Posted on by BWThomas

Gratitude is the gateway to grace. Faith gives us strength, faith in ourselves, faith in others, and faith in a higher power.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

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

I listened to a podcast yesterday on rules for wealth. I wrote down a few points: In the West, wealth is displayed, in China wealth is stored. Knowledge is the only asset no one can steal. Embrace patience and compound growth, and define a goal for your grandchildren that you will never meet. Never sell your house impulsively.

When I think of the last one, I’m thinking of assets, not just a house. I remember sitting at our kitchen table with someone who had quite a few investments when the market went down. He was panicking, and being an older gentleman, didn’t have time to make back the money he lost, but by selling, he solidified his loss.

If we can hold on during a bad time, we often won’t realize the loss. The housing market goes down, but if we don’t sell, it will come back up, and we will not be affected. What of us who are in a transition phase in our lives? We sold our condo in a time of falling condo prices; we had two children and a business in a two-bedroom condo. We tried to get out before the price fell, but we, and everyone else priced it too high and didn’t sell.

We sold before we bought, not wanting to be caught with two properties we couldn’t afford. Looking back, what advice would I give to the young couple we were starting out? We got caught up in the idea, that if we don’t do something, we will forever be locked out of the market. It wasn’t true then, and it’s probably not true now, but it feels like it, and we often move like a herd. When everyone is buying, we want in, and when everyone is selling, we want out.

In your darkest hour, give thanks, for, in due time, the morning will come. And it will come with a ray of sunshine. Michael Bassey Johnson

Warren Buffett’s advice is to buy when everyone is panicing and sell when everyone is greedy. Great advice, but if it were easy to adhere to, we’d all be rich. We watched the real estate market go up, up, and up, long past what we thought it could continue to grow. We only know the top and bottom looking back, so purchasing a house or an investment is a judgment call. I remember reading that a millionaire said in the thirties,, when he got stock tips from the shoe-shine boy, he knew it was time to sell.

How do we handle uncertainty? Can we trust that we will be okay? Can we do the best we can today, be grateful for the gifts we have, and let tomorrow take care of itself? It sounds great, but when we are in the midst of a situation, it can be the hardest advice to follow. Who do we turn to when life is tumultuous and uncertain? If we have faith in a higher power, we can access the strength we don’t have on our own. Karl Marx said, “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” He felt religion prevented people from confronting the root causes of their problems.

What if belief in a higher power gives us the strength and courage to deal with what is, confront our problems, and lead a better life? What if, even if there is no higher power, believing in one elevates our lives and helps us overcome the challenges before us, and gives us the courage to lead a better life?

Faith is belief in something without proof. We believe in our ability to do things before we do them, if we didn’t, we would never have the courage to do anything. Does prayer give us strength to get through tough times, and gratitude help us to see and appreciate what we have?

If we enjoy and are grateful for what we have today, do we worry less about tomorrow? Is it easier to have the attitude that there is more where that came from when we are grateful? Is cultivating an attitude of gratitude one of the best practices we can pursue?

Living in a state of gratitude is the gateway to grace. Arianna Huffington

The more you practice the art of thankfulness, the more you have to be thankful for. Norman Vincent Peale

Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance. Eckhart Tole

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

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

Posted on by BWThomas

Human Library, there is more to everyone than what we first see. Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The starry vault of heaven is in truth the open book of cosmic projection. Carl Jung

Would you be willing to be an open book? The Human Library is, in the true sense of the word, a library of people. The Mississauga Library system hosted a Human Library event on Saturday. Fourteen of us had the opportunity to be a human book. Readers selected the book they wanted to read (to sit down with for twenty-five minutes, talk, and ask questions). The idea is to be an open book and be willing to answer questions to help foster understanding among people. Don’t judge a book by its cover, is true in the bookstore, library, and life.  Everyone is more than what we see at first glance, and as we talk with people, we understand we are more alike than we are different, but also that everyone has challenges.

One book title was Bullying. He believes life is a bully; the next stage of life bullies the stage we are in, death bullies life, and by jostling for position in the world, everyone bullies someone to get what they want. If you’ve ever seen seagulls scrambling to get bread tossed at them, you’ve seen bullying in action. None of them stands back saying, “You go first,” because they know if they don’t get in there and get theirs, they’ll miss out.

The Human Library was developed in Copenhagen in 2000. If we are to unjudge someone, we need to get to know them better. By being an open book in the Human Library, readers are allowed to ask questions. When we meet someone, we often have questions we would like to ask, but we politely listen to what they offer. In the Human Library, questions are encouraged, and if a reader asks a question we aren’t prepared to answer, we could say, “That’s for another book, or that chapter hasn’t been written yet.”

An open book is an open mind. Charles Chitington

My book title was Local Author, and eight readers selected me as a book to read. One book, Paranormal Investigator, was selected eleven times, the maximum number of slots. We had a wrap-up at the end, and we were asked to write down something that happened during one of the readings that impacted us. In the moment I wrote down something that now seems inconsequential about writing, when I was asked two questions that I think about, but didn’t come to mind.

Question one: What do you think about immigrants coming to this country?

Question two: Are you happy?

Deep conversations, I expect, happened at the tables in the Library on Saturday. Conversations, the Human Book, and the reader will think about for years to come. If you get an opportunity to be a Human Book or a reader at a Human Library event, I encourage you to participate.

We had training before the event to prepare us for the day. This was the third event hosted by the Mississauga Library system. To find more information, search for Human Library online. Maybe you are in a position to help facilitate an event, or volunteer to be a book.

Stop being an open book… everyone taunted her… with confidence she said… an open book brings light in someone’s darkness. Cause even your life is full of light because of someone’s open book… Nishi

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

Don’t judge a person without full understanding of the situation. Just because you don’t agree, doesn’t mean you’re right. Unknown

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

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts, click on the picture and scroll to the end.

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

Posted on by BWThomas

Are we making people in our lives feel they matter?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

A grandparent is a little bit parent, a little bit teacher, and a little bit best friend. Unknown

Life is for the living. A funeral held for my husband’s paternal uncle last Saturday made the point again; we watched it live on YouTube. He had a long, full life, contributing to the community, raising a family, and outlived his brother, my husband’s father, by thirty years.

Grandparents offer so much to their grandchildren. I watch my husband with our little grandson and granddaughter. If they are lucky, they will have many wonderful years with a doting grandfather. It’s something both my husband and I missed.

I never thought about the blessing I took from my children by moving far from their grandparents. They saw them a few times over the years, but that isn’t the same as having their presence as a constant in their life.

I clicked on an article the other day about how more and more women are embracing single forever as a life choice. Are they embracing it because it’s what they want, or because that’s how life played out, and embracing what is seems the way forward.

It’s hard for me to judge how life as a single forever woman would have panned out. Coming from a big family, it seems it would be lonely because if everyone around you builds a life with a family, you are on the outside looking in. Everyone will include you, but you never feel part of the family unit. Those of us coupled with children can’t imagine living life alone; sometimes we might fantasize about it, but we wouldn’t want the reality of being alone.

What a bargain grandchildren are. I give them my loose change, and they give me a million dollars’ worth of pleasure. Unknown

A friend gives me the most wonderful news; she’s going to be a grandma. I think of visits Mom had with great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, special visits for all of them.

Are we wrong, those of us who’ve built a family, to think those who didn’t or couldn’t, missed out on one of the greatest joys in life? Are we failing children today by not being a more child or family-centric society? On Saturday, my husband and I celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary, and we stopped at a Tim Horton’s where hurting souls congregate. I thought, these are somebody’s sons and daughters. What can be done to help them find their place in the world? What choices have brought them to this?

Is it easy not to notice human suffering? Then we step outside our comfort zone and see suffering souls. How do we help, what does help look like, and when is what we think is help enabling poor choices?

It seems to me, watching the funeral of my husband’s uncle, that men like him, as the patriarchs of the family, are part of building strength and resilience in the generations they impact. My husband’s uncle and father came from a family where nine babies were born, but only four lived, and their mother died in childbirth.

My son remarked as we worked on Friday. We don’t hear enough songs about grandfathers. One had just played on the soundtrack we were listening to. When we hear stories of older generations, they leave big shoes to fill. Those of us who are grandparents are the matriarchs and patriarchs of our family, a role that impacts generations. Will we leave big shoes to fill? Is staying close as a family, even if miles separate us, part of it? Living nearby doesn’t always mean a close relationship; maybe the impact of the relationship is the result of making someone feel they matter, and isn’t contingent on time and distance.

Young people need something stable to hang on to – a culture connection, a sense of their own past, a hope for their own future. Most of all, they need what grandparents can give them. Jay Kesler

Self-respect is something that our grandparents, whether or not they had it, knew all about. They had instilled in them, young, a certain discipline, the sense that one lives by doing things one does not particularly want to do, by putting fears and doubts to one side, by weighing immediate comforts against the possibility of larger, even intangible, comforts. Joan Didion

The very old and the very young have something in common that makes it right that they should be left alone together. Dawn and sunset see stars shining in a blue sky; but morning and midday and afternoon do not, poor things. Elizabeth Goudge

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

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts, click on the picture and scroll to the end.

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

Posted on by BWThomas

To make something happen, we have to make a decision and follow through.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Our lives are fashioned by our choices. First, we make our choices. Then our choices make us. Anne Frank

It’s later than you think, hit me this morning as I looked in the mirror. Yesterday, my husband and I talked about making plans. We have a trip we still haven’t taken, and I said, “As long as we get to it by our fortieth anniversary, which is still a few years away, it’s all good.” But, it isn’t a few years away, it’s next year. I’ve been thinking about our thirty-seventh anniversary, but it is our thirty-ninth anniversary we celebrate in a week.

When did I lose two years? I’ve been in my little world thinking we have time, and one of the problems is, even though many of us are living longer, we might not have more healthy years.

My three-year-old-grandson just said,” Grandma, are you going to get old and can’t carry me?”

I said, “Yes, but you’ll be big.”

He said, “Then I can carry you.”

Sweet, but also sad! We spend so much time dreaming of things we’ll get to when there is more time or money. What if there will never be enough time or money for everything, but there will be enough of both for what we prioritize?  We don’t know what life has in store for us. Will we have a long, healthy life, fit everything in on our bucket list, or by putting things off, are we in peril of never getting to them?

Only one member of a couple finally taking their dream vacation is almost a cliché. We don’t want to be that couple. It can be easy to fool ourselves into thinking we have more time than we do. If I’m lucky and get a long life like Mom and Dad, there will be time, but will there be the energy and good health needed to traipse across the world? Sometimes a postponed trip still happens, but some of the people we planned to see are no longer with us, or world events change, so going to certain parts of the world or seeing certain landmarks and points of interest are no longer possible.

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

I’m so grateful we took a family trip to see Mom the year before she died. It wasn’t a trip we planned for years; it was the realization that it’s now or never, so we talked about it, planned it, booked it, and went. Too much planning might be part of why we’ve never taken the trip we’ve talked about, but never made happen. Maybe we like the idea more than the reality.

Time waits for no one; we need to make choices. We can’t do everything, but what if we can do what we think is important? We’ve always had constraints of one kind or another. Is it a fantasy to think we don’t have to choose between two goods, or sometimes between the best of the choices before us?

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

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

There are always two choices. Two paths to take, one is easy, and its only reward is that it’s easy. Unknown

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

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts, click on the picture and scroll to the end.

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.