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Facing our unmet expectations. Are we expecting perfection in an imperfect world?

Are we expecting perfection in an imperfect world? Facing our unmet expectations.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The person who is brutally honest enjoys the brutality quite as much as the honesty. Possibly more. Richard J. Needham

How do we focus on what we want in life when what we don’t want in life is where we put our energy? How do we not put our energy on what we don’t want when that consumes us?

Counting our blessings is what we are told to do. Our blessings outnumber our problems and yet our problems fill our minds and grow and morph as we continually think about them.

People tell us about bad things happening as if that is all that is happening. It is easy to judge someone by their worst decision, their worst action, and their worst outcome. The sum of someone’s life is neither the best nor the worst of what they have done but the sum total of their life.

Police departments are under scrutiny right now. Minimizing the problems with policing is not what most people are trying to do. We need police and the areas where problems with police occur the most often are also where police are needed the most. It is these areas where police are the first line of help when people don’t know who to turn to except the police.

Is it the case that the more contact we have with law enforcement the more likely we are to have a bad outcome? Part of the problem may be marginalized areas are under scrutiny the rest of us aren’t under. No one is perfect but do people in poor areas live under a level of scrutiny the rest of us don’t live under. Do they live under this with child protective services, policing, and drug enforcement?

The anger and the brutality against everything can readily from one hour to the next be transformed into its opposite. Thomas Bernhard

Is part of the problem over policing? Is another part of the problem that calling the police is used as a weapon against people who are scared of having the police called on them? Is, “I’ll call the police on you,” a threat used often and to the detriment of communities? Is it something people use against others to make themselves feel more powerful?

It seems to me many of the situations we see with bad outcomes are people calling the police on someone often over small things. Once things are set in motion and people authorized to use force against us confront us situations can get out of hand.

People do not always do the right thing. Police officers are people. We expect collateral damage in wars, we don’t like it but we accept it. Is part of what we have to accept with policing is things will get out of control, situations will escalate, and decisions resulting in death will result?  Even though everyone will agree when looking at the videos different decisions should have been made the outcome of that bad decision is irreversible.

We can use labels that may or may not apply; we can call it many things but what if it’s really a bad decision that ended badly for all concerned?

If those who make bad decisions are held accountable and prosecuted is that the most we can ask for and expect?

We may have expectations that truth, justice, and good decisions should always prevail. Is dealing with unmet expectations a hard truth we have to deal with in life?

No one’s pro-police brutality. Kenya Barris

I encountered among my comrades the most varied human traits, from frankness to reserve, from goodness to uprightness and kindness, to brutality and baseness. Georg Brandes

I see myself capable of arrogance and brutality… That’s a fierce thing, to discover within yourself that which you despised the most in others. George Stevens

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Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

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Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It  Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Chris Voss (Author), Michael Kramer (Narrator), HarperAudio (Publisher)4.7 out of 5 stars 4,331 ratingsAmazon Charts #9 this week

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Speaking out about injustice. Healing rifts. We are all in this together.

We are all in this together. Speaking out about injustice. Healing rifts.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Injustice never rules forever. Seneca

How should we handle injustice? Is it true we can’t create positive change from a negative attitude? Do we have to heal our pain before we can heal the world? Do we need to stop seeing ourselves as victims to access our personal power?

Do you want to be a positive influence in the world? First, get your own life in order.  Ground yourself in the single principle so that your behavior is wholesome and effective. If you do that you will earn respect and be a powerful influence.

Your behavior influences others through a ripple effect. A ripple effect works because everyone influences everyone else. Powerful people are powerful influences. If your life works, you influence your family. If your family works your family influences the community. If your community works, your community influences the nation. If your nation works, your nation influences the world. If your world works, the ripple effect spreads throughout to the cosmos. Remember your influence begins with you and ripples outward. So be sure that your influence is both potent and wholesome. How do I know that this works? All growth spreads out from a fertile and potent nucleus. You are a nucleus. Tao Te Ching

Wayne Dyer was holding an orange in one of his seminars and he said, “If I squeeze this orange what do I get?” The answer of course is orange juice. If we are squeezed what do we produce? When life gets hard and we feel squeezed are we still happy, optimistic, doing our best, loving, and seeing the good in our fellow man?

Do we have compassion for people who have made a bad decision that has the worst results possible? Do we think we too could make decisions with disastrous results? Or do we think they meant for the worst to happen? Bad things happen to good people and breaking things and causing mayhem doesn’t help them, ourselves, or the communities we live in.

Don’t let injustice enslave you. Instead overcome injustice by showing goodness to others, even to your offenders. Romans 12:21

This is hard advice to follow. We want to break something to vent our wrath. We want our hurt to be recognized and injustice to be dealt with. We want to feel powerful and anger feels powerful. The damage done in our wrath is often to our own families, communities, countries. Damaging things does not right the wrong. Innocent people may get caught up in the legal system and it ruins their lives?

If my husband and I get into a fight and I start breaking things what do we have in the end? All we’ll have is a bunch of broken things, a more broken relationship, and my children will think they have a crazy mother.

The money it takes to replace what is broken may come out of their college fund, a family trip, a wedding, or retirement. Will looking at the broken stuff help heal the rift? The chasm between us will grow instead of diminishing. My influence in the family will be less because no one will ever forget the crazy reaction.

Can we stand up for injustice without making things worse?

He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it. Plato

Let us be enraged about injustice, but let us not be destroyed by it. Bayard Rustin

True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else. Clarence Darrow

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Healing Justice: Stories of Wisdom and Love (How to Die Smiling Book 3) by [Jarem Sawatsky]

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Living without regrets. Making the best of the situations we are in and the opportunities that present themselves

Making the best of the situations we are in and the opportunities that present themselves. Living without regrets.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Discipline is doing what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, when we don’t want to do it. Unknown

Yesterday I listened to Mel Robbins on The School of Greatness podcast talk about the five-second rule. She believes as I do that our habits create our life and it is the action we take that will build our life. The five-second rule helps us do what we need to do.

She says we have a small moment in time when we decide to do what we need to do or not. It is that short amount of time when we decide to get up when our alarm rings. We decide to exercise, or we decide to eat something we shouldn’t. We decide we are going to take the action that propels our life forward. We will make the sales call, have a difficult conversation, tell someone we love them, or reach out to them in some way.

She suggests we count backward from five. Five, four, three, two, one blast off and we do what we need to do. As we take the actions that build the life we want we will be more confident because our actions prove we can take control of the moment. We can propel our life forward. Confidence is built through action.

We can wait our entire lives to be motivated, or we can count backward from five and do it. She says we can’t control how we feel. What we can control is what we think and how we behave.

Doing what needs to be done may not make you happy, but it will make you great. George Bernard Shaw

We can think and behave ourselves into the people we want to be and the lives we want to live. Haven’t we all heard “Just do it.” This is a tool to use to make ourselves do what needs to be done. We know if we don’t get up early enough to exercise, read, and write in our journal. That exercise will never get done, that book will never get read, and that journal will never get written.

We only ever have the moment we are in to change things. If we don’t seize the moment, the opportunity is gone. Sometimes we have that opportunity present itself again every morning. Other times opportunities only present themselves once and we seized them or we did not.

Sometimes we see people doing things we planned on doing, living lives we planned on living. Why didn’t we do them? What didn’t we do, what choice didn’t we make? Every day we have choices to make. We will not always make the right choice, but the more opportunities we seize the more confidence we will develop.

Do we learn by doing? We will never feel competent at anything unless we are courageous enough to do it when we don’t know how to do it well. We will get better with practice. The more output we have the better some of that output will be.

Count backward from five and then do what needs to be done. If we do this how much more productive could our lives be? How many times might we count down and not say something better left unsaid? How many times would we make the best of a moment that may never come again?

Could a life without regrets be as easy as counting backward five, four, three, two, one, and doing what needs to be done? Saying what needs to be said, or holding our tongue from lashing out?

Courage, after all, is not being unafraid, but doing what needs to be done in spite of fear. James L. Farmer

I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work. Pearl S. Buck

Work hard to get what you like, otherwise, you’ll be forced to just like what you get. Unknown

The 5 Second Rule: Transform your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage

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The 5 Second Rule: Transform your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage  Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Mel Robbins (Author, Narrator), Mel Robbins Productions Inc. (Publisher)4.4 out of 5 stars 1,826 ratings

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Looking forward. The joy of watching our children take their place in the world.

The joy of watching our children take their place in the world. Looking forward.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. Mignon Mc Laughlin

This is a year where everything we get to celebrate is sweeter. Even though celebrating things is tough, having something to celebrate boosts our spirits. Over the next few months or as long as it takes I am looking forward to being the mother of the groom.

It is a tough time to plan a wedding. Family weddings are being postponed and when the next wedding gets in line, what do they do? When your sister’s wedding supposed to happen this year is postponed till next year what does the next bride do? They may already have been waiting through a year and a half engagement to plan their own wedding.

Is their etiquette about two siblings getting married in the same year? What about someone whose dream is a destination wedding. How does one plan one of those in these times?

I highly recommend a destination wedding. It was easy, fun, and about as carefree for the families, during a wedding as one can expect. The wedding planner takes care of everything and what a fantastic job she did handling a wedding per day. Every wedding looked like it met the bride and groom’s vision.

Wedding season is upon us and those who really want to get married this year will probably do it in constrained circumstances. A friend talked about having friends on zoom as he and his fiancé have a small wedding. My mother in law is talking about the same thing happening for someone at her church.

Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking forward together in the same direction. Unknown

Many couples live together before getting married and they may put off the wedding they planned. But, those who do not live together may not want to put off starting their life together.

When things don’t work out as planned it adds to our story. Often we look back at what we overcame as fondly as what went exactly as planned. Overcoming is where we meet our best selves. We rise to the occasion and feel proud of what we manage to accomplish in difficult circumstances.

At one wedding I was part of one of the groomsmen who ended up sick was replaced by the groom without the bride knowing of this hiccup.

Planning a wedding may be good preparation for starting a life together. Compromise will be needed. Plans may change and disappointment may have to be dealt with.

There is no happily ever after in married life. If there was we would die of boredom. Challenges keep us on our feet. We sometimes hear people say, “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?” Maybe if we knew we couldn’t fail it would take all the fun out of it. Why bother, we know we won’t fail?

We don’t want everything in life to be too exciting but we also don’t want to know nothing will ever change, be challenging, or exciting. Nothing stays the same even when we wish it would.

Do people who finally get married after living the carefree bachelor life for more decades than they like to count ask themselves why they didn’t do it sooner? When all their friends were taking on the heavy lifting of life and building a family what were they thinking?

Marriage and family is the cornerstone of our society. Watching our children take their place in life is one of the joys we have as parents. We are looking forward to planning and participating in a wedding. Isn’t life great when we have something to look forward to?

There are many things that keep me from getting married. But there will be a time when marriage makes sense to me. Adam Levine

Marriage is not a noun; it’s a verb. It isn’t something you get. It’s something you do. It’s the way you love your partner every day. Barbara De Angelis

Getting married, for me, was the best thing I ever did. I was suddenly beset with an immense sense of release, that we have something more important than our separate selves, and that is the marriage. There’s immense happiness that can come from working towards that. Nick Cave

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Love Is A Decision: Proven Techniques to Keep Your Marriage Alive and Lively by [Gary Smalley, John Trent]

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Being a job-giver is better than being a job-seeker. Why has profit become a dirty word?

Why has profit become a dirty word? Being a job-giver is better than being a job-seeker.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Young people should think in a different way – they should be job-givers, not job-seekers. Muhammad Yunus

Yesterday I saw a YouTube video by Alina McCloud in it she profiled a small town in Saskatchewan with her dad a Saskatchewan farmer. In a later video she talked with her dad about the reality of farming in Saskatchewan.

Being a Saskatchewan farm girl myself it brought tears to my eyes. We all need to remember we may need a doctor, dentist, lawyer, or police officer in our lives occasionally but we need farmers every day. If we ate today we need to thank a farmer.

When we go to the grocery store with its array of beautiful fruits, vegetables, meats, cereals, and breads it all started on a farm. All that food from all over the world came from farmers working every day to feed us. Small independent farms are disappearing as larger operations take over. Machinery is expensive, the land is expensive, it makes sense farms need to become larger operations to make money. Farmers can’t feed us if they don’t make money. No business can operate at a loss. We may want bargains but we need to beware of the price of some of our bargains.

The other week a cattle rancher in America was saying he was selling his beef for $900.00 that cost $1200.00 to get ready for sale. “We can’t keep doing this, if we are going to continue to feed people we have to do it at a profit.”

Profit is a by-product of work; happiness is its chief product. Henry Ford

Profit is both the reward for successes and the incentive for further action. Without profit none of us have a job, and worse yet we eventually will not have food. When did making a profit get to be a bad thing? Research tells us that workers who work for non-profits often make more money than people who work for organizations making a profit. How is this even possible? Is it because many of the costs of non-profits are paid for by subsidies from taxpayers who are working in the companies that make a profit?

Where did we get the crazy notion that making a profit so we can have a well-organized company is wrong? For-profit child care centers are becoming a thing of the past. Why, and what do they mean by not for profit? No one is doing work for free. The expenses still have to be paid, workers have to be paid, and rent has to be paid. Why, is getting an exorbitant salary as the head of a non-profit, often higher than what an owner of a for-profit company of the same kind would get, better?

Do we need to think about encouraging more people to start their own businesses and to quit thinking about profit as a dirty word? Is it better to be a job-giver than a job-seeker and is this what we should be encouraging our children to try and do?

I believe in capitalism. I need to make a profit, but I would like to do it with ethics, dignity, morals. It’s my dream. Brunello Cucinelli

To get profit without risk, experience without danger, and reward without work is as impossible as it is to live without being born. A.P. Gouthey

The substance of the eminent Socialist gentleman’s speech is that making a profit is a sin, but it is my belief that the real sin is taking a loss. Winston Churchill

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The Price of a Bargain: The Quest for Cheap and the Death of Globalization Paperback – Oct. 19 2010

by Gordon Laird (Author)5.0 out of 5 stars 1 rating

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Peace in the world begins in the home. Peace in the home begins with ourselves.

Peace in the home begins with oursleves. Peace in the world begins in the home.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family. Mother Teresa

If we do not find peace at home then where will we find it? Is it true that peace like charity needs to begin in our own hearts, our own homes, and then radiate out into the world?

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” Peace does not come from where we live. We can move to new places but we will take our peace with us if we have it, not find it in some other locality. We may move from house to house, farm to city, or city to farm looking for peace but if we are ever to find it, we will find it within ourselves.

It is not dependant on whom we live with or where we live or if we are rich or poor, young or old. Wherever we go there we are and if we want to find peace, we will have to look within.

We may have to ask ourselves, what is peace? Is it the absence of war, conflict, or strife? Is peace and happiness within our self? When our lives are filled with gratitude, joy, and love do we feel at peace? If we can forgive others for being human, petty, selfish, self-serving, and not considering our feelings do we feel peace?

We are unlikely to be at peace if we are filled with resentment. When we expect people to be different than what they are will we ever be happy or at peace? When others are upset with us can we still be at peace with them?

I’m reading an anonymous quote that says, “Peace means living in a state where your impact on others is only ever seen as positive. If everybody does that, peace will happen.” Whoever said that might be getting it wrong. Part of the problems we have in life is we expect things to happen from somewhere else first and not from within ourselves.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without. Buddha

Is expecting others to only see our actions and reactions as positive even possible in our own families, let alone greater society and the world? Will peace come when we expect less from others, more from ourselves, and we look at what they did as having the best of intentions even when it results in the worst of outcomes?

Many of the ills in the world were created as unintended consequences of things meant for good. We often feel we have a right to our stand on things, we are so right we will fight to our last breath. We do this in our families, our countries, and the world. Everyone is fighting for right so how is everything so wrong? Why does fighting for peace not give us peace?

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:7-8

Do we need to find peace within ourselves? Is it time to look within ourselves for the change we want to see in the world? If we find peace can we create it in our family and can it radiate out from there?

Peace of mind comes when you stop expecting and start accepting. Unknown

Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding. Albert Einstein

Peace begins from within, if you are not peaceful inside, the world you see will be chaotic. Unknown

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Attitudes of Gratitude: How to Give and Receive Joy Every Day of Your Life by [M. J. Ryan, Mark Nepo]

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Attitudes of Gratitude: How to Give and Receive Joy Every Day of Your Life Kindle Edition

by M. J. Ryan (Author), Mark Nepo (Foreword)  Format: Kindle Edition

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Making a difference in the lives of others makes a difference in our own as well.

Making a difference in the lives of others makes a difference in our own as well.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Giving is not just about making a donation. It is about making a difference. Kathy Calvin

Books help us to see what others have gone through, what they dreamed, overcame, and how the journey of their life progressed. Dr. Tererai Trent is said to have been one of Oprah’s favorite all-time guests.

When we hear about people who change the course of their lives through dreaming of a better life and going after it we are heartened by their accomplishment. Dr. Tererai Trent was a married mother by the time she was 18 years old when a woman from America came to her village and asked her what her dreams were. The woman told her if you believe, then your dreams can come true. Her mother told her to bury her dreams, and also told her to add one more dream. She added the dream of going back and helping the people from her community.

In an interview with School of Greatness podcaster Lewis Howes, she said it is the last dream her mother asked her to make that she now thinks made the difference. She says we have two types of hunger within us, “The little hunger is for immediate gratification and the greater hunger is for a meaningful life.

She says we are all on the ladder of life and those on the higher rungs must help those on the lower rungs.

One of the things we hear from many successful people is their desire and commitment to helping others. Some people say the most joy they get in life is being able to give back. That it truly is better to give than to receive.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands – one for helping yourself, the other for helping others. Audrey Hepburn

I spoke to a lady from my home town when I went back one year. She used her spending money to teach art to local children. I heard someone left a $2500.00 tip when they knew a restaurant would be shutting down.

People are making a difference in other people’s lives in big and small ways. Employers are doing their best to keep their employees employed. We may not be able to do what we think are great things but Mother Theresa said, “Do small things with great love.”

Can we all make a difference?

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. Leo Buscaglia

Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree, to serve. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love. Martin Luther King Jr.

The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green. Thomas Carlyle

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The Awakened Woman: Remembering & Reigniting Our Sacred Dreams

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The Awakened Woman: Remembering & Reigniting Our Sacred Dreams  Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Tererai Trent PhD (Author, Narrator), Simon & Schuster Audio (Publisher)4.8 out of 5 stars 62 ratings

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Desire and expectation. Do we desire what we expect, and expect what we desire?

Do we desire what we expect, and expect what we desire? Desire and expectation.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Hope is desire and expectation rolled into one. Ambrose Bierce

It is said we should never desire a thing we don’t expect to get and never expect anything we don’t want. We need to be definite in our desires and steadfast in our expectations.

How exactly do we manage this? Where does worrying about things fit on the spectrum of desire and expectation? We don’t usually desire what we worry about but we often expect what we worry about to happen which is why we are worrying about it.

Expecting the positive even amid the negative is a challenge to positive thinkers everywhere. It is very easy to fall down the rabbit hole of negative thinking and negative expectation. We worry about the financial fallout of the situation we are in.

One of the things that seem to come out of pandemics is some positive changes. We see things differently. Things we say couldn’t happen that we couldn’t manage, happen, and are managed. We pull together in ways we didn’t think we could. We seem to do our best when we meet challenges. When we face challenges that affect the wider world it may put us at our best.

Leaders are made in times of trouble, they rise to the challenge. Decisions have to be made and they have to make them.

Conspiracy theories abound. Motives are questioned. Is it as easy to believe and expect things to get better as it is to question everyone’s motives and expect things to get worse?

Do some people even living in the same circumstances but viewing them differently have their expectations met? Can we focus on the good or the bad at any time in any situation? Is this how life works? Is it as Shakespeare said, “Nothing is good or bad but our thinking makes it so?”

To succeed in life and achieve results, you must understand and master three mighty forces – desire, belief, and expectation. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

When we desire something we are telling the universe what we want and according to Thomas Troward’s writings, desire is the masculine principle of the creative process. and expectation is the feminine principle of the creative process. Without both desire and expectation, nothing happens.

If nothing can happen without a first cause, a mind thinking a thought we can see how careful we must be about the thoughts we think. Then we must be careful about what we expect.

If we think about positive things but expect negative things it makes sense we won’t get the positive thing we are thinking about. This may be why so many people say I think positive but nothing ever happens. If we expect the rich to keep getting richer and the poor to keep getting poorer and that is what we believe is happening then aren’t we getting our expectation?

If we can’t see our lives improving, our health getting better, our relationships healing, or being able to live below our means, what are we expecting?

When we hear some of the advertisements that are being played saying “We will get through this because that’s what Canadians do.” Isn’t that what we all need to be telling ourselves?

We can overcome and get through this. We can make things better? Can we also prosper, heal our relationships, and live in health?

What do we desire and what is our expectation?

Expectation means that there is a desire and a belief in the same space. Abraham Hicks

Expectation is the most powerful condition that you can accomplish, because an expectation is a holding of a desire, a clear desire, and a belief about the same thing at the same time. Abraham Hicks

Once you choose hope, anything’s possible. Christopher Reeve

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Thomas Troward Complete Collection – Six Books: The Hidden Power; The Law and The Word; The Creative Process in The Individual; Edinburgh Lectures On Mental Science; Dore Lectures On Mental Science; Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning Paperback – May 27 2019

by Thomas Troward (Author) 5.0 out of 5 stars 8 ratings

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Being and doing to have the things we want in life. Who do we want to be, what do we need to do, to get what we want to have?

Who do we want to be, what do we need to do, to get what we want to have? Being and doing to have the things we want in life.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. Jane Goodall

When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change. This is a paradigm shift. If we want to improve every day, every year, and every decade we will have to create habits that help us improve.

If our life is created by the sum of our habits then the things we do without thinking have a big impact on our life. It’s not a big decision to get up in the morning and brush our teeth, we just do it. We wash our hands after using the bathroom.

Are the habits we have serving us and are there new habits we could develop that would serve us as well? Are there certain habits we hear about that if we brought them into our lives would make a difference?

Studying every day is a habit that will pay big dividends in our life. If it is true we will be changed most by the books we read, the people we meet, and the challenges we overcome then choosing to read great books on a regular schedule is a habit we can develop. We can choose when and where to read, what kind of books to read and we can go straight to the source for information.

Lives based on having are less free than lives based on doing or being. William James

We can pick and choose mentors from the array of books we can access. It has never been easier to access books. We can get them through virtual library cards. The latest book pick for my book club is on my phone from a virtual library. We can download some books for free.

Making goals is a good habit to develop. It is one I have resisted and I don’t know why I’ve resisted it. When I think about it, the reason must be because I have not wanted to put the responsibility of making a goal happen. It seems like the strangest thing to choose to be goalless but if we know that if we want to achieve something we will have to work at it to make it happen it might be easier to not set the goal.

We may want to be a writer for instance but then we have to write because writers write. We may want to be a musician but then we have to play an instrument because musicians play, singers sing, painters paint, builders build, and developers develop.

If we want anything in life we will have to be what that person is, we will have to do what that person does to have what that person has. The questions we may have to ask ourselves is who do we want to be, what do we need to do, and what do we want to have?

If for instance, we want to have a happy marriage we have to be a happy person in a marriage, and we have to do the things that create a good relationship so we can have a happy marriage.

What are the steps if continually taken would get us where we want to go? Who do we want to be, what do we need to do, to get what we want to have?

It doesn’t matter what the other is being, doing, having, saying, wanting, demanding. It doesn’t matter what the other is thinking, expecting, planning. It only matters what you are being in relationship to that. Neale Donald Walsch

Taking responsibility means never blaming anyone else for anything you are being… doing… having, or feeling. Susan Jeffers

Your mission: Be so busy loving your life that you have no time for hate, regret, or fear. Karen Salmansohn

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.

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A Life of Being, Having, and Doing Enough by [Wayne Muller]

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A Life of Being, Having, and Doing Enough Kindle Edition

by Wayne Muller (Author)  Format: Kindle Edition

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We become what we think, we reap what we sow and we must provide service to others.

We reap what we sow, we become what we think, and we must provide service to others.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction. John Crosby

We hear about mentors and even when we haven’t been in a structured mentor program we have them in our lives. Our parents were, of course, our first mentors. It is so funny to see little boys, especially with their fathers as they copy everything their father does. If the father crosses his legs the son crosses his legs.

It is one of the big things we have to realize is our kids look up to us and they make life decisions based on ours. Jerry Stiller, Seinfeld star and father of Ben Stiller died. In an interview, he said his father was a bus driver and he based a lot of his characters on his Dad. He asked his father what he wanted to do in life before he became a bus driver. His father said he wanted to be an actor. Jerry Stiller fulfilled his father’s dream.

When we listen to the life stories some people have, we think how could it be different. Bob Proctor is a speaker who worked five years with Earl Nightingale an American author whose talks have been uploaded to YouTube and one of them is called 19 Minutes that Could Change Your Life. Earl Nightingale has been called the dean of personal development.  At 29 he read the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and was suddenly struck by the thought… we become what we think about. Everything started to fall into place for him. He finally felt he had the answers to the questions he had been trying to understand since he was a child which was – what is the secret of success?

Children must be taught how to think, not what to think. Margaret Mead

He then wrote The Strangest Secret and by 1956 it was a successful book. By 1976 he won the Golden Gavel Award from Toastmasters. A friend of Earl Nightingale said, “Earl Nightingale never let a day go by where he didn’t learn something new, and in turn, pass that learning, on to others.”

Earl Nightingale’s message is simple: You become what you think, you reap what you sow, and you must provide service to others that you meet.

We may not in real life meet the mentor of our dreams. If we don’t we can find them in books, YouTube, and seminars.

Last evening I listened to Bob Proctor in an interview with Lewis Howes from the School of Greatness. Bob Proctor was asked what five books he would recommend above all others.

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

As a Man Thinketh by James Allen

You were born Rich by Bob Proctor

The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science by Thomas Troward

You Squared by Price Pritchett

It is always interesting to find out what books have impacted people’s lives. What they have read and what they haven’t read. If we want to know something we can usually find it in a book.

Reading can have the biggest impact on our life. We can understand what the great minds thought about, what changes they made in their life and what impacted them. Through books, we can learn anything we want to learn. We can change the way we think and the things we do.

Are we happy becoming what we think, reaping what we sow, and are we providing service to others?

A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself. Oprah Winfrey

Most people who decide to grow personally find their first mentors in the pages of books. John C. Maxwell

You can teach a student a lesson a day; but if you teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives. Clay P. Bedford

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.

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You Were Born Rich

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You Were Born Rich  Audible Audiobook – Original recording

Bob Proctor (Author, Narrator), Gildan Seminars (Publisher)4.6 out of 5 stars 255 ratings

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