Brave New World

"O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world! That has such people in it!" ~ Miranda's speech in Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act V, Scene I:[2]

So it goes, another birthday has passed for me and this one was pretty darn good to say the least. It was a momentous birthday; the kind that marks a milestone and places you into another category or stage of life. I am not one for marking the passing of my birthday, but this one was different.

While growing old means physical changes and marks the passage of time, my attitude remains young at heart. My goal is not to run with the young but to stay in tune with them as much as possible. To be around long enough to experience all of the great changes in this world that take place.

I look back to the late 1980s when my grandmother turned ninety. Grandma Josephine (no, I was not named after her), had seen so much in her lifetime. Think of the developments in cars, phones, computers and television that she experienced in those years. Grandma was always amazed and interested in those things.

During her birthday party celebrating those wonderful ninety years, we had a video camera to record the event. I will now date myself a bit, but this was the larger VCR tape cameras. It was not the 8mm camcorder or tiny iPhone cameras we have today. Grandma was amazed at the ability to record and see yourself right then and there.

Oh what a brave new world it was back then.

Even in my lifetime,

the Atari Pong game to the new DSi handheld game systems,
Polaroid cameras to smartphone cameras,
or the IBM 5100 to the iPad.

Each of these are but a tiny fraction of the huge advances made in my lifetime so far.

For my own birthdays along with other great gifts and cards, I have received an iPad. So am I really that cool and hip to get something like that? I found myself looking at that iPad like my grandmother looked at that VCR tape camera.

Oh what a brave new world it is now.

There will be huge changes in our world as time progresses. I will continue to see changes occur and I will work to keep youthful excitement inside of me. Your own attitude about life and age exists within your heart while the body grows old. Excitement of life can keep you moving forward towards new and greater things if you let it.

Oh what a brave new world it will continue to be.

Stay inspired my friends.

If You Can

by Rudyard Kipling (‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!


Stay inspired my friends!

Follow Your Shadow

"Instead of watching the bird as it flies above our heads, we chase his shadow along the ground; and, finding we cannot grasp it, we conclude it to be nothing." - Augustus William Hare

Each morning, we arise from slumber of night where our dreams have been allowed to run freely. The endless movie in our mind in which we have a vision of something for our life. It is so real in dreams that we can almost touch them.

Yet we wake from them with the rising sun, only to let them float away like a child's balloon. Our waking hours cause us to concentrate on work and the everyday task of living. The waking hours also push our dreams into a quiet corner of the mind.

We may have passing thoughts of them such as the shadow of a bird flying overhead. We see the dream, but when we look up it has passed and is no where to be found. So we decide the dream did not exist. Did the dream really ever happen?

In slumber it seems so real. It is in slumber that we allow ourselves to believe the dream or vision can occur. Only in waking hours do we push it off as a shadow of something that doesn't exist.

Those dreams and visions can become real in your life if you allow yourself to believe in them. They are not passing shadows of nothing. They can be pursued and found just as the shadow has a real existence to it. The shadow is of a soaring bird reaching higher levels.

Believe your dreams can come true and find yourself soaring to higher levels. Stay inspired my friends.

If I Could

“To hurt is as human as to breathe.” ― J.K. Rowling

If I could, but I have no words for my words feel weak.

There is pain and sadness filling the voids of time. So many hurting from emotion, from disease, from finances, from life taking a toll. My words feel powerless to heal those that hurt.

If I could comfort more wholly those that I know, I would.

If I could comfort with deeper ability to help, I would.

Many around us hurt as we walk through life. We hurt, we comfort, we live life with all that it presents to us. Will I be able to ease your pain as you have done for me in the past? Will we be able to chase hurt completely from our lives if we try hard enough?

With the pain of hurt I know the joy of laughter, I do.

With the pain of hurt I know I am alive with hope, I do.

For those hurting from finance, from relationship, from injuries, from cancer, from the pain life inflicts; if I could, my words would heal. But my words only provide a ray of hope, a chance to know you will get beyond the hurt.

If I could, there will be words of joy in your life.

Stay inspired my friends.