Daily Quote

“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” –Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again. - Og Mandino

If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Happy Father’s Day to dads and grandfathers everywhere! My dad (who, incidentally, I thought hung the moon AND stars) is spending his 12th Father’s Day in Heaven. He died alarmingly young, but I’m thankful to have had him in my life as long as I did. His sense of humor and laid back approach to life were his trademarks and our world’s loss was Heaven’s gain.

Even though there’ve been 12 Father’s Days without him, it still gets to me. Today when I drove by a steakhouse, there were people pouring out of their cars with their dads. Waterworks. Time heals wounds but the scars remain.

The tears gave way to smiles though when I got home to another character that hung the moon and stars - my husband and father of our three daughters and 4 cats. No father in the world has ever out-loved their children more than Michael does our girls. Like all fathers, though, he doesn’t get the sometimes gentler role in the parenting equation.

I feel for fathers, I really do. They have to be the tough guys so often - while the mothers pat on the child’s back, smooths the hair and whispers lovey dovey mommy-isms. Sometimes it resembles a good cop/bad cop scene and fathers seldom get to be the good cop! The decisions they make, the stands they take - they’re always for their child’s best. Funny thing about children though, they generally don’t see past their own little noses.

The quote at the top of the post, at least in our own household, symbolizes a father’s mindset. Fathers often look further into the future than mothers do. I think the reason’s obvious… “mommies” don’t want to see the future. Give us the present, give us the past, but spare us the future!

It’s a good thing that fathers and mothers look at things differently and have different approaches. Two of either approaches would make the kids nutty. -er. Nuttier.

Know that the day will come when your loving strictness, your stern no’s, and, yes… even your lectures…. will be very much appreciated. Keep up the good fight - being a parent in this day and age isn’t for the faint of heart. Or stomach, for that matter.

Happy Father’s Day!

If you have anything valuable to contribute to the world, it will come through the expression of your own personality - that single spark of divinity that sets you off and makes you different from every other living creature. - Bruce Barton

So often time it happens, we all live our life in chains, and we never even know we have the key. - The Eagles, “Already Gone”

The next time you’re listening to a song by The Eagles, pay close attention to the lyrics. Their songs are very well-written and, of course, flawlessly executed.

Ray Charles Art Print
Gorsky, Vladimir
Buy at AllPosters.com

(About his addiction to heroin) I did it to myself. It wasn’t society…it wasn’t a pusher, it wasn’t being blind or being black or being poor. It was all my doing. - Ray Charles

I have a love/hate relationship with the quote above.  I hate it with a distinct passion because it reminds me that one of the greatest talents our world has ever known struggled with a drug addiction.  That makes me overwhelmingly sad because I know it must have caused him and those around him so much pain and heartache.  When we’re a fan of someone, we want to think that their life was one long picnic - sadly for Ray Charles, it rained.

What I love about this quote - and, again with a distinct passion - is the fact that he doesn’t point fingers outwardly, whatsoever.  He points all ten of the talented wonders toward himself.   Would it have been a very, very, very difficult time to have lived as a black man when Ray did?  We know the answer to that, don’t we?  Can you even imagine the things he must have experienced?  Now, add to this the fact that he had a great deal of trauma as a child.  Things that happen to us in our childhood stay with us forever.  If we’re lucky, we find a way to make the memories aggreeable houseguests.   If we’re unlucky, they become ghosts that haunt our lives.  From everything I’ve read, I believe that Ray Charles’ house was haunted.

So, we have a man who has had unspeakable trauma, great losses, and has to live and work amongst a society that is still, for the most part, unbelievably intolerant and unkind to those who wear a different skin color.  Oh. Right.  He had to face all of this without his eyesight - in complete and utter darkness.

Did he have a hard life?  Without a doubt.  Did people take advantage of him?  Absolutely.  Was it fair that he had to lose his sight.  Not even close.  Yet, he didn’t place the blame for his addiction anywhere but on himself. 

The scapegoats were all lined up, but he sent them home.

 What if everyone took responsiblity for their actions - the bad ones as well as the good?  What if everyone stopped corralling scapegoats and began setting them free instead? I honestly believe if we all took more responsibility for what we do and for what we fail to do, we’d find ourselves in a better position to grow and improve.   I also honestly believe that that’s probably not going to happen.  Blaming circumstances and other people is just too easy.

Just something to think about.

Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon… must inevitably come to pass! -Paul J. Meyer

When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.  - Henry Ford

Men and women who we we would quickly describe as ”great” and “heroic” didn’t earn those reputations while smoothly sailing through life.  My own heroes and heroines (Jesus, John the Baptist, Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., Helen Keller, Mother Teresa) certainly were unfamiliar with the calm seas of life. 

In fact, as they rode out the roughest seas imaginable, each would probably ask, “Calm seas? What’s a calm sea?”

Granted, when life’s tossing us to and fro, it’s hard to pause and appreciate the moment.  Yet, in reality, we very well could do just that.  Life’s trying moments and trials develop character and an inner strength that would, otherwise, be non-existent.  They keep us from becoming people who aren’t even worth knowing, let alone being.

If you feel as though you have not only your own share of trouble, but enough for three or four people - take comfort in this:  You have the opportunity to help yourself to more strength than most people will ever know.  If, that is, you take your rightful position.

What’s the rightful position?  Being on top of the trials rather than under them.  When we allow them to dictate our moods, how we spend our time, our outlook, our faith, and our relationships - we’re under their control.  They’re on top and they’re scarcely allowing us enough air to breath!

But if we take the upper hand and refuse to let them get us down, monopolize our time, shake our faith, or cause us to become bitter - we’re in control and can remain on top.  Since the view’s much better from that vantage point, it’s easily the option we should aim for.

The people who show up on lists of heroes and heroines had this view of the world and we’d do well to share it.

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all. - Dale Carnegie

For the most part, on my blogs and websites, I pretty much keep my political views to myself.  I don’t hesitate to give my opinion on certain subjects.  For example, I think the war on terrorism had to be waged, but I think it’s time to bring our men and women home.  And I’m all for hugging trees but not at the expense of human beings.  I’m more interested in programs and institutions that better the lives of people than I am those that better the lives of plants.

However, I personally don’t feel the need to announce the candidate I’m supporting.  As someone who is all about people making their own decisions in life and pioneering their own paths, I wouldn’t want to try to influence anyone with my own choice.  It’s my hope that everyone reads everything they can about each candidate.  Each individual is intelligent, compassionate, and has a lot to offer to their country.  I believe each would do us proud.

I think each one takes a lot of needless heat for issues that, on the grand scale, simply aren’t that important.  One of my pet peeves is when John McCain (born on August 29, 1936) is accused of being “too old.”   Do his critics think he’ll be called on to literally run a race?

Irregardless of the side of the political fence we’re on, we have to see the ridiculousness of suggesting that someone is too experienced for any position or job.

Take, for example the following ageless marvels:

• Helen Mirren not only won the Academy Award while in her early 60’s (for her amazing performance in The Queen), she had people all over the world using the word “hot” and they weren’t just referring to her career!
• Mark Twain wrote “Eve’s Diary” and “The $30,000 Bequest” at the age of 71.
• Corrie ten Boom traveled the world with her missionary work in her 80s’.
• Jack LaLanne, at 70, towed seventy boats containing 70 people for a mile across Long Beach Harbor….with a rope in his teeth….while handcuffed…and wearing shackles on his legs.
• Goethe finished “Faust” in his early 80’s.
• Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States at age 69.
• Winston Churchill initiated his protest against Hitler as Prime Minister at the age of 65.  He returned to the House of Commons as a member of Parliament at 80.
• The famous preacher, John Wesley, traveled an average of 20 miles a day for 40 years.  He preached 4,000 sermons and produced 400 books.  At 83 he was actually “annoyed” that he could not write for more than 15 hours a day without hurting his eyes.  At 86, he got impatient with himself because he couldn’t preach more than twice a day.  But, best of all, he complained in his diary during this time that there was an “increasing tendency to lie in bed until 5:30 in the morning.”!

I’m just against imposing limits on anyone.  When we do so, we impose them on ourselves, as well.  Age is one of those things- along with money, time, education, etc - that people use to limit what they think other people can or will do.  Thankfully, men and women who refuse to be limited just keep proving them wrong over and over again.  The examples above are just a precious few, can you imagine how many more there actually are? 

Get this:  According to “Speaker’s Sourcebook II” (where many of the facts, above, came from), researchers studied the lives of 400 famous people.  They found that 35 percent of the group’s achievements came when they were between the ages of 60 and 70.  23 percent when they were between 70 and 80, and 8 percent when they were over 80.  As the author, Glenn Van Ekeren, concluded - ”The world’s greatest work has been achieved by people over 60.”

That’s great news for all of us.  For those who are 60 or above, you know you’re in the zone!  For the rest of us, we know our best is still ahead. 

Growing old is not upsetting; being perceived as old is. - Kenny Rogers

To age with dignity and with courage cuts close to what it is to be a man. - Roger Kahn

You don’t stop laughing because you grow old; you grow old because you stop laughing. - Michael Pritchard

How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was? - Satchel Paige

And my favorite:  Live your life and forget your age! - Norman Vincent Peale