Rich Beyond Words

Two men were traveling together, when a Bear suddenly met them on their path. One of them climbed up quickly into a tree and concealed himself in the branches. The other, seeing that he would be attacked, fell flat on the ground.
The Bear came up and felt him with his snout. Then he smelled him all over. The Traveler on the ground held his breath and feigned the appearance of death as much as he could.

The Bear soon left him, for it is said that bears will not touch a dead body.

When he was quite sure the Bear had gone, the other Traveler descended from the tree and jocularly inquired of his friend what it was the Bear had whispered in his ear.

“He gave me this advice,” his companion replied. “Never travel with a friend who deserts you at the approach of danger.”

Author Unknown

Today you know more than you did at this time yesterday.

Today you are one day closer to becoming the person you were meant to be.

Today you have more experience and more wisdom than you did just one day ago.

So what’s the best thing to do today? More!

You are more today than you’ve ever been before. What a waste it would be to ignore that! What a waste it would be not to make full use of it! Now that you’ve become more, it’s time to do more.

Right now, you have what it takes to put more effort into your work, more love into your relationships, more discipline into your actions, and more passion into your life.

The tools and opportunities available to you have grown.
So use them to make your results and your life grow, too – not next week, not in a few days, but right now.

What can you improve just a little bit today? Those little improvements add up, compounding on each other until you’ve soon forged your life into a masterpiece.

You have more today than ever before. So go out and make more of this day than you’ve ever done.

Today is truly golden, and you have what it takes to make your life shine more brightly with each passing moment.

You really can do it!

Author Unknown

As I sat on the park bench enjoying the cool night air and gazing at the people who were taking a break from the rest of the world, two young lovers passed me by. And I overheard the woman say, “Honey, why can’t the moon always be as full and beautiful as it is tonight?”

He replied, “I don’t know, dear, but I am glad we were blessed enough to see another one together.” That made me, at first, shed a tear at their exchanged words, but then it made me ask myself, “Why doesn’t it?”

I thought and thought some more. I concluded, “How can we ask the moon to constantly shine so beautifully night after night if we as humans cannot find it in ourselves to do the same? Why can’t we find what it takes to remain illuminating creatures when we bear witness time after time of the glorious dreams we have shown to be so capable of?

Why do we so often blow out our candles and let the darkness escape to cover up a portion of our glow? Do we cycle through our emotions the same as the moon does? Why can’t we consistently find the peace and love that I can so clearly recognize in this young couple: the way they grip each other’s hand as if they never want to let go, the way they walk so slowly in rhythm with one another, as if their heartbeats are setting the pace, and the way they stare at each other as if they have found the gateway to the soul in each other’s eyes.

Then I think again: maybe we can control the moon’s luster, it’s wholeness. Just maybe if we can find it in our hearts, in ourselves, to shine with such radiance, over time we’ll begin to notice as we look toward heaven on a clear night that the moon is as full and bright as we ourselves choose to be. Maybe we only deserve to see this brilliance every so often. And maybe only when enough people can accumulate enough love, peace, and goodwill toward one another shall the moon dazzle us in all her beauty.

So now whenever I think the moon is going through her cycle again, I will tell myself, “No, she is waiting on us to go through ours.”

Author Unknown

A story tells that two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face.
The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything wrote in the sand: “TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE.”

They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one, who had been slapped, got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him. After the friend recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone: “TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE.”

The friend who had slapped and then saved his best friend asked him, “After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand. Now, you write on a stone. Why?”

The other friend replied: “When someone hurts us, we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it.”

Learn to write your hurts in the sand and to carve your blessings in stone.

Author unknown

We convince ourselves that life will be better once we are married, have a baby, then another.

Then we get frustrated because our children are not old enough, and that all will be well when they are older.

Then we are frustrated because they reach adolescence and we must deal with them. Surely we’ll be happier when they grow out of the teen years.

We tell ourselves our life will be better when our spouse gets his/her act together, when we have a nicer car, when we can take a vacation, when we finally retire.

The truth is that there is no better time to be happy than right now.

If not, then when?

Your life will always be full of challenges. It is better to admit as much and to decide to be happy in spite of it all.

For the longest time, it seemed that life was about to start. Real life.

But there was always some obstacle along the way, an ordeal to get through, some work to be finished, some time to be given, a bill to be paid. Then life would start.

I finally came to understand that those obstacles were life.

That point of view helped me see that there isn’t any road to happiness.

Happiness IS the road.

So, enjoy every moment.

Stop waiting for school to end, for a return to school, to lose ten pounds, to gain ten ounds, for work to begin, to get married, for Friday evening, for Sunday morning, waiting for a new car, for your mortgage to be paid off, for spring, for summer, for fall, for winter, for the first or the fifteenth of the month, for your song to be played on the radio, to die, to be reborn… before deciding to be happy.

Happiness is a voyage, not a destination.

There is no better time to be happy than… NOW!

Live and enjoy the moment.

Author unknown

In the 1930s, a young traveler was exploring the French Alps. He came upon a vast stretch of barren land. It was desolate. It was forbidding. It was ugly. It was the kind of place you hurry away from.

Then, suddenly, the young traveler stopped dead in his tracks. In the middle of this vast wasteland was a bent- over old man. On his back was a sack of acorns. In his hand was a four-foot length of iron pipe.

The man was using the iron pipe to punch holes in the ground. Then from the sack he would take an acorn and put it in the hole. Later, the old man told the traveler, “I’ve planted over 100,000 acorns. Perhaps only one-tenth of them will grow.”

The old man’s wife and son had died, and this was how he chose to spend his final years. “I want to do something useful,” he said.

Twenty-five years later the now-not-as-young traveler returned to the same desolate area. What he saw amazed him; he could not believe his own eyes. The land was covered with a beautiful forest two miles wide and five miles long.
Birds were singing, animals were playing, and wildflowers perfumed the air.

The traveler stood there recalling the desolation that once was. A beautiful oak forest stood there now – all because someone cared.

What small thing can you do today to make the world a more beautiful place?

By: Brian Cavanaugh

Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joy ride.

Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.

When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.

When it’s in your best interest, practice obedience.

Let others know when they’ve invaded your territory.

Take naps and stretch before rising.

Run, romp and play daily.

Be loyal.

Never pretend to be something you’re not.

If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.

When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently.

Thrive on attention and let people touch you.

Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.

On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.

When you’re happy, dance around and wag your entire body.

No matter how often you’re scolded, don’t buy into the guilt thing and pout… Run right back and make friends.

Delight in the simple joys of a long walk.

When she looked ahead, Florence Chadwick saw nothing but a solid wall of fog. Her body was numb. She had been swimming for nearly 16 hours.

Already she was the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions. Now at age 34, her goal was to become the first woman to swim from Catalina Island to the California coast.

On that Fourth of July morning in 1952, the sea was like an ice bath, and the fog was so dense she could hardly see her support boats. Sharks cruised toward her lone figure, only to be driven away by rifle shots. Against the frigid grip of the sea, she struggled on-hour after hour-while millions watched on national television.

Alongside Florence in one of the boats, her mother and her trainer offered encouragement. They told her it wasn’t much farther. But all she could see was fog. They urged her not to quit. She never had . . . until then. With only a half- mile to go, she asked to be pulled out.

Still thawing her chilled body several hours later, she told a reporter, “Look, I’m not excusing myself, but if I could have seen land I might have made it.” It was not fatigue or even the cold water that defeated her. It was the fog. She was unable to see her goal.

Two months later, she tried again. This time, despite the same dense fog, she swam with her faith intact and her goal clearly pictured in her mind. She knew that somewhere behind that fog was land, and this time she made it!
Florence Chadwick became the first woman to swim the Catalina Channel, eclipsing the men’s record by two hours!

Author Unknown

I wasn’t always blessed with luck – infact I kept having a whole lot of bad luck. I began to believe that I was unlucky and so I would keep having more bad luck – after all we keep getting what we believe don’t we?

So Dov baron’s blog post on becoming lucky is interesting.

When I was a kid I asked my Grandfather if his success at farming was caused by good luck? He smiled at me and said, “If you want to get run over by a truck named Luck you have to walk onto the road or it will miss you every time!”

That of course is true – you make your luck happen.

Dov says there’s one thing you can never get back again and that’s time. Time is the thing a lot of us waste. In my mind anything you do which is not fullfilling you or bringing you closer to your goals is a waste of time. That could be anything – just being stuck in a rut and not believing that there are other opportunities.

All too often I hear people whining about stuff and then when I ask them if it pains them so much why are they doing it, they look at me blankly, like I’m insane. Most people bitch about their jobs and yet they spend most of their waking hours at a job which obviously doesn’t give them a sense of satisfaction. They tell me at least it pays the bills. My God, what a way to live – go to a job to pay your necessary bills and then have no money or time to do things you really like. SAD.

It’s just unfortunate that we’ve been programmed to believe that is the way we’re supposed to be living. To live that way means other’s will always be able to control your destiny. The people that teach us those values are so confined in their own imprisonement that they can’t even imagine other possibilities.

I always encourage my kids to do things they like – I tell them there can be no bigger joy in life than making your play your work. I want them to live full and free lives. Lucky lives.

Dove also talks about making emotional investments – well yes. That’s the difference between people living rich lives and those that are just part of the system. You have to invest your emotions to get where you want.

And lastly even though the Law of Attraction is always working – it’s not always easy. The reason why it’s not always easy is because we have other people telling us not to be ridiculous.

I recall my earliest memories of knowing that my life is a movie. I’m the director, actor and producer. Even if sometimes I have my little procrastination moments.

You can make your luck – infact nobody else is gonna do it for you.

A couple, whom we shall call John and Mary, had a nice home and two lovely children, a boy and a girl. John had a good job and had just been asked to go on a business trip to another city and would be gone for several days. It was decided that Mary needed an outing and would go along too.
They hired a reliable woman to care for the children and made the trip, returning home a little earlier than they had planned.

As they drove into their home town feeling glad to be back, they noticed smoke, and they went off their usual route to see what it was. They found a home in flames. Mary said, “Oh well it isn’t our fire, let’s go home.”

But John drove closer and exclaimed, “That home belongs to Fred Jones who works at the plant. He wouldn’t be off work yet, maybe there is something we could do.” “It has nothing to do with us.” Protested Mary. “You have your good clothes on lets not get any closer.”

But John drove up and stopped and they were both horror stricken to see the whole house in flames. A woman on the lawn was in hysterics screaming, “The children! Get the children!” John grabbed her by the shoulder saying, “Get a hold of yourself and tell us where the children are!” “In the basement,” sobbed the woman, “down the hall and to the left.”

In spite of Mary’s protests John grabbed the water hose and soaked his clothes, put his wet handkerchief on his head and bolted for the basement which was full of smoke and scorching hot. He found the door and grabbed two children, holding one under each arm like the football player he was.
As he left he could hear some more whimpering. He delivered the two badly frightened and nearly suffocated children into waiting arms and filled his lungs with fresh air and started back asking how many more children were down there. They told him two more and Mary grabbed his arm and screamed, “John! Don’t go back! It’s suicide! That house will cave in any second!”

But he shook her off and went back by feeling his way down the smoke filled hallway and into the room. It seemed an eternity before he found both children and started back.
They were all three coughing and he stooped low to get what available air he could. As he stumbled up the endless steps the thought went through his mind that there was something strangely familiar about the little bodies clinging to him, and at last when they came out into the sunlight and fresh air, he found that he had just rescued his own children.

The babysitter had left them at a friend’s home while she did some shopping.

Unknown Author