Storms Revealed

"Storms reveal what a sunny day conceals." -Jill Sweetman

When the day begins, I get into my car and drive off down the road to work. In the breaking morning light, I look to the sky in order to get a sense of what the weather is going to be like. Since I was raised on the farm, I've learned to appreciate and curse what awaits over the horizon.

I may look to a weather forecast and judge what kind of day it might be, but I would rather wait upon the change. If the day starts out sunny and mild, the expectation of a great day sets the mood for many of us. We tend to be more pleasing to others and in our attitude.

When things are going well such as family, work and other aspects of our lives; our true ability to weather a storm is easily concealed. There is an old phrase that goes, "when the going gets tough, the tough get going." In many respects that phrase is about determination to overcome. But when the going gets tough, when the 'storms' in your life occur, our true nature is revealed.

Think again of the morning drive into work. If storms are filling the early day with rain, wind and miserable conditions, do you allow your spirits to be dampened. When you do, it will translate into stress, shortness with others and just a lousy attitude.

If you learn to accept the rain and adjust your own reaction to it, the drive isn't so bad. Your own attitude can bring a certain 'sunshine' into the gloominess of a rainy day. Very easy for me to state the obvious, but you need to examine your own attitude when things are bad.

When things are going well, it is easy to be positive about things. Yet when things are going not so well in your life, this will be the true measure of your inner attitude.

Stay inspired my friends.

You Wanna Be Like Me

"There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world." -Robert Louis Stevenson

My single thought for the day. Stay inspired my friends!

Inspired Streetsweepers

"If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, 
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven played music, 
or Shakespeare wrote poetry.

He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well." 

-Rev. Martin Luther King-

We each have inside the yearning to be the greatest at something. We want to be remembered for greatness that will carry our name in the memory of history for others to read about. We want to be remembered like those individuals who remain in the minds and teachings of people well into the future.

Yet we can not all achieve that level of notoriety nor does it mean true success if we do. Success means doing the very best at what we do with our lives; how we live our lives; and what we do for others. Success means trying to be the very best 'streetsweeper' that one can be.

It does not mean that you should not strive for the most majestic of things. What it means to say is that regardless of what you do in life, do it the best way possible.

I will never be the greatest writer to live nor will historians mark my passing. But the words that I do write are done with the best effort I can muster. The words I write will impact people and change their lives in small and big ways. You have the same abilities to impact others and to impact life with how you live your life.

Take that 'thing you do' and do it the very best you can. It will impact the lives of others and inspire them to something greater. In the end there will be those that do say, "here lived a great person who did his job well."

Stay inspired my friends.

Courage to Sit

“Courage is the discovery that you may not win, and trying when you know you can lose.” -Tom Krause

In most of the stories you read about a person exhibiting courage, you read that this person or that person "stood up" in an act of courage. But sometimes courage is shown by simply sitting down.

With the 50th Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 March on Washington D.C. (August 28, 1963), many stood up in courage but there were many that sat down with just as much courage.

The most notable person we can look to is Rosa Parks. On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order that she give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger, after the white section was filled. Yes, we actually had colored and white sections in most every part of life. That is what segregation means.

Many had the courage to break through segregation.

Rosa Parks quietly refused to give up that seat in which she sat. It was a courageous act that did get her arrested, but it helped to launch the civil rights movement here in the United States. And yes, Rosa was no stranger to politics and knew very well what she was doing. She had been a secretary with the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP since 1943.

There were many that tried to create a much more innocent myth that Rosa's unwillingness to get up was due to aching feet. “No” she would say, “the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

One act of courage in which one person sat for change sparked a nation to greater change. It would give others the example to act courageously and so many did. And you could be the one that sits or stands in courageous manner. You can be the one that takes one small act and changes a nation.

It may not seem quite so big at the time when you decide to take your seat on the bus. Moses lifted a crooked stick and parted a sea. David had a small sling-shot and brought down a giant. You help pay for a single mother's groceries one day and the possiblity of greatness happening is put into motion.

Act with courage in everything you do and realize that possibility isn't as hard as we think.

Stay inspired my friends.