What are your beliefs and practices relative to time? Here are a few time-related posts you may have missed. Click on the link to read the full message.
“What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.”
“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.”
“There are people whose clocks stop at a certain point in their lives.”
Did you know that always and never are considered violent words? In the book Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, Marshall B. Rosenberg PhD suggests these words usually get in the way of compassionate, heartfelt relationships.
Consider what you think and feel when people in your personal or professional worlds use these words to dramatically make their point. This practice generally conveys considerable judgement and a critical view, thus attacking the perspective held by the other parties.
Where is being right and making others wrong through the use of the words always and never getting in the way or diminishing the kinds of relationships you sincerely desire?
Image from Unsplash by Jeshoots.com
One of my daily rituals is to read the Word of the Day provided by Merriam-Webster. You can subscribe by email at Merriam-Webster.com.
The word of the day on which I wrote this post was vicarious. It pertains to today’s quote in that we gain a particular experience in our imagination through the feeling and actions of another person.
Consider all the secondhand and surrogate experiences we take in through television, movies, sporting events, social media, and of course, good old gossip.
How does ingesting vicarious stories and experiences truly contribute positively to your world, beyond the distracting, entertainment value?
How and in what ways can and will you live, moving forward, to become far more of the main character of your own life story?
How do you perceive and react to challenges in your life? Here are a few challenge-related posts you may have missed. Click the links to read the messages.
“Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.”
“The tests of life are not meant to break you, but to make you.”
“It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out. It’s the pebble in your shoe.”
Image from Unsplash by RawPixel
I see a very kind woman most mornings at my health club. Her name is Pat, and her primary job is to swipe each person’s membership card as they enter the facility.
I know her husband’s name is John, and that she, like me, has a passion for books and reading. Perhaps what is most notable is that she welcomes each person with an authentic ‘Hello!” and a pleasant glance, which in turn generates a reciprocal greeting and kind words from almost everyone.
On days Pat is not at the front desk, the greeting ritual is far less likely, with the front desk person and most of the patrons going through an almost robotic entrance.
Where could a few more Hellos, Good Mornings, Pleases, and genuine Thank You’s lead to millions of wonderful things to brighten the day? How can you be more like Pat in your personal and professional communities?
Who are the virtuous people in your life? Here are a few virtue-related posts you may have missed. Click the link to read the full message.
“Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water.”
“Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practice it will have neighbors.”
“You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.”
What percent of the day does the average person seem content, happy, or even joyful? Alternatively, what percent of the day do they go through the motions, feel stuck, or experience regret?
Where do you fit on this spectrum of feelings, day-to-day, week-to-week, or even year-to-year?
Someone once shared the thought that life is a bit like a toilet paper roll. The more life sheets you use, the faster it spins.
What steps can and will you take at this point in your life to have many more “I’m glad I did” moments in the years ahead?
My daughter Rachel suggested a wonderful book related to this topic, titled A Million Miles in a Thousand Years – How I Learned to Live a Better Story, by Donald Miller.
Image from Amazon
Change or die.
What if you were given that choice?
For real.
What if it weren’t just rhetoric that confuses corporate performance, or life success in general, with life or death?
What if your physician said you had to make tough changes to the way you think and act, or your time would end soon?
Could you change?
The scientific studies in Alan Deutschman’s 2005 Fast Company article puts the odds at nine-to-one. That’s nine-to-one against you.
Progress involves leaving where you are to go to a better place ahead. It is a nice word, and does not appear to have much drama. It does, however, still involve change, and there are forces/enemies that slow it down or stop it on many occasions.
Consider checking out the Fast Company article, or look into the book Immunity to Change by Robert Kegan and Lisa Kaskow Lahey for greater insights into this fascinating topic.
How ambitious are you? Here are a few ambition-related posts you may have missed. Click the link to read the full message.
“If there is something to gain and nothing to lose by asking, by all means ask.”
“Hard work without talent is a shame, but talent without hard work is a tragedy.”
“The person who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”
mage from Flickr by Sean Freese
Looking back to my childhood, Halloween was perhaps my favorite holiday. The process of selecting our costumes to be hand-made by mom, and the pillow cases we used to collect our booty, still brings a fond smile.
In those years, we went out early and stayed out pretty late, and it was common to head home to drop off a load of the sweet stuff and head back out for more. That night, and for a few short weeks after, we had the freedom to eat our fill and not hear “No!” too often.
This freedom to choose our actions was something I cherished and it has been a core value of mine ever since.
How and in what ways can you experience even more of the sweetness of life by embracing and exercising the personal freedoms we sometimes take for granted?