huge challenge. I feel blessed, and it’s working out for everyone.

On Saturday, I removed a wallpaper border we put up thirty years ago. It was slow going, and my three-year-old grandson, watching me, said, “Grandma, my Dad always says, don’t give up.” He helped me take off wallpaper in the hall. He’s a big helper, and he would have helped on Saturday if I’d let him go up the ladder.

In a movie we watched last night, the overworked Mom mentions three little words she loves to hear. Another character nodded and said, “I love you.”

“No,” the character laughed, “Can I help?” Don’t we always need help and encouragement, but sometimes we don’t get the question, “Can I help?” Because we are so particular, the person asking knows they can’t do things to our standard, and so they don’t offer to do anything at all.

Mom always said, “You have to let kids help, when they are more of a hindrance than a help, or they won’t help when they are capable. Maybe they won’t become capable if we don’t let them learn to do something badly before they can do it well.

What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. Agnes M. Pharo

My daughter-in-law helps her Grandma bake. There was a time she would have been more of a hindrance than a help. Now these baking times are a great way for her and her Grandmother to spend precious time together. We are the recipients of the delicious things they bake.

Christmas traditions get started; we might not even remember the origin. I can’t remember when we started having a big Christmas breakfast, but it has become the centre of our Christmas, and more important than Christmas dinner for years.

Once our children grow up and start their own families, we aren’t in control anymore. Our children need to create their own traditions, and if we are lucky, we can be part of them. Such is the tapestry of life, we weave in and out of people’s lives, and we might feel sidelined at times while our children build their own lives.  Our thread will end, and we want our children to carry on with traditions we started or carried on that fit into their lives, and they can pass on to their children. This is how we leave a legacy impacting generations. We don’t know how long our thread will be; what’s important is being a strong thread in the tapestry, helping our children and grandchildren to be strong threads.

Is there a Christmas tradition you hope your children and grandchildren will remember fondly?

 Christmas magic is silent. You don’t hear it – you feel it. You know it. You believe it. Kevin Alan Milne

Winter, a lingering season, is a time to gather golden moments, embark upon a sentimental journey, and enjoy every idle hour. John Boswell

Christmas can’t be bought from a store. Maybe Christmas means a little bit more. Dr. Seuss 

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Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. William James

Is the phrase, “The devil made me do it,” still used? As a mother and grandmother, I think, what would make a child or grandchild turn away from how they were brought up and do the unthinkable? A father turned his son in for the heinous murder of Charlie Kirk. Short years ago, did he watch his son finish high school and expect him to build a bright future?

We can’t keep our children safe from influences that mean to take advantage of them. Sometimes we start down paths that aren’t good, realize it, and turn our lives around. Not all parents see this manifest in their children’s lives; some see their children’s lives continue in the darkest direction they can go. Other than prayer, what can we do when we see our children going down the wrong path?

Some paths only devastate the life of the one on it, and some want to take others out with them. What is the phenomenon going on in our society? It is easy to blame guns, but what is behind picking up the gun and aiming it at someone, whether it is a school shooting, a political figure, or someone like Charlie Kirk?  

If we believe that out of bad can come good, does that give us a way forward? All things can be used for good, but how do we use them for good in our own lives? Some believe conservatism is bad, that if we want to conserve something, it means we want to take something away. What it means to me is we want to conserve and preserve for coming generations so they too have a bright and shining future. We conserve and preserve the harvest, for wintertime when we can’t pick anything from our garden to eat.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts. Winston Churchill

We plant trees for a harvest in the future. Everything about our society is not bad, but our youth are feeling their inheritance has been squandered. We lived too large, we overspent, overdeveloped, and wasted what should have been conserved for the future. What impact will AI and robotics have? Is the problem that some of our youth are giving up on life before they even begin?

How do we turn this around? How do we offer a bright future to our children and grandchildren, and if there is a bright future, how do we get them to see it? A lot of life is about perspective; my perspective on some things has changed over the years. The years between high school and building a life as an adult are fraught with pitfalls. Does it only seem worse now? How do we build our youth for the future? Has the optimism of youth become the pessimism of youth?

We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future? Franklin D. Roosevelt

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. Newt Gingrich

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

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

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

Does life feel more or less precarious as we watch what is going on in the Middle East? Are our conversations a minefield as we take sides and someone else takes a different side?

Do we have faith that we can deal with the challenges ahead? No one knows what is ahead, but we all know it will be different from what it is now. We see the changes coming, and many of them we don’t like, but what if changes weren’t coming? Would life be better? Better for whom?

In the game of life, there are winners and losers, and no one minds being on the winning side, but when we think we might not be on the winning side, we’d like to see no more change.

My parents lived through a lot of change, some good, some not so good, but they rode the rollercoaster of life to the end. They lived through one world war, and my grandparents lived through two. We will live through the changes coming, some we may fear but never face, and some we don’t worry about will blindside us

Is faith what will get us through? Do we have faith in ourselves, our countries, fellow citizens, governments, and faith in a higher power? Is it possible to live in a precarious world with faith to deal with what comes? Hasn’t it always been a precarious world? What can we do in our own lives to make our lives less precarious?

Being part of a strong family is a safe harbor in times of trouble. If we are resilient and able to see what is still possible and make the best of what is, life will be better than if we feel we are a victim of circumstances.

A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart. Johann Wolfgang

Victimhood does not build a good life! What is the difference between facing hard challenges and feeling like a victim? Is it when we face hard challenges that we have to find courage to deal with what is, and when we feel like victims, we don’t take advantage of what we can to make our lives better?

We are told we always have a choice, sometimes the only choice is our attitude, sometimes our choice is between two goods, and sometimes we have to choose the best of the bad. Our choices might be for our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Is what we stand up for, rail against, and support, for the greatest good? Do we even know what the greatest good would be? We always come up against the unexpected consequences of our decisions. Sometimes we get good consequences from bad decisions, and we get bad outcomes out of what we thought were good choices. Will there be unexpected consequences for every change we try to make?

Do we pray for those who make the tough decisions affecting all our lives? Do we pray for discernment and wisdom to govern their actions? We know decision-makers have information we don’t have, do we trust them?

We might think we know the obvious direction we or others need to go. But we don’t know, and we can’t know what the unintended consequences of our best intentions are. Leaders are tasked with making hard decisions, even if we don’t like the decisions or think they were the best decision, we will have to live with the results. Can we get peace through strength?

If we are blessed to live in peace and safety, do our thoughts and prayers go to those facing war and strife? Is there more we can do than thoughts and prayers? Is living in peace and plenty possible for everyone?

Never let a bad situation bring out the worst in you. Choose to stay positive and be the strong person that God created you to be! Unknown

No one else can choose your attitude for you. Your perspective and choice of attitude gives you the power to be in control. Irene Dunlap

Choose the positive. You have choices, you are master of your attitude, choose the positive, the constructive. Optimism is a faith that leads to success. Bruce Lee

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