Who Decides

"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today."
- Abraham Lincoln

Everyday we are faced with decisions that need to be made and obligations that must be agreed to or kept.

The obvious ones include getting up in the morning and choosing to go into work or school. The harder decisions might be staying in a particular job or what career to pursue after completing your time in school.

It requires having responsibility; to ourselves and to others.

The easy to do is to put off until tomorrow those things which we find hard or uncomfortable to deal with. Doing so only delays the inevitable and can many times make the results much harder to accept.

Responsibility means taking accountability for your actions and decisions.

Many people will use excuses to side step accountability. It was someone else's fault, there is no way I could have done such a thing or I am not capable enough. Certainly there will be times when things are out of your control or simply outside the bounds of your capacity.

Do not get caught in the trap of using excuses as a crutch to side step responsibility. Accept responsibility for who you are and the life you live. It will make both today and tomorrow a better place.

Stay inspired my friends!

Set Your Sails

From SoftPicks

"Every great discovery I ever made, I gambled that the truth was there, and then I acted in faith until I could prove its existence." - Arthur H. Compton

Every great discovery in your life, everything you believe about yourself, can only be achieved by having faith until you prove it. We do not simply achieve something without first envisioning and believing in it until we obtain the end result.

So many times we want to bypass all belief and simply achieve. We want to be walking along the beach and find gold coins washed up on the shore. Or maybe that we wake up one day and have everything we want suddenly there for us.

All of those methods are wishful thinking.

What can happen is we grab hold of a vision and believe in it. Christopher Columbus had a vision that the world was not flat. He believed sailing due west would cause him to find a new trade route to India.

So he set out with three ships and ninety men on Aug. 3, 1492 from Palos, Spain.

On October 11, 1492, he spotted the Caribbean Islands southeast of what is known now as North America.

It was a vast ocean of unknown for Columbus and it is the same vast ocean you will encounter when setting out upon your own discovery. Believing and adjusting along the way will eventually lead you to something newly discovered. for you see, Columbus did not find the trade route to India.

He found something new.

The same will happen to you.

What you first set out to discover may not be what you thought it would be. But the discovery will be what is correct and right for you. So set your sails for discovery and believe in your dreams. You will find a treasure that is far greater than you first thought.

Stay inspired my friends!

Little Bit Happier

“We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.” - Frederick Keonig

We have those moments on the weekend, maybe during the evening or a vacation to relax a little bit. We take the time to enjoy rest, family, friends and to simply unwind from many of our cares.

The tendency is to enjoy the weekend but not the week day.

One could suppose this is due to work and the rush of responsibility. Yet why not be happy every day of the week. Maybe let some of those minor cares get set aside every day of the week.

Lighten your worries and let them go.

There is a simple song by Bobby McFerrin titled 'Don't Worry, Be Happy'. The song was inspired by Meher Baba (1894-1969) who had often used an expression by the same name when writing to his friends and followers. It was later on in the 1960's when his well used expression was printed up on inspirational cards and posters.

It was in 1988 that the songwriter Bobby McFerrin noticed a similar poster in the apartment of the jazz band Tuck Patti in San Francisco. He was inspired by the charm and simplicity of it and sat down to write his now famous song.

In an interview Bruce Fessier did for USA Weekend Magazine in 1988 McFerrin said, "Whenever you see a poster of Meher Baba, it usually says 'Don't worry, be happy,' which is a pretty neat philosophy in four words, I think."

All of us should try to be a little happier in life.

Stay inspired my friends!

Deception In Place Of Truth

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave...when first we practice to deceive.” ― Walter Scott

The fall season officially started on September 22nd of this year and in many places people are starting to experience the cooling weather patterns. Of course this would be in the northern hemisphere with spring coming to those south of the equator.

Every year people look forward to the cooling temperatures after suffering the heat of summer. The autumn colors of leaves on the trees, shorter days and pumpkin spiced latte drinks all signal a change.

Knowing that a bitter winter lurks behind the fall season.

We tell ourselves the cooler weather is a joyous thing while knowing the harsh and brutal cold of winter comes quickly. It is a lazy lie we tell ourselves that winter will not be of any consequence. Maybe we have forgotten the lessons of the prior winter.

Deceiving ourselves often enough that it can become our truth.

There are many times we tell other lazy lies about our past. We exaggerate on topics of athletics, of education, of ability or beliefs. We tell ourselves that we have learned the lessons of the past but we fail to enact those lessons learned.

This is the point at which we lie to ourselves and make excuses for not having learned those lessons. We fool ourselves into believing we have it figured out but in reality we are repeating the same mistakes, same missteps and same failures.

Knowing that a bitter winter of pain lurks behind the lazy lie.

The lies we tell ourselves or others only mask the inevitable. They result in harsher pain when the truth is revealed. And what of the pain in trying to hold together the lie when freedom exists in the truth. So soon it will come to bear.

Do not deceive yourself or others around you. The knots which hold together the lifeline of lies are weak and insecure. Build your life upon truth and wisdom gained from our past. Do not allow a lazy lie to get in the way of a great life.

Stay inspired my friends!