The life we all live is filled with varying circumstances. With little regard to a persons present condition, circumstance simply happens. It is how we deal with it that dictates how it impacts our lives. Benjamin Disraeli said, “circumstances are beyond human control, but our conduct is in our own power.”
It is our conduct that you do have control over. How you react, how you perceive and how you continue on with your life will help determine the outcome. For this life that goes on through circumstance and design will create voids that must be filled. As one person moves into another opportunity, a need is created.
You get presented with these opportunities to fill and make change. How you choose to conduct your reaction to opportunity, the challenge or circumstance will determine your success or failure. A pebble in the water causes ripples of change that flow out from it. Do you choose to be angry because the pebble interrupted the calm smooth water? Or do you choose to marvel at the waves it creates along the shore?
Think of a sail boat along the southern coast of the United States. Sitting there with little chance of making progress to its destination. Across the ocean the warm air of the deserts creates a wind coming off the coast of Africa. It builds momentum and blows across the ocean to fill the sails of this boat. One effect causes another and the captain of the sail boat could have chosen to abandon all hope lost, or wait with the attitude knowing that change will occur. For he knows that opportunity will arise and he must be ready for it.
Change, circumstance and new opportunity are the conditions upon which the sail boat and more importantly our lives endure. Maintain a good attitude and believe that change will occur. Whatever the circumstance, be content in knowing that an opportunity has been presented to you. Move forward with belief and knowledge that goodness can come from it.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Bad Things Happening to Good People
You have probably asked this in your own life, "why do bad things happen to good people?" It is an age old type of question that really serves the purpose of wondering why things happen at all. We have a never ending quest to understand that which happens around us.
When it comes to the question itself, bad things don't happen to just good people, they happen to all kinds of people. Life is that way but sympathy for when it happens to bad people just doesn't happen all that often. It is our human nature to feel pity or sorrow for the good folks in life that become afflicted with a bad issue.
A friend of mine through work is recovering from breast cancer after having undergone treatments to overcome this 'bad thing' which happened. She has a great attitude and certainly realize that her bad moments occur, yet she always has a smile upon her face. She is the same person I've always known. A good person upon which a bad thing happened. But she appears to be approaching it with the same fight and attitude that has been a part of her for as long as I've known her.
In an article called, 'Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?' by Deanna Mascle, she gives an example of this as well. We look to the good that has been, is now and will be in the future. It is life happening at us with varying speed and variety. Good happens to good people as well and this you must remember.
When it comes to the question itself, bad things don't happen to just good people, they happen to all kinds of people. Life is that way but sympathy for when it happens to bad people just doesn't happen all that often. It is our human nature to feel pity or sorrow for the good folks in life that become afflicted with a bad issue.
A friend of mine through work is recovering from breast cancer after having undergone treatments to overcome this 'bad thing' which happened. She has a great attitude and certainly realize that her bad moments occur, yet she always has a smile upon her face. She is the same person I've always known. A good person upon which a bad thing happened. But she appears to be approaching it with the same fight and attitude that has been a part of her for as long as I've known her.
In an article called, 'Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?' by Deanna Mascle, she gives an example of this as well. We look to the good that has been, is now and will be in the future. It is life happening at us with varying speed and variety. Good happens to good people as well and this you must remember.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Path To Change
A couple of days off from writing has helped to renew my spirit and given me some time to reflect on changes. I have written many times that movement causes change. That change is inevitable and that you must flow and adapt to what life sets before you.
My change is that a son has joined the Army within the last week and is leaving for training in a few more days. Before I go any further, I am no wallowing or asking for empathy. Nor am I here to lift any of this up into greater valor for ones country. Many parents go through the anxiety of 'what could happen'. Many parents also experience the proud feelings of a son or daughter making this step in life.
I myself ran through many of these emotions and to this day, I stand behind my son's decision to make a change. What he has done at age 21 is make a decision to cause movement in his life. His story is like many kids, young adults I should be saying. After high school, attempts at college and finding it was not the answer and then wondering around at low end jobs. Looking for some answer that would let him know what to do.
But in all of that working and waiting, he must have found that he had to make a change in his life. He was not going to be one to sit idly in his home town, same people, same circumstances, 'same old, same old'. So this is the path he chose, the movement for his life that will cause tremendous change for him. One that can cause change for those around and in his life.
In my articles about the 'crossroads', once choose to take those steps through the door of opportunity, you find yourself staring at many different roads. Your job is to choose one of them and move in that direction. No one can tell you what will happen, how the story ends or what it will do to your life. But with an open mind and attitude, movement will cause change in your life and great things will eventually happen.
My change is that a son has joined the Army within the last week and is leaving for training in a few more days. Before I go any further, I am no wallowing or asking for empathy. Nor am I here to lift any of this up into greater valor for ones country. Many parents go through the anxiety of 'what could happen'. Many parents also experience the proud feelings of a son or daughter making this step in life.
I myself ran through many of these emotions and to this day, I stand behind my son's decision to make a change. What he has done at age 21 is make a decision to cause movement in his life. His story is like many kids, young adults I should be saying. After high school, attempts at college and finding it was not the answer and then wondering around at low end jobs. Looking for some answer that would let him know what to do.
But in all of that working and waiting, he must have found that he had to make a change in his life. He was not going to be one to sit idly in his home town, same people, same circumstances, 'same old, same old'. So this is the path he chose, the movement for his life that will cause tremendous change for him. One that can cause change for those around and in his life.
In my articles about the 'crossroads', once choose to take those steps through the door of opportunity, you find yourself staring at many different roads. Your job is to choose one of them and move in that direction. No one can tell you what will happen, how the story ends or what it will do to your life. But with an open mind and attitude, movement will cause change in your life and great things will eventually happen.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Atmosphere of Attitude
"The atmosphere we create within ourselves is the life we live, the thoughts we think and emotions we feel. We create our own atmosphere with the words we speak, the attitudes we hold and the songs we sing. We create our culture with the vision we have, the people we are with and the values we live by." - Fergus McIntyre
To be a person working to achieve a great life for yourself and those around you, it starts from within. Your own thoughts and emotions drive what you express outwardly. If you have an attitude of woe and despair. If you are always feeling that 'the worst is yet to come', then your entire being will be shaped in this manner.
Those thoughts and emotions get spoken and expressed outwardly when you engage in life. To have a better image of what life is and can be will get expressed that way. When you speak to others, your words will lift instead of depress. In a woeful place of misery inside yourself, do you really want the outside world to be this way? Likely not, so turn around your internal spirit - turn around to a positive way of thinking.
A positive view will get expressed outwardly causing others to 'want' to be around you. People that are like-minded and looking for this greater life. More opportunity will come your way, more positive reinforcement will come your way. Soon you will find the atmosphere around you and your world creating a culture of greatness.
I have heard it said that there is a place of influence upon each of your lives. The many people you touch and encounter in your life at different levels - you effect each of them. If your influence is one of woe and despair, it will be one of woe and despair that you place upon others. In return it is likely you will only receive woe and despair.
But to be a person of greatness, of encouragement and aspiring attitude - surely you will receive all that and more in return. A great life is one which each of you deserve but it doesn't come free, it isn't a right but it is one that can be achieved. One that everyone can achieve at one level or another. For the great life is different for everyone. Be different and choose greatness, choose now.
To be a person working to achieve a great life for yourself and those around you, it starts from within. Your own thoughts and emotions drive what you express outwardly. If you have an attitude of woe and despair. If you are always feeling that 'the worst is yet to come', then your entire being will be shaped in this manner.
Those thoughts and emotions get spoken and expressed outwardly when you engage in life. To have a better image of what life is and can be will get expressed that way. When you speak to others, your words will lift instead of depress. In a woeful place of misery inside yourself, do you really want the outside world to be this way? Likely not, so turn around your internal spirit - turn around to a positive way of thinking.
A positive view will get expressed outwardly causing others to 'want' to be around you. People that are like-minded and looking for this greater life. More opportunity will come your way, more positive reinforcement will come your way. Soon you will find the atmosphere around you and your world creating a culture of greatness.
I have heard it said that there is a place of influence upon each of your lives. The many people you touch and encounter in your life at different levels - you effect each of them. If your influence is one of woe and despair, it will be one of woe and despair that you place upon others. In return it is likely you will only receive woe and despair.
But to be a person of greatness, of encouragement and aspiring attitude - surely you will receive all that and more in return. A great life is one which each of you deserve but it doesn't come free, it isn't a right but it is one that can be achieved. One that everyone can achieve at one level or another. For the great life is different for everyone. Be different and choose greatness, choose now.
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