Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas
Our mind is a garden, our thoughts are the seeds, we can grow flowers or we can grow weeds. Unknown
Today may be a day we said we would get up early but we laid in bed a little longer and hit the snooze button. We said we would exercise but we don’t feel like it, or we don’t have enough time. It is easy to give up on ourselves our ideas, our dreams, and our improvements. We think about it but if we don’t do it we aren’t effective. If our life is to work we have to be effective.
Seth Godin calls being effective shipping the work. At least this is my interpretation of what he’s saying. When we ship the work we do what we said we would do and we produce what we said we would produce. We make things happen in our corner of life. We don’t drop our ball. We play our position to the best of our ability. Even when we are doing our best it won’t be perfect but perfect is not what we are after.
My son-in-laws birthday is the fifth of January when I’ve said enough with all the food, goodies, cake, etc. There is, of course, another big meal, another cake, and wine. We celebrate his birthday even though it interferes with our January eating plan. We must take his birthday in stride, make allowances for his birthday and get back on our program. Real-life will always get in the way of our plans. If everything has to work perfectly for us to meet our goals, we never will.
I’m in a speech contest on Wednesday held over zoom. If we have technical problems there is a plan to handle that. I’m on an internet radio show on Friday I have an internet link and a phone number just in case there are problems. We back up our computers just in case. Sometimes even with our backup plans, things don’t work out. Sometimes our best plans don’t work. We think if we do A, we’ll get B but we don’t and we have to deal with it.
Sometimes we have no clue what the best action to take is. We may make things worse with the best of intentions. We may follow the crowd and not like where they lead us. We may think something is one way and other people make it out to be something else, something worse than we ever thought it could be considered.
Life is about choices. Some we regret, some we’re proud of. Some will haunt us forever. The message: We are what we chose to be. Graham Brown
Wherever we are, whatever the circumstances this is what we have to work with. We can do our best to make it better. People amaze us when they are in hard circumstances that they think of making things better for other people. They put their energy into making a difference in other people’s lives. They find a way to help others. I have a great-niece doing this. She is painting pictures to raise money for a cause. I missed the chance to get one of her paintings yesterday. I will have to get on the list to get one. She’s making a difference, she’s eight years old.
One of the things we have to do is not take things personally. If people don’t like our ideas it doesn’t mean we should take them personally. We are using people’s ideas as shorthand for them as if they are only their ideas, religion, or political beliefs. We divide people into us and them. If they think like us they are on the right side, but what if we are wrong? What happens if we change our thinking? As time unfolds we may change some of our beliefs about things.
This is one of the reasons that religion and politics aren’t talked about if we want everyone to get along. We may never agree on the things that divide us but is that what we should concentrate on? We choose what we make important in our life. We choose where we put our energy. Are we happy with our choices are they giving us a life we love?
On every journey you take, you face choices. At every fork in the road, you make a choice. And it is those decisions that shape our life. Mike DeWine
In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility. Eleanor Roosevelt
We’re making decisions right now that shape our lives. Even indecision is a decision. What’s going on today is a result of the choices we’ve made in the past. Toni Sorenson
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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