In Three Words

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life - It Goes On." - Robert Frost

It certainly does.  Life goes on whether we want it to or not.  Sometimes we are glad it moves and other times we may regret that it moves so quickly.  Yet no matter what we wish, it continues to go on with or without our permission or opinions.

So what do we do about it?  We allow it to go on while doing the best we can in each given moment.  We allow ourselves to be whoever and whatever we are at the time, whether it is our best, worst or average.  We don't judge either the moment or ourselves as good or bad. We allow life to go on, understanding and knowing that in the end it really doesn't matter because, since life does go on, there is always another chance, another beginning or even another ending coming.

You are proof that life does go on and that whatever it takes or brings along with it is OK.  How can I say this?  Because you and I are OK.  We are living our lives individually and alongside each other.  We may have different experiences, perspectives, ideas and beliefs, but we have all experience growth due to the movement of time.  We have grown from infants to toddlers to children to teens and become either a young or older adult.  None of us were able to stop life from going forward in our past anymore than we can now stop it from continuing now.  So we might as well enjoy the journey and move along with life as it unfolds.  Take the time to enjoy and remember moments, for when life seems to be moving too fast it will be those moments and memories that will make it OK. 

Express Gratitude

"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it:" - Unknown

I have found this quote several times during the last week while browsing the internet as part of a personal project at work.  Each time I read it brings to mind something I have not expressed gratitude for lately.  It is a reminder to me to notice and express pleasure in little things that happen I may not do otherwise.  There is encouragement in this quote to share and talk with others about the positive things in life.

Gratitude begins with a feeling of appreciation  which until it is expressed in some manner, be it through song, written word or verbal announcement, it stays within.  We can choose to stay focused inside ourselves or decide to reach out and share with others.  This is the moment when the feeling turns from appreciation to gratitude, h from a recognition of something pleasant to being thankful.   The next natural step is the joy that comes from allowing someone else, in even a small way, to share your happiness and perhaps be encouraged to look at their own circumstances for blessings and the good they are surrounded by. 

I encourage you to take a few moments to reflect on your life. What are the things you enjoy doing, having or learning?  Who are the people that make a difference in or touch your life?  What talents, skills or special knowledge do you have?  What activities do you participate in that make your life better, richer or more meaningful?  What things do you own or use that someone else might not have or would like to have?  Are there places you go that bring you pleasure?  Do you believe in a higher source of power, inspiration or guidance? How is your health or how do the systems and parts of your body work from day to day? 

Now find a way to express the feelings you have.  Write a poem.  Dance with a family member.  Sing a song.  Tell someone you care.  Send a letter to someone.  Draw a picture.  Shout out your feelings.  Express your thoughts in prayer.  However you choose to do it, enjoy and give away the gift of gratitude. 

Enjoy the Little Things - Now

Enjoy the little things in life…for one day you’ll look back and realize they were the big things. (Robert Brault)

I can truly echo this statement, for through my own experiences I have learned the importance of looking for and enjoying the little things as they happen.  We cannot recapture the moments and time moves forward whether we want it to or not.  What we do not appreciate and enjoy now can only be remembered later. 

Even when we know we should be enjoying the little things we do not always do so.  We may be so focused on something else in the moment that we barely react.  A mother, busy tying a shoe for a toddler may offer her cheek for a goodbye kiss from a spouse or another child as they leave, accepting the action as something small and routine for each of them.  The underlying steady love, appreciation and support may not fully be appreciated until later, when the children or spouse are no longer willing or present to share their love on a daily basis.

In our busy, active lives we schedule the activities and appointments that demand our attention or we are afraid may be forgotten.  While these places to be and things to do seem of the most importance, it is really the small things, unwritten, occurring between the lines that end up being the big things, the things remembered. .  Making sure you get the child to the game on time is important, right now, but what he will remember isn’t whether you made it early or late, but rather the talks that occurred during those rides or the ice cream after a loss.   Your daughter won’t remember whether you were late for a parent-teacher conference or a dance lesson but she will remember hearing you express your pride in her for the talents and skills you know she has. 

Sometimes it is our perceptions that hamper us from enjoying the little things.  As a mother, you pick up the crayons and torn crumpled piece of paper with what to your adult eyes appears to be nothing more than scribbles of lines and shapes with no meaning.  To you it is simply another piece of paper to be thrown away, until the little boy comes running in.  He is excited you found his drawing and boisterously explains what the lines, spaces, shapes and colors represent. A small piece of paper changes, with understanding, into his masterpiece for the day, a true work of art to be cherished.

 As our lives change we realize some of the small things we may have taken for granted in the past.   A frazzled mother, surrounded by screaming toddlers racing past her, looks back to a time when they slept peacefully for hours at a time, or forward a few hours to the hope of the quiet after bedtime.  The father who reluctantly played catch with a little boy one night now stands surrounded by the trophies the gift of a few minutes resulted in.  An aging grandparent reminisces about days of cookie covered tables, paper creations and chocolate covered faces as she listens on the phone to a grandchild tell her about his latest school project. 

At times we simply do not appreciate the little things until we recognize that the small things we take for granted are or would be the big things to someone else.  A father complains about how expensive it is to feed and clothe a child until the childless couple next door asks if  he will allow them to be a Secret Friend because they just want to share their love with the children they know and care about.   A mother apologizes for the crayon and sticky fingerprints on the wall  and the toys on the floor until  the visitor she thought she needed to impress begins crying and explains she lost a child to illness and wishes she could experience the wonder of wall art, growth prints and learning objects again. 

Whether small or big, I encourage us all to experience these things now.  Enjoy the moments of your life now, and reflect joyfully on them later.   

Starting the Next Chapter

"You can't start the next chapter in your life if you keep re-reading the last one." Unknown

There are so many ways of interpreting this, but today is a good day to think about what it could mean for you. 

Picture attribution: Pixaby free images

Life is all about growing, learning and changing.  Each of these words imply a sense of moving.  Generally it involves moving toward something new, something different or something unexpected.  Occasionally it may mean repeating something in order to make a better decision or find a better solution to a situation.  One thing about life is for sure, it goes on, with or without your permission, all around you.  The next day, the next chapter, or the next experience is waiting for you.

The last chapter of your life happened. You may have laughed or you may have cried. You may have been alone or had someone important to you supporting or loving you through. You may have failed or you may have succeeded.  You may have found some rest or worked your hardest.  You may have forgotten or you may have remembered something or someone that made a difference for you.  You may have learned something new or remembered you already knew what you needed to make it through this chapter.  Whatever happened or wherever you ended up, you finished.  Congratulations.

Like the student who just graduated, you are at a new starting point.  You have been coached, taught and encouraged. You have been presented with a myriad of lessons and experiences which assisted you in learning the skills, gaining the knowledge or improving your abilities needed to begin the next chapter or next phase of life. You have been prepared.  Just like the student you may feel uneasy about what the future holds.  Like the student, you may want to just remain as you are.  You like who you are at this moment.  Facing the unknown holds the possibility of events or experiences which may change you.  Like the student, you may want to hold tightly to the relationships of friends and teachers and the security of structured/planned days.  Instead of moving on you try to keep what you have, or re-read the last chapter hoping to find all the answers instead of turning the page.

Today is the beginning of your next chapter.  It might be only a new day or it may be a new month. Perhaps you are at a crossroad, ready to make a choice of which new path to take.  Perhaps you have experienced a recent life event such as marriage, the birth of a new child and you now have someone new to share joys and sorrows with.  You may have just experience the loss of a companion through divorce or death and now must move forward without the thought of including them in decisions.  Are you the one starting a new job or a facing an opportunity you thought would never come your way?   Whoever you are, what ever your circumstances and wherever you are at this moment, now is your time to turn the page.  It is time to start a new chapter only you can write.  

It's A New Year- Evaluate Where You Are

As I have said before, I am no better than you.  I am a regular human being with strengths and weaknesses.   I experience success and failure. I stumble.  I fall.  I have to pick myself up, rush off the dust and begin again.  I have to pause to reevaluate life and the choices I made or can make now.  I have moments of joy and other moments of sorrow or regret.  There are days when things go well and more days when things seem overwhelming and impossible to get through.  Like you, I have times when responsibilities seem to overtake everything and the things I enjoy or feel passionate about get set on the back burner to simmer or cool while I put out the fires, provide or support others, deal with unexpected setbacks or emergencies or juggle increasing demands for my time. 

Putting my interests and passions on the back burner is a good way of describing what happened the past months with this blog.  I was enjoying sharing some quotes and thoughts which I hoped would lift someone's spirit or give encouragement.  I was able to share on a fairly regular schedule for several months last year.  I loved what I was doing and wanted to do more.   Life events changed, just as they do in yours, and demands on my time, energy and focus shifted.  This blog, unfortunately for all of us, got neglected.  My thoughts were still here and I often wrote in various places, such as a journal or sticky notes something I thought valuable to share with others, yet choices were made to spend my time in other activities, meeting the needs and requests of others, working and struggling to make ends meet. I even took the leap from renting back to owning a home, including packing and unpacking (which is still proceeding gradually), changing schools and all the inherent expected and unexpected differences in time management and priorities which go along with such a decision.

A new year is beginning.  Like you, I am looking forward to not only what 2017 will offer me but what I can do (or wish to) to make this year one of the best, not only for myself but also for others I care about, which includes you.    So just as I encourage you to forgive yourself, I ask you to forgive me for not sharing more these past months.  I pray I will be able to reach back out to you regularly, touch your spirit and support you through whatever experiences come your way during this new year. 

I thank you for your patience and understanding.  I hope that something I say may be of benefit to  you or someone you know.  None of us live life alone.  There is always someone near or in our thoughts.  So feel free to take anything of value you find in these pages, pass them on or encourage someone you know with your own experiences or thoughts.  

So join me in this new year.  Begin something new or go back to something you put on hold for awhile.  Realign your priorities, demands and interests.  Use this year to improve your own or touch someone else with your talents, abilities, hopes, dreams and strength.   Between us, we have the possibility to make this year one to be remembered.

Choose Which to Surf

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"Feelings are like waves, we can't stop them from coming but we can choose which one to surf." - Jonatan Mattensson

The best thing I can add to this quote is my own endorsement that this is true. The key is to remember you always have a choice. 

You will always have feelings, some good, some bad, some you hope you can keep forever and some you wish had never surfaced.  Feelings may come suddenly or over a period of time, building up until they can no longer be ignored.  Feelings come and go many times a day some noticed and some so fleeting you hardly know they were there. Your size, culture, genetics or life circumstances will not stop feelings from appearing.  Some of these conditions may affect your outlook, but none will eliminate or keep feelings away. 

You can, however, decide which feelings to embrace or hold on to and which ones to just let go.  If you are anything like me, you also know that the choice may differ from day to day.  You may decide it is okay to feel a little sad or disappointed today.  Perhaps something very important to you changed and you need time to grieve or appropriately handle the new reality.  Tomorrow you may decide to look at things from another perspective, allowing only positive, happy feelings to stay.  It doesn't and won't ever be the same everyday.  It is up to you.  Make a choice for you. 

Surf the waves your own way.  Choose to move through life with excitement and joy.  Enjoy the ride.  It is your life. 

A Part of Your Life



 wwwgoodmorningquote.com/letting-go-quotes-images/

"The only thing that makes it a part of your life is that you keep thinking about it."

 

In reviewing a list of quotes, this one stood out for me because I knew it was true.  Recently a series of moments, during what I would call a less than perfect day, left me feeling depressed, frustrated, unhappy and questioning my decision and who I thought I was..  I kept thinking,  about the day, consciously or unconsciously, allowing myself to stay in that same frame of mind, each day getting more depressed and lower in my self-esteem.   

The first thing I had to do was to realize  I was holding on to the experience by thinking and analyzing whether I should or shouldn't feel the way I was. The thing which was triggering my thinking was a dent in my new car.   I couldn't change the dent, but I could change my perspective or thinking about it.  Instead of viewing the dent as a reminder of something wrong, a bad day or unusual choices I needed to allow it to be simply what it was a dent.   I could continue to dwell on all the reasons it had occurred or stop thinking and let it be a moment in life, something that occurred but didn't make a lot of difference as life and time moved on.  Just as the dent was a minor flaw on an otherwise smooth metal surface, so the experience was just a wrinkle in the otherwise smooth flow of good days I had been enjoying and the ones that followed.  

The dent has not disappeared, but my depression, lowered self-esteem and feeling of frustration have.  I no longer dwell on what I should or could have done differently that particular day.  Now, if I happen to notice the dent, it serves as a reminder to let the small things in life be small and enjoy the abundance of good things and wonderful moments I experience everyday. 

The choice is yours. Are you going to allow something negative to remain by continuing to dwell on and think about it or let it go so something better can become a part of your life?