HAPPINESS III

"Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is."

- Aleksei Peshkov -

Moving Beyond Borders

"The love of one's country is a natural thing. But why should love stop at the border?

- Pablo Casals -

Life Is What We Make It

"Life is not the way it's supposed to be. It's the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference."

- Virginia Satir -

Strive for Success

"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will."

- Vincent Lombardi -

Push Beyond Limits

"Discontent is the first step in progress. No one knows what is in him till he tries, and many would never try if they were not forced to."

- Basil Maturin -

EXPERIENCE

There are some things you can't buy. You can't steal, you can't borrow and you can't even cram for. Like experience.

Experience is the result of going through life, through the process of whatever you become experienced about. There are some things that you have to earn, and even if you cheat on an exam or doctor your resume, you still won't have experience...except, hopefully, learning from your mistakes. Because it's just not fair to cheat yourself out of experience.

TEACHING

Did you know that you are a wonderful teacher? That's right. Every time you react to another person, you are teaching him or her how to behave around you.

A friend of ours was complaining about how her husband would mess up the clothes drawer looking for an item, and how she would have to keep cleaning it up after him.

What she did not realize is that by cleaning it up, she was making it acceptable for him to keep making the mess. Her complaints about "Why can't he learn?" were futile, because he was learning; he was learning what she was teaching him. And she was doing a phenomenally good job of teaching him.

You can't always make a grouchy person happy, and you can rarely make an 80-year old go sky diving. But you can teach most people how to act around you most of the time.

You are a great teacher, but are you teaching what you want to teach?

"Calmness is the cradle of power."

- Josiah Gilbert Holland -

"Reading is important - read between the lines. Don't swallow everything."

- Gwendolyn Brooks -

Our Own Little Fairy Tales

"You know how when you were a little kid and you believed in fairy tales, that fantasy of what your life would be, white dress, prince charming who would carry you away to a castle on a hill. You would lie in bed at night and close your eyes and you had complete and utter faith. Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Prince Charming, they were so close you could taste them, but eventually you grow up, one day you open your eyes and the fairy tale disappears. Most people turn to the things and people they can trust. But the thing is its hard to let go of that fairy tale entirely cause almost everyone has that smallest bit of hope, of faith, that one day they will open their eyes and it will come true."

Meredith Grey
Grey's Anatomy

Shush!

"Let me listen to me and not to them."

- Gertrude Stein -