your life, woven into the fabric of others

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”  Pericles

It is not that you spent time on the earth, it is the lives you are impacting while you are on earth.  What difference are you making in the lives of others?

The impact you  make may also determine your level of happiness as well.   

Want to make a bigger impact?   What can you do, today?

Are you living to give?

Are you giving to live?

What are you weaving into the lives of others?   What will your legacy be?

 

Happy Thanksgiving

 

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” -John Fitzgerald Kennedy

 

Reflect on all that was good and then give Thanks.

In 1621 the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag gathered together to celebrate the fall harvest.

From the journal of Edward Winslow (1621) and he wrote,

“Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, among other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed upon our governor, and upon the captain, and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.”

 

are you postponing life?

 

“For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all of the horrors of the half lived life”
Herman Melville (1819-1891)

Only if … that is a phrase that is heard often, only if I had ________________.     At the end of the day the energy just to get home from work may be all that is left.   You look at the scale; it’s not what you want to see.  In fact there are a lot of things that you are tired of and the weight of life is pressing down on you with a lot of force.   There is no time to be happy and there is no time to be sad.  There is no time to improve a relationship, there is no time to improve your personal growth, there is no time to understand who you are, there is no time to get healthier, there is no time to work on your career, and there is no time to time to relax.   That might be the description of a life that is being half lived.   What if there was a way to live life fully, with greater joy, greater happiness, greater results, and better outcomes?

Living a full and happy life is not something to dream about, it is something that be obtained.   If the dream has been put away then pull that dream back out, look at it, examine it and then work on it.

Imagine what it would be like to live in the place of your dreams.   Imagine the peace, joy and happiness that would find in that dream.   Imagine that your dream is coming real.

What does it take to make that shift?   It takes a shift in the energy level you have from a negative level to a positive level.  See yourself as the person creating your dreams.   See yourself living your dream.  Now, it isn’t quite that easy, but with some work it can be done.   Sometimes people just need some help identifying and then executing towards their new future.

Are you living your life full of peace and joy?

heard an encouraging word lately?

Loaves and Fishes

This is not
the age of information.

This is not
the age of information.

Forget the news,
and the radio,
and the blurred screen.

This is the time
of loaves
and fishes.

People are hungry
and one good word is bread
for a thousand.

— David Whyte
from The House of Belonging
©1996 Many Rivers Press

 

Are you encouraged?   When was the last time you were told how wonderful you are?   When was the last time you were appreciated for your contributions?   When was the last time you heard “Thank-you”?

Sadly, many people hear more criticism than praise for the work they do and the life they lead.  A thousand things go right in a single day, yet it is the one thing that didn’t appear to be right that got noticed.

There have been campaigns at various times that tried to get people to focus on what was done right.  One of those campaigns was called “Catch me doing something right”.    If everyone just caught one or two people a day doing something right and told them how do you think the day would be for those people?

Catch a person at a cash register

Catch a person walking down the street, hallway or in a store – Thank them …

Catch a person anywhere , anytime and Thank them …

brushstrokes upon the canvas

Living with purpose is the life goal of many people.  What is my purpose?  What am I supposed to do?  What will it say when the days end and life is summed up in a few paragraphs in a newspaper?   What do you want it to say?   The time to make that difference is today.

 

A segment from Mary Oliver’s poem asks those questions, what will become of my life?

 

Mary Oliver, “When Death Comes” from New and Selected Poems (Beacon Press, 1992)

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

 

—

What do you want paint on your canvas of life?

 

The artist in the sky

do circumstances rule you?

Time and time again circumstances flood into our lives and rob it of happiness.   That could be a true statement if you let your circumstances determine your level of happiness.

Circumstances are events that happen, in of themselves they have no emotion, no anger, no fear, and no power unless we grant the circumstance power over us, over our attitude, over our joy, and over our lives.  How many people do you know that have experienced some event and have kept that event alive in their heart as if it happened minutes ago?   Circumstances don’t control us unless we let them.

An ancient fable illustrates how we can overcome our circumstances,

The Bat and the Weasels

A BAT who fell upon the ground and was caught by a Weasel pleaded to be spared his life.  The Weasel refused, saying that he was by nature the enemy of all birds.  The Bat assured him that he was not a bird, but a mouse, and thus was set free.  Shortly afterwards the Bat again fell to the ground and was caught by another Weasel, whom he likewise entreated not to eat him.  The Weasel said that he had a special hostility to mice.  The Bat assured him that he was not a mouse, but a bat, and thus a second time escaped.

It is wise to turn circumstances to good account.

What circumstance is controlling you?

find yourself

“Life isn’t about finding yourself.  Life is about creating yourself.”   George Bernard Shaw

perfect alignment

 There will be a time when your skills, abilities, passions and dreams align and in that moment or time you will be able to deliver with great depth all that you were meant to be. Some people would call this living to your potential.

What is your potential?

What are you uniquely gifted to do?

Potential can be living your values with integrity and to the best of your ability.

Look at your rules for living?

What rules limit your potential?

What rules allow you to reach your potential?

 

 “How could there be any question of acquiring or possessing, when the one thing needful for a man is to become – to be at last, and to die in the fullness of his being. “ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Living in the fullness of your being is living your life in perfect alignment.

Live well!

Get or give …

We make a living by what we get; We make a life by what we give. -Winston Churchill

 

lift someone up today

It is easy to speed through life and barely notice the problems that people are experiencing.   Sometimes labels are assigned to people without knowing the exact reason they aren’t doing what might be expected of them.

We travel through life at a pace that is quickening every day.   The world expects more, so we give more, and as a result our wholeness begins to get chipped away.   Each day a little bit of our soul is lost.  Eventually we find ourselves empty and hollow, lost and in a sense alone.   We have linked arm in arm with a worldview that discards people as quickly as it collects them.  

At some point we travel through a day and not know much at all of how it happened.  Did the sun rise?  Did the sun set?   Was the sun out at all?    Did we hear a bird sing?   Did we feel the wind press at our face?   What did we feel?   What did we see?   What did we hear?

One thing everyone can do is take a moment and encourage someone.  Ask them what are they grateful for?   What did they experience that brought life to their senses?    Help someone be aware of all the life that is surrounding them.   That will make a difference.

  It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment”  Cicero