Wisdom, Courage and Strength

Visited with a friend last night whom I hadn't seen in quite some time. I've known this fellow for nearly 20 years. We worked together out in the Dakotas and have continued our friendship through the years. A lot has happened over those years in our lives and I've always considered him to be a touchstone for me.

This man went through a lot in life before I knew him and his life turned around. Sure, he has his everyday 'life' issues like all of us. But he embodies virtues that are good for all of us. These are virtues I strive to capture in my daily life. I believe I learned these from Phil Pringle and keep them written in a place where they can be easily retrieved.

• Wisdom - ability to discern right from wrong, to know the right thing to do in any situation.
• Courage - doing what is right, no matter what the consequences are.
• Strength - capacity to continue doing the right thing, to carry through to the end, to finish what you started.

Wisdom, courage and strength - three essential virtues to have in life. It would be neat if we could put it into some neat acronym, but they are easy enough to remember.

“The power of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special efforts, but by his ordinary doing” - Blaise Pascal

Try A New Way

“If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.”

- John D. Rockefeller, whose son John D. Rockefeller, Jr. built the Empire State Building.

Gone In Sixty Seconds

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Did you realize that you have a higher chance of getting injured when you are angry. In fact, a study published in the "Annals of Family Medicine" suggests that your chances are quadrupled when angry. You can see the story in a USA Today article. But what is anger?

Anger is "an emotional state that varies in intensity from mild irritation to intense fury and rage," according to Charles Spielberger, PhD, a psychologist who specializes in the study of anger. But I'm not here to talk about anger itself and again, you can read about it at Controlling Anger -- Before It Controls You.

What I am here to say is that for every minute you are angry, you lose those sixty seconds of happiness that Emerson talks of. Anger may release stress, but happiness will produce results more often. Happiness can create greater self-esteem in oneself.

Low self-esteem plagues many outwardly successful people (Self-Esteem: Paradoxes and Innovations in Clinical Theory and Practice by Richard L. Bednar and Scott R. Peterson). There is disagreement about the overall benefits of a high self-esteem. But many do believe it makes us more confident.

"Definitions of self-esteem vary...but all agree that high self-esteem means that we appreciate ourselves and our personal worth. More specifically, it means:

we have a positive attitude
we value ourselves highly
we're convinced of our own abilities
we see ourselves as competent, in control of our own lives and able to do what we want"

-From the BBC Health website.

Regardless of the clinical theory, feeling happy makes us feel better and we tend to have a better life. Being angry takes away from those happy times. Don't lose one minute of happiness.

Move To Change Your World

"Change your thoughts and you change your world." - Norman Vincent Peale

Lately I've been on this thread of setting a goal and then moving on it. Many times we as human beings will write down (hopefully) those things we want to accomplish or gain. But in this same stroke of wanting, we fail to make any changes to achieve them.

For some reason we sit back thinking that the stars need to be perfectly aligned or the 'timing' is not right or even leave our destiny in the hands of other events occurring first.

Waiting for the time to be right or for other events to occur first will ensure that we remain steadfastly planted in one place. We will never achieve that which we want by waiting for others to bring our goals to us.

It is much like sitting and waiting for the lottery winnings to become yours. Yes, I will admit that someone, somewhere at some place in time wins the lottery. But do you realize your chances of winning the Powerball jackpot is 1 in 146,107,962. That's right, not very good if you are looking to achieve a financial windfall. Sitting and waiting for that winning number means you will most likely wait a long, long time.

So why not get up and start doing something. Make a change and change your world. It all begins with that first bold step.

The above art work is available at Sally Evans Art.