life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Adventure”

believe

4Believe it is possible to solve your problem. Tremendous things happen to the believer. So believe the answer will come. It will. – Norman Vincent Peale

10 Questions You Should Know the Answers To…
Because the answers to these ten questions will help you discover the very best in yourself…

1. What would make you proud of yourself?

When you follow your heart and intuition, people won’t always agree with you. When you find something that makes you happy, not everyone will be happy for you. When you show unwavering kindness to others, some people will question your motives. When you are honest to the core, some folks will attempt to use your honesty against you. When you look for the best in everyone you meet, a few of them will take advantage of it.

Don’t let any of these people stop you from doing these things. These people don’t matter. In the end, what does matter is how you feel about yourself and the life you have led. You will ask yourself one question: “Am I proud of how I lived?” Make the answer: “Yes!”

2. How can you make a positive difference?

Even when it seems like a hopeless effort, do the right thing. Always live firmly by the forces of love and truth. The bullies and cheats who seem unstoppable in the short term always fall from power in the end. Love and truth always rise to the top.

Keep injecting your goodness into the world, one small act at a time. It’s these small acts of goodness stacked together that eventually change the world. You may never see the full result of your positive actions, but they will be accounted for and realized in time. If you do nothing, there will be no result – no positive change ever.

3. What are you trying to accomplish and why?

Know the answer to this simple question and remind yourself of it every single day. You must identify, without any doubt, the specific reason you do the work you do. Success can only occur when there is a target and a reason to hit it.

When you have a reason to do something, you have a legitimate purpose behind your efforts. When you connect this reason to a desired result, you’re able to summon the discipline and persistence necessary to get the job done. Give yourself a good reason and you will find a way to succeed. Read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

4. What are the roadblocks standing in your way?

A roadblock is only a roadblock if you don’t know about it. If you know about it, it’s just a challenge. Look around and evaluate the challenges you face; within them lie the opportunities to make lasting progress. You are in the best position to make the most of these opportunities, because you know exactly where you are, where you want to go, and what resources you have at your disposal.

Remember that the roughest roads often lead to the top, and the best way to get over a roadblock is to go through it. Thus, you must run toward your challenges with all your might, because the easiest way through them is to trample them beneath your feet. You have what it takes right now. You know what you must do and you know why. Step confidently into your challenges until you reach the road on the other side.

5. What’s the next step?

Remember, you will never make a bigger mistake than sitting back and doing nothing simply because you can only do a little. So go head and start small. Take a small step, and if you can’t take a small step, take a tiny one. Do what you can with the resources you have right now. Get yourself moving in a positive, productive direction.

The best thing about big success is that it comes one step at a time. A flash of success, no matter how small, creates the momentum necessary to create even more success. Every positive step forward puts you in position to take the next one.

6. What are your flaws and faults?

You will never be flawless. You will never be faultless. Acknowledge your flaws and faults and accept them. Let the difference between your flaws and the flaws of others be that you have accepted their existence and moved past them, while others are hopelessly trying to hide them. Let the difference between your faults and the faults of others be that you have addressed them and learned from them, while others are still living in denial.

Don’t fall victim to fabricated illusions. Don’t hide from reality. Face your deficiencies and use them to bask in the glory of your personal growth.

7. What issues do you need to resolve with yourself?

When you feel lonely you look around for someone to fill the void in your life. You assume that your loneliness stems exclusively from being alone. But once you find company, it doesn’t take long before you realize that there’s still a void in your life. You still feel lonely and unfulfilled, so you blame it on your company and you move on to someone else… and then someone else. This cycle perpetuates for months, or even years, until you are eventually ready to face the truth.

The truth is, a partner, or even just a friend, can add lots of beauty to your life, but they can’t fill a void that exists within you. You alone are responsible for you own fulfillment. If you feel desperately lonely when you’re alone, it means you’re in bad company. It means you need to work on your relationship with yourself first. To believe otherwise is to delude your mind and perpetuate your loneliness as you
hop from one failed relationship to the next.

8. How are you burdening yourself?

If you feel like your back is breaking from the weight your mind is carrying, perhaps it’s time to lighten the load you carry. There are many burdens you can easily let go of if you’re willing.

Start by leaving your worries behind you; worries only fill your mind with negativity. Instead take constructive action – get involved in something worthwhile that takes your mind off of things. Next, drop your grudges. Grudges and resentments simply suck energy and time away from you without any positive return. Once you’ve gotten this far, it’s time to stop pretending like you know everything. Rather than attempting to prove yourself, open your mind, eyes and ears to new and real possibilities. And before you wrap things up, let go of your impatience. Two of the most vital virtues of your personal growth will be your patience to wait for the right moment and your courage to make the best of it.

As you can see, dropping burdensome negativity from your life is fairly easy once you realize how much of it you’re carrying around with you. Do yourself a favor today and lighten your load.

9. How have you celebrated your progress lately?

Focus on the progress you’ve made, on the next positive step, on the silver lining between where you once were, where you are now, and where you’re headed. Do not think of yesterday’s failures, but of the success that is possible today.

Be proud of yourself. The fact that you’re trying is immensely impressive. You have conquered complacency. You are crushing your fears with every new effort you put forth. You aren’t where you want to be yet, but you’re making progress. Step by step will get you there. Even if you feel like you’re running in place, you aren’t. No effort that you make to attain something worthwhile is ever lost. It doesn’t matter how slow you go as long as you don’t give up.

10. What do you love about your life?

Life is a series of highs and lows. There will be times when bad things happen. When these times strike, it’s important to keep things in perspective. How you respond to life’s inevitable difficulties defines the strength and growth of your character, as well as the quality of your life. The false idea that you are a victim of any particular circumstance is simply inaccurate.

The fleeting ups and downs that occur on a daily basis are tiny threads in the overall fabric of your life. Each one adds to your personal growth. The quality of your life is ultimately your choice. You can choose to be immobilized by the gravity of your disappointments, or you can choose to rise from the suffering and treasure the most precious gift you have – life itself.

Marc and Angel Hack Life

10 Questions You Should Know the Answers To

friends with benches

The Celtic understanding of friendship finds its inspiration in the sublime notion of the anam cara. Anam is the Gaelic word for soul; cara is the word for friend. This friendship is an act of recognition and belonging. When you have an anam cara, your friendship cuts across all convention and category. You are joined in an ancient and eternal way with the friend of your soul.
– John O’Donohue

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yes, the elephant always gets eaten one bite at a time

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When you move, the Universe moves. When you reach, it reaches. When you stretch, it stretches. But always, you must go first. – Mike Dooley

Just as millions of snowflakes pile up to
create a blanket of snow,
the “thank you’s” we say pile up and
fall gently upon one another until,
in our hearts and minds,
we are adrift in gratitude.
Daphne Rose Kingma

We give thanks to God and the Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ,
praying always for you.
Colossians 1:3

Maritta Terrell

Thoughts are also posted at:
http://thoughtsaday.blogspot.com/

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home is wherever we are with God

I’m back in Massachusetts after a week of travels in California and Montana. I led a retreat, visited my dearly beloved Pacific Ocean, saw a friend I haven’t seen for 15 years, and spent some time with my sister and brother. I waved to our sons in the Twin Cities as I flew by.

All those places were familiar; they were my home at some time in my life. Now I’m home in Massachusetts, which, after eighteen months, still feels the least like “home” to me. Twenty different houses in seven states (and also England) have at some time been the place I called home. When people ask me where I’m from, what should I say?

This is not uncommon; we are mobile. And our jobs, social surroundings, families and life situations change. In some way all of us, even those of us who live in the house that’s been in the family for generations, are migrants, exiles and refugees. We’ve come from, or are heading, somewhere else. So with all this bumping around, where do we really belong?

Well, hokey as it sounds, we belong in God. Our surroundings may or may not be where we are “from,” but regardless of the landscape, we come from God, we are rooted in God, and we are known and desired in a place that is our own, in God. We are not little specks far below that God looks down on from heaven as from a plane. We live in God’s heart, within God’s compassionate presence, inside God’s love. No matter where we are, we are held in God’s gentle arms. We may be ill suited to our surroundings, or find them foreign, or long for the familiar land or people we call home; we may feel uprooted, alien or lost, and we are probably not now where we will some day be; but we are never outside God’s loving presence. Each of us, wherever we are in our life’s journey, belongs just where we are in God.

When someone asks you where you’re from, pause a moment before you answer and listen for that heavenly voice that silently says, “Right here.”
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net

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all the way He leads me

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I am leading you along a way that is uniquely right for you. The closer to Me you grow, the more fully you become your true self – the one I designed you to be. Because you are one of a kind, the path you travel with Me diverges increasingly from that of other people. However, in my mysterious wisdom and ways, I enable you to follow this solitary path while staying in close contact with others. In fact, the more completely you devote yourself to Me, the more freely you can love people.
Marvel at the beauty of a life intertwined with My Presence. Rejoice as we journey together in intimate communion. Enjoy the adventure of finding yourself through losing yourself in Me.

2 Corinthians 5:17
Ephesians 2:10
1 John 4:7-8
John 15:4

Jesus Calling
Sarah Young
December 30

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life…

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it. Life is beauty,
admire it. Life is a dream, realize it. Life is a challenge,
meet it. Life is a duty, complete it. Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it. Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it. Life is a struggle, accept it. Life
is a tragedy, confront it. Life is an adventure, dare it. Life
is luck, make it. Life is life, fight for it.
– Mother Teresa

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where the dark things are

4aMost of our Advent traditions formed centuries ago among Christian and  pre-Christian Celtic and Germanic peoples, as they approached the winter solstice.  So there’s a lot about darkness, stillness and silence.   Farmers removed idle wagon wheels to make wreaths with candles,  reflecting on the fallow season of waiting and hope. All this darkness  and cold might sound a little off to you who live in Australia, where  summer’s about to begin, or South Africa or Brazil, or for that matter  even Texas. While we’re singing about the “bleak midwinter” the folks in Corpus Christi and Adelaide go to the beach.

We call this a  season of silence and stillness―notice how may carols have silence in  them―but we’re rushing around, busier than ever, and making more noise  than usual ringing bells and singing in public, if you can believe it!  We’re playing music and stringing up extra lights as if to banish the  very darkness and silence we adore.

The darkness and quiet of  December in the north country is a symbol, but not the whole of it.  After all, there isn’t that much bleak, dark midwinter in Bethlehem―and  actually Jesus probably wasn’t born in the winter anyway. “The dawn that breaks upon those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death” has  nothing to do with latitude. The darkness of Advent is the darkness  within, and the darkness of a fearful, competitive world.  The silence  is the deep silence at the center of our souls.  That’s where Advent  happens, and the birth of Christ unfolds.

Where is the darkness in your life? Where are the places in your life where you can’t see,  where the known disappears into the unknown?  Where is that place in  your awareness where you can be without “seeing,” without knowing or  understanding, and be at peace?

Where is the silence in you?  You won’t find it “out there.” Go within. Sit with it.  Sit with it a lot,  and let it speak to you in the language of angels, the language of God,  which is silence.

Your wagon wheels may not be idle, but there is a place of quiet in your soul. Where are the empty places in your  life?  We might feel uncomfortable about  emptiness, but an empty place  is one where the Christ child can come when there is “no room in the  inn” elsewhere. Perhaps even the painfully empty places―the places of  loss, bereavement, poverty or fruitlessness―maybe these are places where even now angels are gathering.

Don’t expect the world to offer  you darkness, silence and stillness.  Go to where  they are, and wait  there. God will meet you there.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net

it’s your life! have an adventure!!!

Cherish your solitude. Take trains by yourself to places you have never been. Sleep out alone under the stars. Learn how to drive a stick shift. Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back. Say no when you don’t want to do something. Say yes if your instincts are strong, even if everyone around you disagrees. Decide whether you want to be liked or admired. Decide if fitting in is more important than
finding out what you’re doing here. Believe in kissing.
– Eve Ensler

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as Henri Nouwen, Rumi & lots of others, remind us – everything is grace

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The Guest House
by Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

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