Claim your spot. 09/30/2009
 
" Don't ask what the world needs.  Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive" - Howard Thurman

What have you always wanted to do but not acted on?  What is the urge that you squelched this morning because it wasn't something "appropriate" to do? Do those things.  Those are the things that will bring meaning to your life. That is being alive.
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" Behind every able man, there are always other able men." -Chinese Proverb

Look and see the company you are keeping.  Who are your friends?  What are their attitudes like?  Often we can get a better sense of where we are in life and how we fit in it by the people we spend time with.  If you spend time with others who you respect and who provide a source of inspiration for you...your successes increase where you want them to ( ie. success in friendship, love, career, family, etc.).  Notice if you're around people you think are successful at something you'd like to be.  If you are, then you are on a trajectory that can't veer off course.
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I dare you. 09/16/2009
 
" How often- even before we begin- have we declared a task "impossible"?  And how often have we construed a picture of ourselves being inadequate?... A great deal depends upon the thought patterns we choose and on the persistence with which we affirm them." - Piero Ferrucci

 This week I dare you to try something that scares you just to see what happens.
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Breathing. 09/11/2009
 
" Always remember to slow down in life: live, breathe, and learn; take a look around you whenever you have time and never forget everything and every person that has the least place within your heart"  -Unknown

The only structures that are solid in life are relationships with people and things. Our planet is a web of relationships.  If we were merely physical structures and took the relational component out of it, the world could explode and it wouldn't mean anything to anyone.  It's not a small matter that can relate to others and that we have opinions and thoughts about the world around us.  Breathe into your thoughts, opinions and emotions. You'll find them more alive.
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Embarrassment 09/01/2009
 
" Necessity delivers us from the embarrassment of choice ". - Marquis de Vauvenargues

I had to read this quote several times because I couldn't wrap my head around the placement/use of the word "embarrassment".  It just didn't make sense to me.  It brought to me a story my mom told me:  She was at the library studying in college.  It was quiet.  It was comfortable.  The quiet was interrupted by a reverberating sound.  Someone was snoring.  How annoying.  She looked up and the snoring stopped.  Only then did she realize that she was the one snoring in the library....( back to me and the 80's valley girl voice in my head) "So does it mean, if you're caught in like, an embarrassing situation, you have a choice to stay or get out of there?  But, like, what is necessary about that?"   This urged me to look up the definition.  So, I've found there is a definition for embarrassment that means " to make difficult or intricate as a question or problem" (dictionary.com).  And now this quote makes a whole lot of sense....

I wonder, how often do I miss things because I don't understand context, just like with this word?  How often do I make assumptions about a situation in which I just don't have the knowledge to make an appropriate assessment?  We do it all the time everyday.  We draw from our past to make an assertion about the future.  But what if you looked at a given situation that you automatically judged based on your own experience/ knowledge and stopped to learn some more information? Then a blind spot may become less blind.
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