Saying thank you or showing appreciation
is one of the best ways to make someone feel good.
Expressing gratitude reflects multiplied back on the one expressing it.
It’s a gift to yourself.
Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.
François Duc de La Rochefoucauld
Something I read once said people come in three basic varieties:
1. People who find something bad regardless of how good things may be.
2. People who find something good regardless of how bad things may be.
3. People who ‘go with the flow’ and generally accept whatever happens to them.
The conclusion was to have peace in your life, you need to be number two or three.
If life were only as simple as finding a bit of wisdom and then being able to consistently follow it. Category one above grabs me more than it should, but the seasoning of age has improved my ability to stay in number two and three more often than not. How? Acceptance and Growth.
Acceptance is described as a person’s ability to see the reality of a situation without attempting to change it, protest, or exit. The base word ‘accept’ has it roots in the Latin word ‘acquiēscere’ which means “to find rest in”.
Growth in people is generally defined as development and maturity from a lower or simpler way of being to one that is higher and more complex. Conceptually the word “grow” has its meaning derived from the Latin word “conscius “, meaning “knowing inwardly”.
Simplifying the origin of ‘acceptance’ and ‘growth’ down to the meanings they sprouted from I came up with the phrase “to find rest in knowing inwardly”. That describes ‘peace’ as well as I have ever seen it stated!
The serenity prayer learned from attending Codependence Anonymous meetings helped me gain a good deal of insight. Taken a piece at a time this prayer is about change and growth with ‘acceptance’ bookends on either side. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change” (acceptance) ” courage to change the things I can” (growth) and wisdom to know the difference (acceptance).
At first I thought such thinking was far to simplistic to be helpful. My analytical mind believed to find peace I had to figure everything out. From the past to the future to the current moment my need was to find some balance of logic for everything that happened and for what everyone did. That’s like a never-ending adult ‘snipe hunt’.
Admission I am powerless over certain people and some circumstances then accepting that powerlessness is one of the keys to a better life. Trying to fix the unfixable used to be maddening and even today is at times is a challenge. However, the more I apply acceptance the more peace from “resting in knowing inwardly” comes to me. I am grateful for every smidgen of it!
Our entire life consists ultimately
in accepting ourselves as we are.
Jean Anouilh
Continuing my “Staycation”, today I am taking a day off!
Here’s three favorite sayings and images to fill the space here today:
Life is a great big canvas,
and you should throw all the paint on it you can.
Danny Kaye
It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool,
than open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Dr. Wayne S. Amato
Always be a first-rate version of yourself,
instead of a second-rate version of someone else.
Judy Garland
I hope today is filled with all you hope for and more…
and that you are grateful for all that comes your way.
ORIGINALLY Posted on June 19, 2011
Dear Nick,
Vivid in memory are the emotions I experienced just after you were born. The day after you arrived I wrote in a journal about the joy I felt, the gratefulness within for you being ‘normal” with the proper number of fingers and toes, the awe that filled me for life and the hopes I had for you. I described your birth as “the most incredible thing I’ve ever witnessed” and also wrote “No child could be more wanted or more loved.” Those thoughts have aged sweeter as time has clicked by.
Frequent have been musings of how I could have been a better Father. Had I not chased with such vigor the emptiness of dysfunctional illusion, success and money I could have been there for you more. There were too many of your games I missed,weekend outings that never were and small events at school that were big happenings for you when my presence was missing. I never did build the treehouse I promised you.
Your Mother and I went our separate ways when you were sixteen which took you hundreds of miles away. One of my deepest regrets is your high school years when seeing you only every couple of months I became a sideline spectator of your life. Yet, as I mature and learn I have come to know regrets past making sure you aware of them, have no good purpose.
There are so many wonderful memories I have of your growing up. No child has ever been more curious about the world than you. You never crawled and began to recklessly walk at 7 months old. Such determination you have always had!
In school you did well and had the respect of most of your teachers. You made good friends and some of those relationships are healthy and thriving today. The only time you ever really got in trouble at school was through protecting a friend from a bully. How the game of hockey worked when you started to play at seven was unknown to me, but no father was ever prouder than I was to watch you. The lessons that came at you in college were hard ones, but you learned from your mistakes. I can not begin to express my admiration for your determination and stick-to-it-ness to get the education you wanted.
On this father’s day I hope these borrowed words express clearly to you the feelings of my heart and the wishes of my soul.
Until you have a son of your own… You will never know the joy beyond joy, the love beyond feeling that resonates in the heart of a father as he looks upon his son. You will never know the sense of honor that makes a man want to be more than he is and to pass on something good and useful into the hands of his son. And you will never know the heartbreak of the fathers who are haunted by the personal demons that keep them from being the men they want their sons to see.
We live in a time when it is hard to speak from the heart. Our lives are smothered by a thousand trivialities, and the poetry of our spirits is silenced by the thoughts and cares of daily affairs.
And so, I want to speak to you honestly. I do not have answers. But I do understand the questions. I see you struggling and discovering and striving upward, and I see myself reflected in your eyes and in your days. In some deep and fundamental way, I have been there and I want to share.
I, too, have learned to walk, to run, to fall. I have had a first love. I have known fear and anger and sadness. My heart has been broken and I have known moments when the hand of God seemed to be on my shoulder. I have wept tears of sorrow and tears of joy.
There have been times of darkness when I thought I would never see light again, and there have been times when I wanted to dance and sing and hug every person I met.
I have felt myself emptied into the mystery of the universe, and I have had moments when the smallest slight threw me into rage.
I have carried others when I barely had the strength to walk myself, and I have left others standing by the road with their hands out stretched for help.
Sometimes I feel I have done more than anyone can ask; other times I feel I am a charlatan and a failure. I carry within me the spark of greatness and the darkness of heartless crimes.
In short, I am a man, as are you.
Although you will walk your own earth and move through your own time, the same sun will rise on you that rose on me, and the same reasons will course across your life as moved across mine. We will always be different, but we will always be the same.
This is my attempt to give you the lesson of my life, so that you can use them in yours. They are not meant to make you into me. It is my greatest joy to watch you turn into yourself.
To be your father is the greatest honor I have ever received. It allowed me to touch mystery and to see my love made flesh. If I could but have one wish, it would be for you to pass that love along.
I love you,
Pops
You are my son-shine.
Author Unknown
Within the last six years, I have lived the equivalent life experience of several decades. My very being, mentally and emotionally, was thrashed to its barest existence. Within that kneading and pounding the majority of the greatest insights of my life have come. So today I am grateful for my teachers called pain, grief and heartache. They beat me into submission where I needed to go so like a tree stripped by a storm I could grow more fully and stronger than before.
Taken from “Moving On” by ‘Cue Ball’
As of now, I am moving on.
Through and out, this hard time.
The clouds will clear, and the storm will pass.
Things are looking up, as I raise the mast.
Sailing on, and moving out.
From these dark days, I muster all my clout.
I am ready, to start again.
Just to see, where life begins.
Tough it is, and tough it will be.
Life moves on, and this I see.
So move on I will to start all over.
Just to see, the fields of clover.
I am still hurt, from my loss.
Nothing can change, what was lost.
Strength is coming, for me to move on.
I have learned not to damn the trials and difficulties of my life. As hard as any might be to face, it is still “my life” they are happening in. To damn them, is to damn my own existence. Much gratefulness is within to have learned that simple wisdom.
Serenity is not freedom from the storm,
but peace amid the storm.
Anonymous
One of my dearest friends who I have known for over twenty years published his third book in January of this year. “Positive 365: A Positive Quote for Every Day of the Year” is a compilation of sayings and snippets from Sam Wilder, his friends, writers on the Internet and those he admires present and past.
He quotes everyone from Norman Vincent Peale to Muhammad Ali, Emerson to George and Martha Washington, Mr. Rogers to Albert Einstein and from his friend, Mike Dooley, to Star Trek’s Mr. Spock. I’m humbled that even a couple of my quips made the pages of the book.
Based on likes and comments on his Facebook page here’s the top five most popular quotes printed on the last page of Sam’s book:
1. There are five rules of freedom
1) You are not a victim.
2) Speak the unspoken truth.
3) Accept yourself for who you are.
4) Change your world.
5) JUMP! (you need to take risks and expose your true self to achieve your destiny. Steve Sherwood)
2. That little kid that our grandma loved and that old person that grandkids will love is the same person… you. Take a moment today to think about the love you’ve received and the love you give and honor the person you are.
3. “People are created to be loved. Things are created to be used. The reason the world is in chaos is because things are being loved and people are being used.” (from Tumblr.com)
4. “Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind, ‘Pooh’ he whispered. ‘Yes, Piglet?’ “Nothing,’ said Piglet, taking Pooh’s hand. ‘I just wanted to be sure of you’. (A. A. Milne)
5. “Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” (Albert Camus)
Trying to retype here what he wrote in the copy my friend, Sam Wilder, sent me is difficult because my emotions keep trying to turn on the sprinklers in my eyes. He wrote, You are one of the greatest men I know. Thanks for your incredible insight, mentoring and most of all friendship – I love you madly! Sam.
If only I could express fully in one place at one time the gratitude I feel for all I’ve received from my long friendship Sam Wilder. What is here is far from the complete version of my gratefulness, but at least it is a small public statement of my love and admiration for this man who is my dear friend and fellow passenger on the spiritual path of discovery we share.
Some people are so much in their own heads
that there’s no room for anyone else.
It is only by opening up and letting others
in that we experience our best life.
Sam Wilder on the back cover of “Positive 365…”
More about Sam Wilder’s work: Positive Magazine
About the Sam’s book “Positive 365…” book
Reading is a favorite pastime and over the last fifteen years I have lost the majority of my interest in fiction; largely abandoned for non-fiction. My preference has become reading about what actually happened, what others make of things or else simply reading to learn.
With this focus on fact, not fiction, occasionally I stumble across just the right words at a moment when they’re particularly meaningful to me. Such was the case with the following by Mary Manin Morrissey that grabbed my attention last night:
Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?
One foot on the brakes… Refuse to entertain your old pain… Those phrases rang loudly with insight for me the first, second, third and more times I read that paragraph over and over. My reaction is a good example of how a guilty man knows what’s true much more so than an innocent one. I do hold on to the past too tightly and dance with the pain back there far too often.
Today I make a renewed commitment to slacken the pressure of my foot on the ‘brake pedal’. Anew I promise to loosen my hold on the past. To the best of my ability I will “refuse to entertain” my old hurts and endeavor to increase my proficiency in doing that. I am grateful for the breath of fresh air just thinking these thoughts brings at the start of this new day.
You will find that it is necessary to let things go;
simply for the reason that they are heavy.
So let them go, let go of them.
I tie no weights to my ankles.
C. JoyBell C.
Outside of a few occasions of ‘beginner’s luck” I can’t think of a single time I got it right quickly when setting out to master something meaningful. The endeavors where “beginner’s luck” showed up seemed hallow because not much effort went into the achievement. Even more telling; frequently I could not replicant the initial success. An outstanding start does pump a person up, but that’s not necessarily a positive. After healthy esteem any excess pride can easily turn into blinding conceit which does no one any good.
The accomplishments valued highest are the ones I labored most for, usually over a long period of time. Time has taught me consistent, dedicated efforts are the building blocks of merit and significance. Few things have been commented on more consistently than what adversity and challenge can bring.
Disraeli said, There is no education like adversity. A similar view, All misfortune is but a stepping stone to the future, was held by Thoreau. His friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, said the same thing using different words, Fractures well-cured make us more strong. Ancients of two thousand years ago, such as Horace and Ovid, held parallel views. The latter commented, Misfortunes often sharpen genius and his contemporary, Horace, wrote Adversity is wont to reveal genius, prosperity to hide it. Carl, a friend of mine, said it with six simple words, Fall down, get up, try again.
‘Try Try Again by T. H. Palmer
Tis a lesson you should heed,
If at first you don’t succeed,
Try, try again;
Then your courage should appear,
For if you will persevere,
You will conquer, never fear
Try, try again;
Once or twice, though you should fail,
If you would at last prevail,
Try, try again;
If we strive, ’tis no disgrace
Though we do not win the race;
What should you do in the case?
Try, try again
If you find your task is hard,
Time will bring you your reward,
Try, try again
All that other folks can do,
Why, with patience, should not you?
Only keep this rule in view:
Try, try again.
About the closest thing to perfection of logic I know is how imperfect effort is the surest way to accomplishment, achievement and even changing one’s self. Much gratitude resides within to know and accept the simple parable “try, try again” that’s been proven over and over through time.
Do the one thing you think you cannot do.
Fail at it.
Try again.
Do better the second time.
The only people who never tumble
are those who never mount the high wire.
This is your moment.
Own it.
Oprah Winfrey
There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt.
Doubt separates people.
It is a poison that disintegrates friendships
And breaks up pleasant relations.
It is a thorn that irritates and hurts;
It is a sword that kills.
Buddha
Life is really simple,
But we insist on making it complicated.
Confucius
Too bad people can’t switch problems
because nobody knows how to solve their own problems,
but they always know how to solve another’s.
Unknown
Good Morning Gratitude 