Your Coffee Cup

“The smell of coffee was enough to wake up my neighbors. In a display of gratitude, they complained about my music being too loud.” ― Jarod Kintz

Are we in such a state of concern to think a red cup can define our life?

Take the story of group of people, highly established in their beliefs, getting together one day at a favorite Starbucks location to chat. Their conversation soon turned into complaints about their life, society and the plain red holiday cups the Starbucks coffee was served in.

Soon a stranger having overheard their conversation found several older cups on the shelves having more holiday themed designs. He paid for each of the cups filled with coffee and offered them to the group gathered at the table.

Each of the astounded coffee drinkers took the festive cups setting their own drinks to the side. When all of them had their new cup of coffee in hand, the stranger said: "If you noticed, all of the holiday themed cups have been taken up, leaving behind the plain red ones."

He continued by saying, "While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink."

Consider that life is the coffee.

Your jobs, money and position in society are the cups. Your cup might be red, blue, brown, white, black or festive holiday themed. But those cups are just tools to hold and contain life.

The cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of life we live.

Many times by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee. We enjoy and live for the coffee, not the cups! The happiest of people do not necessarily have the best of everything.

What they do is make the best of everything.

Enjoy your coffee, tea or milk in any cup that is handy. Inside is what matters.

Stay inspired my friends!

Walk the Red Carpet

"The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate." - Oprah Winfrey

Roll out the red carpet.

Let trumpets blare your arrival.

Crowds cheer from the left and right while paparazzi clamor for your attention.

Could all of this really be for you?

Accomplishment whether large or small are worth celebrating, if only taking simple pleasure in feeling you have done a good job. Every little thing you do can be deemed a success. Every time you cause another to smile, to laugh or ease even their smallest burden is worth celebrating.

Many believe it takes the grandest of accomplishments such as raising millions of dollars for a charity.

Many believe it takes solving world hunger or any one of a number of human needs to garner celebration.

Most of what you do each day are worthy of celebration. By holding the door open for someone carrying a package, you have something worth celebrating. It could be offering a bit of encouragement to someone down on their luck. Showing up at your child's school to have lunch with them, to hold the hand of a friend in tough times and dropping a few coins in a street person's cup without questioning.

It may seem prideful or pretentious for us to declare the small accomplishments in grandeur. Others may consider it "putting on airs" (pretend to be grander and more important than they really are). Yet that is far from my point. I want you to feel good about the good you do. We spend way too much time beating ourselves up over the minor infractions. We should spend some time lifting ourselves up instead.

Life is worth celebrating. The good however small or seemingly insignificant should be celebrated. We should walk the red carpet once in a while.

Stay inspired my friends.

Red Light, Green Light

"It is in the moments of our decisions, that our destiny is shaped." -Anthony Robbins

I was driving to work this morning after having breakfast with my lovely wife Laura. We were discussing a possible change in our lives to accomodate something that is dear to our hearts. But it is a decision that impacts not just us, but our family and friends as well. That means we are giving it careful thought before moving forward.

During the short drive from breakfast to work, early as it is I came up to the stop light at an intersection. As I sat there in the fading darkness of night, the green of the traffic light for cross traffic jumped out at me. But so did the glowing red of the stop light in front of me. Each light seemed to be accomplishing the same thing.

The thought struck me that these traffic lights were not just there to safely guide me through. The red and green were also there to slow me down in my busy and hectic life. I'm sure you can relate to being busy and I'm not here to say mine is any busier than yours. While it may seem that the stop lights are getting in your way, they are actually slowing you down.

They give you time to catch up with yourself and consider what is going on. It is similar to slowing down and making thoughtful choices about how you are going to proceed. Those decisions we make in life are sometimes 'drop of the hat', quick and without much thought. We move on and correct maybe a wrong decision later. If only we would stop for a moment or two first, we may save ourselves further down the road.

What it might save is getting pulled over further down the street for having run a 'yellowish-red' light at the intersection. It may have saved a life from running a red-light and not making it.

But some will ask, how long should I stop and think about my decision? My answer is "how long is a piece of rope?" I can not answer that for you because it depends upon you and your willingness to feel comfortable with the decision. For that matter, how long do you sit at a red light?

Depending upon whom you ask, how long it takes is very much like this chart.

Cheezburger.com

So take care and watch out for those red lights cautioning us to slow down. Take the time to make your decisions wisely and then get ready. The light is going to turn green on your life.