The symphony of motivation, happiness, and self-improvement orchestrates a harmonious life where each note contributes to the melody of personal growth. Staying motivated requires the cultivation of a mindset that draws inspiration from challenges, transforming adversity into opportunities for learning and advancement. Happiness, the crescendo of a life well-lived, unfolds when one aligns their actions with their authentic self. To be better and stronger involves a commitment to continual self-discovery, learning, and growth, while navigating away from toxic influences—be it toxic people or political ideologies—ensures a path of positive transformation and genuine fulfillment.
God is the highest good of the reasonable creature. The enjoyment of him is our proper; and is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Better than fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of any, or all earthly friends. These are but shadows; but the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams; but God is the sun. These are but streams; but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean.
I consider myself a stained-glass window. And this is how I live my life. Closing no doors and covering no windows; I am the multi-colored glass with light filtering through me, in many different shades. Allowing light to shed and fall into many many hues. My job is not to direct anything, but only to filter into many colors. My answer is destiny and my guide is joy. And there you have me.
Some details in life may look insignificant but appear to be vital leitmotifs in a person's life. They may have the value of "Rosebuds" of Citizen Kane or "Madeleine cookies" of Marcel Proust or "Strawberry fields" of the Beatles. People regularly walk down the memory lane of their early youth. The paper boats of their childhood are recurrently floating on the waves of their mind and bring back the mood and the spirit of the early days. They enable us to retreat from the trivial, daily worries and can generate delightful bliss and true joy in a sometimes frantic and chaotic life.
Technologies of easy travel "give us wings; they annihilate the toil and dust of pilgrimage; they spiritualize travel! Transition being so facile, what can be any man’s inducement to tarry in one spot? Why, therefore, should he build a more cumbrous habitation than can readily be carried off with him? Why should he make himself a prisoner for life in brick, and stone, and old worm-eaten timber, when he may just as easily dwell, in one sense, nowhere,—in a better sense, wherever the fit and beautiful shall offer him a home?
“Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way... you become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.”
“You can't just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can't plan the moment you lose your way in the first place.”
― Sarah Dessen, Someone Like You
“When you're following your inner voice, doors tend to eventually open for you, even if they mostly slam at first.”
― Kelly Cutrone, If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You
“The comfort zone is a psychological state in which one feels familiar, safe, at ease, and secure. You never change your life until you step out of your comfort zone; change begins at the end of your comfort zone.”
― Roy T. Bennett
“I think... if it is true that
there are as many minds as there
are heads, then there are as many
kinds of love as there are hearts.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
“I'll never know, and neither will you, of the life you don't choose. We'll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn't carry us. There's nothing to do but salute it from the shore.”
― Cheryl Strayed
@prescottwhite@OkemoConditions@OkemoMountain Agree! Having to pack the family in the car with condo next to Sunshine lift is tough to explain to kids. Would love to see it 12/21?!?