Our Lives Are Not Determined by What Happens to Us but by How We React to What Happens

Our lives are not determined by what happens to us but by how we react to what happens, not by what life brings to us, but by the attitude we bring to life. A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events, and outcomes. It is a catalyst, a spark that creates extraordinary results. -Anon. Avoiding the phrase “I don’t have time...”, will soon help you to realize that you do have the time needed for just about anything you choose to accomplish in life. -Bo Bennett, "Year to Success" You know a dream is like a river, ever changing as it flows. And a dreamer's just a vessel that must follow where it goes. Trying to learn from what's behind you and never knowing what's in store makes each day a constant battle just to stay between the shores. And I will sail my vessel 'til the river runs dry. Like a bird upon the wind, these waters are my sky. I'll never reach my destination if I never try, So I will sail my vessel 'til the river runs dry. Too many times we stand aside and let the water slip away. To what we put off 'til tomorrow has now become today. So don't you sit upon the shore and say you're satisfied. Choose to chance the rapids and dare to dance the tides. -Garth Brooks, song "The River" co-written with Victoria Shaw Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistence. -Daniel Hudson Burnham The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well. -Pierre de Coubertin, "The Olympic Creed" Inspired by Bishop Ethelbert Talbot, speech, Olympic Games 1908 "Citius, Altius, Fortius" [Faster, Higher, Stronger] Father Didon was a friend of Baron Pierre de Coubertin who made this the Olympic Motto. -Henri Martin Didon, The Olympic Motto "Recognition is the greatest motivator." -Gerard C. Eakedale Five minutes of today are worth as much to me, as five minutes in the next millennium. Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, today. http://www.rwe.org/works/Essays-2nd_Series_2_Experience.htm -Ralph Waldo Emerson, Experience from Essays: Second Series (1844) Men who for truth and honor's sake Stand fast and suffer long. Brave men who work while others sleep, Who dare while others fly... They build a nation's pillars deep And lift them to the sky. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, from "A Nation's Strenth" "Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can't be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people. " -Lee Iacocca Any change, any loss, does not make us victims. Others can shake you, surprise you, disappoint you, but they can't prevent you from acting, from taking the situation you're presented with and moving on. No matter where you are in life, no matter what your situation, you can always do something. You always have a choice and the choice can be power. -Blaine Lee, The Power Principle How do I change? If I feel depressed I will sing. If I feel sad I will laugh. If I feel ill I will double my labour. If I feel fear I will plunge ahead. If I feel inferior I will wear new garments. If I feel uncertain I will raise my voice. If I feel poverty I will think of wealth to come. If I feel incompetent I will think of past success. If I feel insignificant I will remember my goals. Today I will be the master of my emotions. -Og Mandino, “The Greatest Salesman in the World” I will act now. I will act now. I will act now. Henceforth, I will repeat these words each hour, each day, everyday, until the words become as much a habit as my breathing, and the action which follows becomes as instinctive as the blinking of my eyelids. With these words I can condition my mind to perform every action necessary for my success. I will act now. I will repeat these words again and again and again. I will walk where failures fear to walk. I will work when failures seek rest. I will act now for now is all I have. Tomorrow is the day reserved for the labor of the lazy. I am not lazy. Tomorrow is the day when the failure will succeed. I am not a failure. I will act now. Success will not wait. If I delay, success will become wed to another and lost to me forever. This is the time. This is the place. I am the person. -Og Mandino The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both. -James A. Michener, attributed Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today? -Mary Manin Morrissey Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer. -Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." . . . You must do the thing you think you cannot do. -Eleanor Roosevelt I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all. -Leo Rosten Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. -Jim Ryun The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns. -George Santayana Whatever you are from nature, keep to it; never desert your own line of talent... Be what Nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else, and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing. -Sydney Smith, The Way To Succeed, W M Thayer, (Page 211), 1902 When you come to the end of all the light you know, and it's time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: Either you will be given something solid to stand on or you will be taught to fly. -Edward Teller Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; its when you had everything to do, and you've done it. -Margaret Thatcher When you make a mistake, don't look back at it long. Take the reason of the thing into your mind and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power. -Anonymus