LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:
The lover heals the world not by a vague and abstract love for everybody and everything, but by becoming passionate and vowing fidelity to concrete relationships, persons, institutions, and places. --Sam Keen

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:
The leader has a clear idea of what he wants to do -- professionally and personally -- and the strength to persist in the face of setbacks, even failures. --Warren G. Bennis

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:
Latent abilities are like clay. It can be mud on shoes, brick in a building or a statue that will inspire all who see it. The clay is the same. The result is dependent on how it is used. --James F. Lincoln

LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:

Love is all we have, the only way that each can help the other. --Euripides, Orestes

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:

In all things, be willing to listen to people around you. None of us is really smart enough to go it alone. --John Clendenin

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:

One good wish changes nothing.One good decision changes everything.

LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:

Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting forthe other person to die. -Carrie Fisher

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:

The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up. -Muhammad Ali

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one'scourage. -Anais Nin

STAY POSITIVE!

LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:

Nobody sees a flower--really--it is so small it takes time--we haven't time--and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time. --Georgia O'Keeffe

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:
Reason is like an open secret that can become known to anyone at any time; it is the quiet space into which everyone can enter through his own thought. --Karl Jaspers

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:

Men are like wine; some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age. --Pope John XXII

LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:

You have your pencil. You have your colors. You paint paradise and live there.

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:

THE BEST PART OF LIFE is not just surviving, but thriving-
With passion and compassion
And humor and style,
And generosity and kindness.
-Maya Angelou

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:

To gain access to the tremendous knowledge of your higher spirit,
You must quiet the mind that thinks, and go to the part that knows.

To My Friends
--Anonymous

I have a list of folks I know......all written in a book,
and every now and then......I go and take a look.

That is when I realize these names......they are a part,
not of the book they're written in......but taken from the heart.

For each name stands for someone......who has crossed my path sometime,
and in that meeting they have become......the reason and the rhyme.

Although it sounds fantastic......for me to make this claim,
I really am composed......of each remembered name.

Although you're not aware......of any special link,just knowing you,
has shaped my life......more than you could think.

So please don't think my greeting......as just a mere routine,
your name was not......forgotten in between.

For when I send a greeting......that is addressed to you,
it is because you're on the list......of folks I'm indebted to.

So whether I have known you......for many days or few,
in some ways you have a part......in shaping things I do.

I am but a total......of many folks I've met,
you are a friend I would prefer......never to forget.


Everything I need to know about life,
I learned from Noah's Ark...
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
1. Don't miss the boat.
2. Remember that we are all in the same boat.
3. Plan ahead. It wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark.
4. Stay fit. When you're 600 years old, someone may
ask you to do something really big.
5. Don't listen to critics; just get on with the job that
needs to be done.
6. Build your future on high ground.
7. For safety's sake, travel in pairs.
8. Speed isn't always an advantage.
The snails were on board with the cheetahs.
9. When you're stressed, float a while.
10.Remember, the Ark was built by amateurs;
the Titanic was built by professionals.

LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:
A dream that I dream alone is but only a dream. But a dream that we dream together is reality. --Raul Seixas

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:
First you fuel the desire, then the desire will fuel you.--Napoleon Hill, Author "Think and Grow Rich"

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.--Brian Tracy

LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:

If you can't return a favor, pass it on.--Louise Brown

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:

Keep company with those who make you better.--English Proverb

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:

How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and, keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to know what really matters most.--Stephen Covey

LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:

There's nothing more important in life, than the people you meet along the way.

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:

Leaders who walk their talk will never lack for resources to get the job done.

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:

In the end each of us will be judged by our standard of life, not our standard of living.

LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:

Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it. -Samuel Johnson

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:

Optimism is a kind of heart stimulus--the digitalis of failure. -Elbert Hubbard

LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:

Life is the flower for which love is the honey. --Victor Hugo

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:

Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure. --George E. Woodberry

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp. Or what's a heaven for? --Robert Browning

To a Child Love Is Spelled T~I~M~E
by Lance Wubbels


In the faint light of the attic, an old man, tall and stooped, bent his great frame and made his way to a stack of boxes that sat near one of the little half-windows. Brushing aside a wisp of cobwebs, he tilted the top box toward the light and began to carefully lift out one old photograph album after another. Eyes once bright but now dim searched longingly for the source that had drawn him here.It began with the fond recollection of the love of his life, long gone, and somewhere in these albums was a photo of her he hoped to rediscover. Silent as a mouse, he patiently opened the long-buried treasures and soon was lost in a sea of memories. Although his world had not stopped spinning when his wife left it, the past was more alive in his heart than his present aloneness.

Setting aside one of the dusty albums, he pulled from the box what appeared to be a journal from his grown son's childhood. He could not recall ever having seen it before, or that his son had ever kept a journal. Why did Elizabeth always save the children's old junk? he wondered, shaking his white head.Opening the yellowed pages, he glanced over a short entry, and his lips curved in an unconscious smile. Even his eyes brightened as he read the words that spoke clear and sweet to his soul. It was the voice of the little boy who had grown up far too fast in this very house, and whose voice had grown fainter and fainter over the years. In the utter silence of the attic, the words of a guileless six-year-old worked their magic and carried the old man back to a time almost totally forgotten.Entry after entry stirred a sentimental hunger in his heart like the longing a gardener feels in the winter for the fragrance of spring flowers. But it was accompanied by the painful memory that his son's simple recollections of those days were far different from his own. But how different?

Reminded that he had kept a daily journal of his business activities over the years, he closed his son's journal and turned to leave, having forgotten the cherished photo that originally triggered his search. Hunched over to keep from bumping his head on the rafters, the old man stepped to the wooden stairway and made his descent, then headed down a carpeted stairway that led to the den.Opening a glass cabinet door, he reached in and pulled out an old business journal. Turning, he sat down at his desk and placed the two journals beside each other. His was leather bound and engraved neatly with his name in gold, while his son's was tattered and the name "Jimmy" had been nearly scuffed from its surface. He ran a long skinny finger over the letters, as though he could restore what had been worn away with time and use.As he opened his journal, the old man's eyes fell upon an inscription that stood out because it was so brief in comparison to other days.

In his own neat handwriting were these words:Wasted the whole day fishing with Jimmy. Didn't catch a thing.With a deep sigh and a shaking hand, he took Jimmy's journal and found the boy's entry for the same day, June 4. Large scrawling letters pressed deeply in the paper read:Went fishing with my dad. Best day of my life.

"A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove. But the world may be different, because I was important in the life of a child." --Forest

some positive thoughts june 2007

LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:

All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action. --James Russell Lowell

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:

You can increase your brain power three- to fivefold simply by laughing and having fun before working on a problem. --Doug Hall

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:

Cushion the painful effects of hard blows by keeping the enthusiasm going strong, even if doing so requires struggle. --Norman Vincent Peale

LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:

I like not only to be loved, but to be told I am loved. --George Eliot

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:

One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an
emergency. --Arnold H. Glasow

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:

He who waits upon fortune is never sure of dinner. --Benjamin Franklin

LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:

Rather than focusing on things and time, focus on preserving and enhancing relationships and on accomplishing results. --Stephen Covey

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:

Leadership is much more an art, a belief, a condition of the heart, than a set of things to do. The visible signs of artfulleadership are expressed, ultimately, in its practice. --Max DePree

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:

Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing. --Harriet Braiker


LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:
A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was,
the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove.but, the world may
be different because I was important in the life of a child.

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:

I've never known anyone who, on their deathbed said.
I wish I had spent more time at the office.

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:

Tomorrow never comes and yesterday never comes back, so live today
to it's fullest so that your yesterdays will be remembered with happiness
and your tomorrows will be full of brightness and hope.- Nick Smith

its a beau world of words

From www.PeaceBecomesMe.com

If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it. ~Mary Engelbreit

After you've done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over. ~Alfred Edward Perlman

Change always comes bearing gifts. ~Price Pritchett

The circumstances of the world are so variable that an irrevocable purpose or opinion is almost synonymous with a foolish one. ~William H. Seward

When you are through changing, you are through. ~Bruce Barton

There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in raveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place. ~Washington Irving

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom. ~Confucius

Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. ~John Kenneth Galbraith

Stubborness does have its helpful features. You always know what you are going to be thinking tomorrow. ~Glen Beaman

The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones which will give him no pain or trouble. ~Henry Miller

Growth is the only evidence of life. ~John Henry Newman, Apologia pro vita sua, 1864
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~Anatole France

Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed. ~Irene Peter

Life is its own journey, presupposes its own change and movement, and one tries to arrest them at one's eternal peril. ~Laurens van der Post

Time, which changes people, does not alter the
image we have retained of them. ~Marcel Proust

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

If you're in a bad situation, don't worry it'll change. If you're in a good situation, don't worry it'll change. ~John A. Simone.

Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. But unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer. ~Shunryu Suzuki

You can avoid having ulcers by adapting to the situation: If you fall in the mud puddle, check your pockets for fish. ~ Unknown

We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves. ~Lynn Hall

No two men ever judged alike of the same thing, and it is impossible to find two opinions exactly similar, not only in different men but in the same men at different times. ~Michel Montaigne

People don't change. Only their costumes do. ~Gene Moore

The birds are molting. If only man could molt also — his mind once a year its errors, his heart once a year its useless passions. ~James Allen

All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward. ~Ellen Glasgow

If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing. ~Saint Augustine

What you have become is the price you paid to get what you used to want. ~Mignon McLaughlin

Those who expect moments of change to be comfortable and free of conflict have not learned their history. ~Joan Wallach Scott

The wheel of change moves on, and those who were down go up and those who were up go down. ~Jawaharlal Nehru

He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery. ~Harold Wilson

Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights. ~Pauline R. Kezer

A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea. ~John Ciardi

We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance. ~Harrison Ford

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator. ~Francis Bacon, "On Innovation," Essays, 1597

If you want to truly understand something, try to change it. ~Kurt Lewin

Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly. ~Francis Bacon

It's the most unhappy people who most fear change. ~Mignon McLaughlin

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. ~Author unknown, commonly misattributed to Charles Darwin

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. ~Victor Frankl

If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies. ~Author Unknown

making the most of what you have

Making The Most Of What You Have
On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City.
f you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is an awesome sight. He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.
By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. They remain reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs. They wait until he is ready to play.
But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap - it went off like gunfire across the room.
There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do. We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage - to either find another violin or else find another string for this one.
But he didn't. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before.
Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that.
You could see him modulating, changing, re-composing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before.
When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. We were all on our feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had done.
He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said - not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone - "You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left."
What a powerful line that is. It has stayed in my mind ever since I heard it. And who knows? Perhaps that is the definition of life - not just for artists but for all of us.
Here is a man who has prepared all his life to make music on a violin of four strings, who, all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three strings; so he makes music with three strings, and the music he made that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that he had ever made before, when he had four strings.
So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then, when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left.
This story was so impressive to me that I wanted to share it with all of you!

QUOTE FOR 18.4.07

+++++++++++++++++ LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:

Siblings are the people we practice on, the people who teach us about fairness and cooperation, kindness and caring - quite often the hard way. And that someone need not be perfect for you to love them.--Pamela Dugdale

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:

No matter how small and unimportant what we are doing may seem, if we do it well, it may soon become the step that will lead us to better things. --Channing Pollock

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:

A possibility was born the day you were born and it will live as long as you live. --Marcus Solero

QUOTE FOR 16.4.07

LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:
No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence. --George Eliot
LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:
The Law of Win/Win says, "Let's not do it your way or my way; let's do it the best way.--Greg Anderson
MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:
The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice. --George Eliot

quote for 15.4.07

LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:

Love doesn't sit there like a stone, it has to be made; remade all the time, made new. --Ursula K. LeGuin

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. --Winston Churchill

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:


Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. --Will Rogers

quote for 15.4.07

POSITIVE THOUGHTS+++++++++++++++++

LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:

The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly. --Henry David Thoreau

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist. --Indira Gandhi

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:
An uninspired mind is a handicap we all can do something about. --James R. Ball

quote for 14.4.07

POSITIVE THOUGHTS+++++++++++++++++
LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:

To live is like to love--all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct is for it. --Samuel Butler

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:

It is good to dream, but it is better to dream and work. Faith is mighty, but action with faith is mightier. Desiring is helpful, but work and desire are invincible. --Thomas Robert Gaines

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:

Life's strict rule is this: You get more of what you focus on. Ignoring this, we abandon our healthiest, concentrative energies and court emotional upheaval. --Marsha Sinetar

quote for 12.4.07

+++++++++++++++++ LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact. --William James
LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:


Faith, to my mind, is a stiffening process, a sort of mental starch. --E. M. Forster
MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:

Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there's a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see. --Helen

the dash that matters!!!!!

POSITIVE NEWS WEEKLY++++++++++++++++++++
The DashCopyright 1998 by Linda Ellis

I read of a reverend who stood to speak at the funeral of a friend.

He referred to the dates on her tombstone from the beginning...to the end.

He noted that first came the date of her birth and spoke of the following date with tears.

But he said what mattered most of all was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time that she spent alive on earth.

And now only those who loved her know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not how much we own;the cars...the house...the cash.

What matters is how we live and love and how we spendour dash.

So think about this long and hard.Are there things you'd liketo change?

For you never know how much time is left. You could be at dash mid-range.

If we could just slow down enoughto consider what's true and realand always try to understand
the way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger and showappreciation more and love the people in our lives like we've never loved before.

If we treat each other with respectand more often wear a smile...remembering that this special dashmight only last a little while.

So when your eulogy's being read,with your life's actions to rehash,would you be proud of the things they say about how you spent your dash?

quote for 10.04.07

POSITIVE THOUGHTS+++++++++++++++++
LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact. --William James

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:


Faith, to my mind, is a stiffening process, a sort of mental starch. --E. M. Forster

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:

Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there's a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see. --Helen

positive thoughts

POSITIVE THOUGHTS+++++++++++++++++

LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:


Always kiss your children goodnight, even if they're already asleep. --H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:

Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work. --Booker T. Washington

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:

Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, thereare still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born. --Dale Turner

positive thoughts

POSITIVE THOUGHTS+++++++++++++++++

LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS:

A very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love. --Henri B. Stendhal

LEADERSHIP/SUCCESS:

Find a job you like and you add five days to every week. --H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

MOTIVATION/INSPIRATION:

The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up. --Paul Valery