Belynda&#039;s Books

Posted on March 28, 2022March 28, 2022 by BWThomas

Having the knowledge to make good decisions is important, who pays the price for the wrong decision?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

There are few things more dishonorable than misleading the young. Thomas Sowell

Last night I started listening to Thomas Sowell’s audiobook “Knowledge and Decisions.” One of the things he states which we might all consider is this:

“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

On the other hand, I spent two nights watching Bridgerton. This is a fantasy set in the early 1800s showing what was true then and is still true now, who we marry is one of the most important decisions of our lives.

The dowry that came with the bride played a big role in society at the time. A husband could not divorce his wife without returning the dowry. A dowry was given at the time of a daughter’s marriage and the eldest son inherited lands and titles upon his father’s death with all the responsibilities that entailed. It is not possible to divide up a title and large estates only remain large if they don’t get cut up over the years.

Is there a perfect way to handle an inheritance? For many families dividing everything up equally is probably workable unless there are reasons that it isn’t. If the eldest son stayed with his father to continue to build a business while his siblings went off to build big careers is it fair if everything is divided equally upon the father’s death?

We have to be careful when we look at how society worked in the past that we don’t think people did not agonize on how to make things s as fair and good for their children as they could.

The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best. Thomas Sowell

We may pat ourselves on the back thinking we are creating a better society than has been created before. I think all of us look more critically at someone else’s life than we do on our own. We probably look more critically at times gone by than we do the one we live in. We have some understanding of why things are the way they are in our own time, but can we understand the choices and decisions of a different time?

Historically based period pieces can make us think about how things must have been, the considerations, and constraints people dealt with. Passing things on to the next generation is always messy. It’s still messy today and many businesses built into large corporations don’t survive into the third generation.

If a daughter gets a dowry for her wedding and she and her husband get to use that windfall their whole lives and a son doesn’t get his inheritance until his father’s death he could be an old man not able to do with it what his sister and her husband could do with her dowry. Women were encouraged to marry up so there is also that to consider.

A dowry, I think would have equalized some of the relationships. The woman came into the relationship with something and if it didn’t work out she had her dowry to fall back on. Families might have empowered their daughters a lot more than we think they did. A man with a title could marry a woman with a fat dowry and it was a win for both of them. She moved up in society and they were better off because of the money she brought to the marriage.

As we wrestle with what we think is fair, just, equitable, equal, and what works we need to realize parents have for the most part always wanted better for their children and probably for society in general. We all want to see our children build a great life, we might not all agree on what makes a great life, and what rules a good society should impose to create a great society.

Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good. Thomas Sowell

Sometimes it seems there are more solutions than problems. On closer scrutiny, it turns out that many of today’s problems are a result of yesterday’s solutions. Thomas Sowell

Life, in general, has never been even close to fair, so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a valuable and inexhaustible asset to politicians who want to expand government. Thomas Sowell

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

Knowledge and Decisions by Thomas Sowell

Posted on March 24, 2022March 24, 2022 by BWThomas

Health is the first wealth. Searching for the magic foods that lead to health and well-being through life.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The first wealth is health. Ralph Waldo Emmerson

Spring is here! It was too wet and cold to go for a walk I told myself last night. It is so easy to talk myself out of doing something. It’s too late this morning to exercise. Just one won’t hurt, but of course, whatever it is I never have just one.

My knee has been bothering me for more than two months. My son-in-law sprained his ankle on Saturday and he was fine within three or four days. Dr. McDougall says to give his Starch Solution three weeks. I’d already cut out dairy, then I cut out eggs, now I’m cutting out oils, meats, nuts, and processed foods. I’ve found a sourdough breath without dairy, oil, or eggs.

For three weeks I can do anything. That is how I started the vegan challenge my son challenged me to in 2015. It’s the food that will make us healthy. We are what we eat, we’ve heard it all our lives but it doesn’t always register how much control we have over our health especially when we have the choices we have in our supermarkets and buy according to what tastes good instead of what is healthy for us.

Mom lived on cream-of-wheat porridge for twelve days. I could be exaggerating but I think this is true. This is how she dealt with many of her health problems over the years. She’s lived with gall bladder problems by adhering to a low-fat diet. It is watching Mom deal with issues that color how I deal with mine.

I hurt my knee years ago and pain flares up now and then. In January I hurt it again and it is getting better but I don’t want a chronic problem if I can help it. My son-in-law’s mother is dealing with type 2 diabetes by diet alone. This might not be possible for everyone but when we search for stories about people who have dealt with health issues through diet the stories seem endless, and the diets they use are varied. The common denominator is when people eat healthy food, not too much, and if they eliminate foods that don’t agree with them they get healthier. Figuring out our problem foods can be tricky. This is where elimination diets come in.

Health is like money we never have a true idea of its value until we lose it. Unknown

If Dr. McDougall is right that most healthy populations lived on starch and as they adopted diets richer in meat, sugar, oil, and processed foods their health declined then this is good news for us. Starches are the most economical, easiest to grow, and most widely available foods.

Starch and fat make us fat. We can eat fats and proteins with non-starchy vegetables and not gain weight. We can eat starches without fat and not gain weight, but when we combine starches and fat we gain weight.

Suzanne Somers’ books are where I first learned about food combining for health and weight loss without giving up the many pleasures of food. Even following her plan my weight inched up as menopause hit. She recommends bio-identical hormone replacement but I have stayed off of hormones and tried to find ways to work with my natural body.

If Dr. McDougall is right the mistake I made when following Suzanne Somers was I made my diet too much about protein, fats, and non-starchy vegetables and too little about healthy starches with little fat added.

There is so much pleasure to be had sharing meals with other people. I don’t want to become that person, the one that won’t go out with a group and eat what is on offer. Perfection is not the point, health is, and we need to be able to join in on the feasts and celebrations, we just need to not make it our everyday fare. If we find one food that causes us a problem it can be a real problem if it is something that is in almost everything. I am hoping that figuring out if there is a food that is causing the problem and eliminating it most of the time will make it so if I go out and encounter it in a dish it will be okay. I will have to be careful thinking if I get away with it a little bit it is okay to bring it back into my diet more and more until I have a problem again.

Health is the first wealth, when we are healthy and pain-free we have many dreams, when we are in pain we just have one, can this pain go away. I’m hoping by limiting my eating I can get rid of the nagging pain, which is far better than excruciating pain, and soon I will be pain-free. I can go for a long walk, dance at my son’s wedding, go shopping without thinking how much walking will that be. Feel at ease in my body again.

Here’s to choices that lead to better health, and an all-around better life. Is your relationship with food a battle, or a blessing?

It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver. Mahatma Gandhi

Health is the first wealth; the second one is a happy marriage. Unknown

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost. Unknown

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. A special thank you to those that leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. If you click on the Amazon link below and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

The Starch Solution by Dr. John McDougall

Posted on March 21, 2022March 21, 2022 by BWThomas

The strength of family is what binds us, and pushes us to make things better.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Family is one of nature’s masterpieces. Candace Cameron Blue

This is a year for weddings and family celebrations. Yesterday was the bridal shower of my daughter-in-law-to-be. This is one of four bridal showers her aunt will attend this year for her nieces.

It was a lovely event and so good to see people in person, laugh, and talk. When I see my daughter-in-law-to-be with her family a pang of guilt hits me as I realize by moving far away from family my son and daughter were deprived of that close connection to their grandmother, grandfather, cousins, aunts, and uncles they would have had.

Cross country visits aren’t the same but they have been wonderful and created great memories. Mom and Dad had already left the farm before my kids came along so they never had a chance to visit the farm I grew up on.

I said to a friend yesterday, “When we were looking for a husband we didn’t consider the family we were marrying into and what an impact it would have on our lives.” My mother-in-law is wonderful, as was my father-in-law now passed, and my sister-in-law and I have a wonderful relationship. We are truly blessed when we get along with our family and extended families.

As I look at families I can see how the matriarch of the family brings everyone together. We owe a lot to the grandmothers who do so much to bring everyone together, preparing the food, hosting the dinners, being the bridge that binds the generations.

The most important thing is family. Career is not waiting for you to come home. Money won’t wipe your tears and glory won’t embrace you at night. Unknown

We don’t have to be grandmothers to be the matriarchs; we have to be the ones that host the events that bring people together. Nothing happens unless someone makes it happen. Yesterday was a lot of work for the bride-to-be and her family. It was a lot of fun, and although I’m sure they were tired at the end of it, pure joy shone on their faces.

It is a great joy to love the person our son or daughter is marrying and bringing into the family. Our relationship with our in-laws will impact our lives in big ways. Even the most harmonious family will have disagreements and not see all things the same. That is to be expected, we are individuals after all.

The turbulence under the placid look of a family makes for the best stories. Keeping that turbulence out of view is one of the problems we have in families. It is where people feel they can’t be themselves, they are expected to be, do, or behave in certain ways and this can lead to lies, deception, and secrets as they hide their real selves from view to be acceptable.

Fitting in and living life to the beat of our own drum is a fine line we walk. Families are not homogeneous and as we become a varied group of different hues, ideologies, and values, we find we can all get along because the important values, of love, respect, togetherness, and family belong to all of us.

Never sacrifice three things: Your family, your heart, or your dignity. Unknown

I think the most important thing is your integrity. Your family, your health. Rest of the things, you can experiment with. A. R. Rahman

Our family is a circle of strength of love with every birth and every union the circle grows. Unknown

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

Posted on March 18, 2022March 18, 2022 by BWThomas

Ask for what you want, expect to get it, and be patient while the circumstances unfold to make it happen.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

You don’t always get what you ask for, but you never get what you don’t ask for… unless it’s contagious! Beverly Sills

Yesterday morning it was my privilege and pleasure to read “When Can We Get A Puppy,” at the Art Gallery of Mississauga. We had fourteen children and ten adults show up. What a fabulous group of kids. The Art Gallery set up two craft tables for the kids which kept them busy before and after the reading. I asked what they thought the moral of the story was, they put up their hands, and the first little girl I asked nailed it. “Ask for what we want and be patient.”

It’s been a long time since I’ve been around a bunch of children and this was the first time I read my story in person. They were the best audience. One said I’m the first author she’s met in person. What a privilege to read to children and get their reaction and a blessing to be around youthful exuberance, energy, and spend time with their young mothers who brought them out. I will be posting the video on YouTube soon.

If someone had asked would you like to read your story at the Art Gallery of Mississauga a year ago? I would think they were joking. It wasn’t written yet, I didn’t know I could do it. March of last year I had no illustrations completed, I didn’t yet have the concept figured out. I did have the story written but not the story as it ended up being printed.

When we look at what other people accomplish we often think they know the steps it will take, but often I bet they don’t know what they are doing any more than we know what we are doing, and if we stay moving in the right direction we get somewhere. The end result may not be what we expected; we may have been scared to even have big expectations.

Do we know what we are capable of before we accomplish something? We don’t know what will come into our lives between now and then that will help us, teach us, or move us along the path. If we aren’t doing anything that same opportunity might come but there is no way for it to help us along a path we aren’t on.

The moral of the story of “When Can We Get A Puppy,” is not about getting a puppy. It is about being willing to ask for what we want, expecting to get it, and being patient as events unfold in our lives that make getting what we want possible. I have suffered at times in my life from not knowing or at least not being willing to say out loud what I wanted.

It might take a lot of work and rearranging of our life to get what we want. We might have to do some heavy thinking to come up with what we want. We’ve gotten used to doing what is expected of us and letting that be enough. We don’t want to ask more of ourselves because it sounds a lot like work to carve out time to write that book, illustrate a story, learn to play an instrument, or whatever it is we dream about but might not voice.

We are divine enough to ask and we are important enough to receive. Wayne Dyer

How do we go see the world when we have a mortgage to pay and children to raise? Maybe it’s a dream that will take time to bring to fruition, that doesn’t mean it can’t happen.

We have to be willing to show up and risk failure to risk success. On a Facebook group, someone said something I did when self-publishing my children’s book couldn’t or shouldn’t be done. I said, “I didn’t ask anyone I just did it.” Sometimes the best thing not to know, is how something should be done because you go ahead and do it without those constraints.

Often, it isn’t that it can’t be done, but people have decided how it should be done. For instance, authors are told not to illustrate their own children’s books, and are told don’t make your children’s book rhyme. I’ve broken both rules. I did look at the submission requirements of one publisher and not rhyming was a requirement. Some people think self-publishing is a bad idea. But, I’m not sure why. We can find out if anyone is interested in what we’ve done, move onto the next project, and continue building a life.

I decided at my age I wasn’t waiting years and years for a publisher to say okay when I could self-publish. Is there a down-side to self-publishing? If there is I don’t know what it is. Some say people won’t take you seriously as a writer, well how seriously do they take us when we aren’t published? It seems to me with three self-published books, I’m up on that score. Some say a real publisher won’t consider you if you’re self-published. I doubt that, if they think they can make money publishing work that’s been self-published they’ll publish it. If it makes sense to an author that has self-published that going with a big name publisher will work better for them then they will accept the deal. Win, win for everyone.

We may think we can’t do something, because… A politician in the U.S. is made fun of because she doesn’t have a “higher” education. She’s an elected politician and those complaining about her are not. She didn’t ask permission. Too often when we ask for permission we are told no, but if we don’t ask permission and go ahead and do it we end up where we want to be.

Serendipity works in our lives. We don’t know how it will show up, when, or what doors it might open for us. We don’t know when we meet people if we might be a blessing in their lives, or they a blessing in ours.

Ask for what you want, expect to get it, and be patient as the circumstances unfold in your life to make it happen.

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Matthew 7:7

Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. Maya Angelou

Not getting what you want either means you don’t want it enough, or you have been dealing too long with the price you have to pay. Rudyard Kipling

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. A special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon links below and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on March 14, 2022March 14, 2022 by BWThomas

Focusing on the family is focusing on the building block of civilization. Strong families create strong societies.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Family is not an important thing. It’s everything. Michael J. Fox

As we are waiting for our grandson to be born I am questioning the ideas of equality and equity. Equality to me means when everyone has an equal opportunity as much as possible. Total equality can never be reached unless we reach it from the bottom and instead of equal opportunity, there is equally no opportunity.

We are born with talents, predispositions, and characteristics that help us make our way in the world. We have different statures, intelligence levels, drives, and determinations. Different talents, dispositions, and characteristics may shine at different times. Leaders achieve greatness under different circumstances, some only shine during a war, others only shine during peace.

Through education, our society tries to equip our citizens with the tools needed to create a good life. A good life for everyone is not the same life. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.

This is where I think we are going down a dark road. I watched a competition for the strongest man yesterday. These men were huge and strong. How do you create equity in a competition like that? Women are not going to be able to compete in a strong person competition, very few men can compete.

Jordan Peterson tells us that young women lawyers are leaving the profession because they want a life that includes marriage and motherhood (especially motherhood) and being a partner in a law firm makes having a family very difficult. These very capable, smart women realize they don’t like the life they are living and choose a different one. Often they marry very successful men so they have that choice.

The family is one of nature’s masterpieces. George Santayana

A focus on equity, not equality is coming to Ontario Schools if Bill 67 passes and this alarms me a lot. A focus on anti-racism is giving us more racism not less in my opinion. Just like the war on drugs did not give us what we wanted or might have expected. We get more of what we focus on, and even the best of intentions can have unexpected outcomes.

One of the outcomes of focusing on equality for women has meant fewer men are going to and staying in University. It doesn’t bode well for women when they are more highly educated and earning more money than the men they want to date and marry. Women entered the workforce and it was great for families for a short period of time. Are we better off with two people working than we were when one paycheck carried a family?

Even two wage earners have a hard time affording a home in Canada’s largest cities. Perhaps this tells us we should be moving to smaller centers and building them up. Families are the building block of every civilization; while big jobs, careers, and independence might be valued in the short term I think when the working years are over, the family will be what gives us joy, happiness, and contentment through our remaining years.

I can understand why people can’t see themselves in their later years when they are young. I couldn’t, I still don’t accept in my heart of hearts that as a woman of a certain age my best years are behind me. One of the greatest joys in my life is ahead of me as I become a grandmother for the first time. Over the next few years, I expect more grandchildren. I think about how empty my life would be if I was not married with children. My career/job would be ending and I would be alone.

My husband and I were talking last night as we watched a TV show about a couple looking to find themselves again, that we should go on some new adventures, see what there is to see and do what there is to do. Our son’s wedding will start a new chapter for us as well. Having a husband to share life with has been a great joy, and I think will become even more important as the years go by. Some day, he may have to go forward without me or me go forward without him because that is how life is, but In the meantime, we have each other, and life for two people is much more exciting than for one.

When that time comes, if we lived through all life threw at us and got through it together, made the best of the life we had, then that seems like it should lead to a life of few regrets even if we have to make our way through the rest of it alone. I think of my newly widowed aunt and mom as I write this.

Family sustains us in our times of loss, celebrates with us, and holds us up when times are hard. Being part of and building a family is one of the great joys and responsibilities of life.

Stick to the basics, hold on to your family and friends – they will never go out of fashion. Niki Taylor

Having somewhere to go is home. Having someone to love is family, and having both is a blessing. Unknown

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

Thank you to everyone that reads 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. A special thank you to those who leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. If you click on the Amazon link below and make a purchase I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program

A link to Jordan Peterson’s podcast on Bill 67 https://youtu.be/fogGeB8YmnQ

12 More Rules For Life by Jordan Peterson

When Can We Get A Puppy by belynda wilson thomas

Secrets and Sorrow by belynda wilson thomas

Secrets and Silence by belynda wilson thomas

Posted on March 10, 2022March 10, 2022 by BWThomas

Living an abundant life in gratitude and happiness. What would it look like if everyone on earth lived in abundance? Is it possible?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Abundance is about being rich, with or without money. Suze Orman

Last night I attended the graduation for Speechcrafters a six-week introductory program to Toastmasters. Tonight I am attending the one for my home club. Being part of a self-improvement group motivates us to continue to improve our public speaking skills and those skills can impact every area of our lives.

On Tuesday I attend a Horticultural meeting and the speaker is a Master Gardner who started an organization called Blooming Boulevards in Mississauga. It was illegal to plant a garden on the boulevard until she went to city hall after a neighbor complained about her boulevard garden.

She explained that it was a native plant garden benefiting bees and other pollinators and because she didn’t just meekly pull up her beautifully tended native plant pollinator’s garden we can now get a free permit to create our own native plant pollinators garden. One of her aims is to create a web of boulevard gardens that will connect the city so our pollinators don’t have to live in confined little pockets surrounded by concrete and grass.

She said she went to city hall with fear and trembling but she made her case and won. What if this is a big step in what our pollinators need? I want some native plants for my front garden. They have deep roots so they are more drought resistant. I’m not ready to dig up the boulevard just yet.

The more we can live surrounded by nature the better our lives will be. Nature sustains us, so we better find ways to sustain it. Our boulevards are already beautiful in spring with yellow dandelions; blooming boulevards will add beauty throughout the season. Native plants work for dry areas, wet areas, high sun, and shaded areas, and Blooming Boulevards has classified the plants suitable for each condition. Some pollinators and insects only thrive on specific plants; others thrive with many different plants. We can learn what specific birds, bees, and butterflies thrive on and add them to our gardens. We may wonder what can we do to make things better, and then we meet someone or hear about someone who is making things better, and all we have to do is follow the path they’ve laid before us.

When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears. Anthony Robbins

I am reading the book “Abundance” The Future Is Better Than You Think by Peter M. Diamonds and Steven Kotler. They begin with the story of aluminum. Gaius Plinius Cecilius Secundus was known as Pliny the Elder and was born in Italy in 23AD. In one of his books Earth book XXXV, Pliny tells the story of a goldsmith who brought an unusual dinner plate to Emperor Tiberius. The plate was light, shiny, and almost as bright as silver. The goldsmith claimed he’d extracted it from plain clay, using a secret technique, the formula known only to himself and the gods. Tiberius worried that the worth of his treasure of gold and silver would decline if people had access to a new shiny metal rarer than gold. Because of this, the goldsmith did not receive the regard or reward expected. Tiberius ordered the goldsmith beheaded. That beheading lost the world the discovery of aluminum for almost two thousand years. It finally appeared again during the early 1800s.

This is a cautionary tale and I grew up hearing about discoveries that were hidden away because someone was worried they would lose money if a new better product came to market. No one was killed in those cases, (that I know of) but the discoveries were bought and buried.

Can we all live on earth in abundance? Abundance is everyone having their needs met for clean water, abundant food, shelter, and security. As we get basic needs met we look to add other things to our lives and we may not all agree where an abundant life begins.

Abundance and education is the key to a sustainable population according to experts. Using our green spaces wisely, creating habitats for pollinators, birds, and other creatures we share the world with will make things better. Spreading knowledge of new discoveries that can help everyone is possible with the internet. We don’t want a game-changer like aluminum discovered, but because it threatens someone’s fortune it is lost to us for thousands of years.

When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. Lao Tzu

See yourself living in abundance and you will attract it, it always works, it works every time with every person. Bob Proctor

An abundant mentality springs from internal security, not from external rankings, comparisons, opinions, possessions, or associations. Stephen Covey

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.

Amazon links: Click to purchase or review books.

Abundance by Peter M. Diamond and Steven Kotler

Posted on March 7, 2022March 7, 2022 by BWThomas

Stepping out of our comfort zone, and being comfortable with ourselves.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself. Mark Twain

Last night I attended a Toastmaster club and read my When Can We Get A Puppy story as practice for when I read it at the Art Gallery of Mississauga. The other speaker was practicing her contest speech.

During our impromptu session, she was asked about getting out of her comfort zone. She said she lives outside her comfort zone, and is learning to be comfortable being outside of it.

We watch people every day doing things that are outside their comfort zone but they do them anyway and often get very good at them. Public speaking is one of the things many people are uncomfortable with, but it adds a dimension to our life if we master the skill. One of the attendees was getting out of his comfort zone by learning to salsa dance and may take lessons again.

We want to be sure when we leave our comfort zone we are entering a growth zone and we don’t become so comfortable with a high drama life that everything else pales in comparison.

Gambling gives some people a high and they don’t know when to stop. We can become addicted to drama in our lives. We can get addicted to the adrenaline rush we get. I found a book by Doreen Virtue, Don’t let Anything Dull Your Sparkle, How to break free of negativity & drama.

I watched a movie about a soldier whose job was to disarm bombs. He was on leave and he found it boring. He was addicted to the adrenaline rush from his high-stakes and dangerous job.

I think this can happen to performers who love the adrenaline rush and try to create that rush through artificial means. There are many ways we bring drama into our lives we would be better off without. Gossip is bringing drama into our lives. We may bring drama into our lives by worrying about events we can’t control and thinking the future will be a catastrophe.

I define success as being comfortable with yourself and your life. And that is about as good as it gets, really. Treat Williams

Finding balance in our lives is not always easy but it is important to a good life. We need to eat well, exercise, think good thoughts, meditation and prayer are helpful, and so is journaling. If we only feel alive when something exciting is happening, we may need to take a look at what is going on in our life. If we are fearful about what might happen we need to take a good look at how we would handle life if the worst happened. Really think about it and realize we will get through whatever we have to, because what else is there to do?

It might be hard when we take a deep breath before going on stage to give a speech. If we do it often enough we get energy from facing that fear. Other fears may not give us energy but they have to be faced. We will someday face loss and have to go forward. It may take everything we have to move forward after the death of a loved one. If we are the ones left behind what other choice do we have? We may face a future we didn’t want but we have the opportunity to make the best or the worst of it. We often can’t change it.

How many of us watch shows, read books, or hear things that we think if someone in our life changed their ways, life would be so much better. The truth is the only someone we have control over is ourselves and the change we want has to come from us. If we want someone in our lives to change perhaps we have to change our attitude toward them, focus on ourselves and the change we want to see in our lives and leave them to sort out their own life.

If we find ways to bring balance, joy, gratitude, and love into our lives this will spill over into our interactions with others. We may find someone’s attitude changed when we change our attitude toward them.

Stepping out of our comfort zone can pay big dividends, but we also have to be comfortable with ourselves and not let the rush we get from drama or other things blind us to being comfortable with ourselves and spending time alone. If we always need to be entertained by something, have something exciting going on, maybe we need to add a new dimension to our lives. A dimension of introspection, meditation, prayer, journaling, or creativity that will make us okay with who we are when we aren’t distracted by something else.

No amount of self-improvement can make up for any lack of self-acceptance. Robert Holden

You’re always with yourself, so you might as well enjoy the company. Diane von Furtsenberg

Once you’re comfortable by yourself you learn to be more at ease with others. Stana Katic

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 those who read my books. A special thank you to those who leave a review on Good reads 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.

Sparkle by Dorren Virtue

Posted on March 3, 2022March 3, 2022 by BWThomas

Living the good life is an art. Are we mastering the art of living well?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

To make living itself an art, that is the goal. Henry Miller

Last night we had our second zoom call for the 10:25:22 Book In A Year Challenge. I’m not as tech-savvy as I should be, but one way to get more tech-savvy is to force myself to use the technology and learn. By leveraging the knowledge of our group we can all grow and develop.

Yesterday I received bookmarks I created in Canva and printed through Vista Print. My son looked at them and thought they looked pretty good but I made a mistake (this is why I only got 100 printed). The mistake is I didn’t put www in front of my web address. I’ll fix it next time. I should have had bookmarks made when I published the first book but we were locked down. Who was I meeting? Yet, I’m sure if I had my bookmarks with me in my purse I would have given out quite a lot over that time.

Next month one of our members will tutor us on how to grow our presence on Instagram. A toastmaster I met years ago has invited me to speak at his club and I will practice reading my children’s book “When Can We Get A Puppy.” Being part of groups widens our lives, helps us meet new people, and encourages us to do things and keep going when things get rough. Someone has probably experienced what we are experiencing, and there is a group out there for us to join to share our story and learn from others.

Isolation is not good for us, we are social animals. We need to interact with others. I have found at times in my life that the less I interacted with others the less I wanted to interact with them. This is not good, we must fight this.

Of course, we can get too involved outside of our family, we need to find balance, and finding balance in our lives can be one of the most difficult parts of our life. Some of us may be thinking how different our lives would be if… If something didn’t happen that changed the course we were on, a course we dreamed would lead to better more wonderful things.

We may be nostalgic for a future that never happened and will never happen. We are attached to a future that will never be, this is not positive. We have to let go of dreams of where we’d go when we were working for a company we no longer work for, a relationship we are no longer in, a world that is different than what we dreamed it would be.

The people who do well are those who look at what they have and make the most of it. They see the reality of the situation, the opportunities, the changes that should be made, the technology that should be mastered, and the future that can be built.

Wherever you are, be there. Lifestyle is not something we do; it is something we experience. And until we learn to be there, we will never master the art of living well. Jim Rohn

We may lament that we are no longer young, but if we are still here we have opportunities to make the best of the stage of life we are in. We may have to give up hope we’ve had for things to be different, so we can adjust, and embrace where we are.

One question we can ask ourselves is. If only… When we ask, “If only” we have no excuse left, only the obligation. I could see the situation correctly, if only… I could be happy, if only… I could be brave and put my art out into the world, if only… I’m using art very loosely, in the way Seth Godin uses it. We live in an artful way when we bring the very best of ourselves to any part of our life. If we bring the best of ourselves to every part of our life what a life that will be!

Art is not what you see, but what you make others see. Edgar Degas

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. Aristotle

Living well is an art that can be developed: a love of life and ability to take great pleasure from small offerings and assurance that the world owes you nothing and that every gift is exactly that, a gift. Maya Angelou

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. A special thank you to those who leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. If you click on the Amazon link below and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Amazon links: Please click on links to look at or purchase books.

Lynchpin by Seth Godin