Think Right Now

You can now replace fear, doubt and frustration with confidence, drive and willpower...even if nothing has worked for you before.

"Before entering a room today, think about how you want others to treat you. With respect? With warmth? With sympathy? Close your eyes. Visualize them treating you that way. Now visualize how you need to act to elicit that response. For instance, the best way to be treated warmly is to walk in with a smile. Even if everybody else is grumpy keep smiling. They will catch on, because smiling is contagious."
--author unknown

ACCOUNTABILITY

Be accountable for creating your experiences. That's right, you are responsible for most of what happens to you and for all of how you react
to what happens to you.

You set up most of your opportunities, and you set up most of your barriers.

You train everyone around you to treat you the way they do.

You are responsible. Yes, and that is a good thing - you can change your experiences by taking control, by setting up more opportunities and by retraining people around you.
--author unknown

"When we lose the right to be different, we lose the right to be free."
--Charles Evans Hughes

PLANNING

Plan all you wish. We humans can't help but plan things. Just remember that life's most treasured moments slip in the back door...and if we are too absorbed in our plans, we might miss them altogether.
--author unknown

"This is the beginning of a new day. You have been given this day to use as you will. You can waste it or use it for good. What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever; in its place is something that you have left behind...let it be something good."

Author Unknown

"There is no such thing in anyone's life
as an unimportant day."

Alexander Woollcott
American Author

HAPPINESS

Here is a simple formula for happiness:

The more you adapt to your environment, to events around you and to
people you meet, the happier you will be. The more you expect others to
adapt to you, the more you expect events to suit your needs, the more
you expect your environment to adapt to you, the more unhappy you will
be.
--author unknown

MEMORY

A long time from now, you might not remember this hour. You might not
even remember this day, nor even this week or this month.

But you might remember this moment.

Your history is not about the dates you have lived, any more than
history class should be about the dates of events. Your history is about
the magical moments you create in your mind as you move through your
life.

Make as many wonderfully memorable moments as you possibly can.
author unknown

WEEDS

What is the difference between a weed and any other plant?

The weed is simply a plant in the wrong place. Many weeds bear flowers
as pretty as those in our gardens, but we don't want them in the
strawberry patch of on the lawn.

Many of us know where we are wanted, but some don't; some of us spend
time where we are not wanted. Does this make us worthless? Of course
not. We have simply planted ourselves in the wrong spot.

Unlike weeds, we can move. Find a nice suitable spot right now.

-author unknown

COULD-HAVE-BEENS

Have you missed out on something? Meanwhile, you have done something
else.

Does your neighbor have something you don't? Meanwhile, you acquired
something she does not.

Is something over that you wish you could hang on to? Meanwhile,
something new has begun for you to enjoy.

Are you looking back at all that could have been? Don't worry, if you
keep looking back, there'll be plenty more could-have-beens coming
along. If you look forward, you'll have much fewer could-have-beens...and
much less reason to look back.
--author unknown

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run his fingers through it once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge you never walk alone.

We leave you a tradition of the future. The tender loving care of human beings will never become obsolete.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, redeemed and redeemed and redeemed. Never throw anyone away.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.

As you grow older, you'll discover that you have two hands: One for helping yourself, the second for helping others.

You have great days still ahead of you. May there be many of them.

Beauty Secrets
As published in a recent "Dear Abby" column

"To be always intending to make a new and better life but never to find time to set about it is as...to put off eating and drinking and sleeping from one day to the next until you're dead."

--Og Mandino

TODAY'S DOSE OF INSPIRATION

CHANGE

Change is exciting. A new car. A new romance. A promotion. Pumpkin
pie for breakfast. You just can't beat change.

Change is terrifying. Facing a new boss. Losing a love. Throwing out
that tattered old high-school shirt.

Come to think of it, change is exactly what you want it to be: exciting
or terrifying. So why not make change exciting?
--author unknown

TODAY'S DOSE OF INSPIRATION

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

--Mark Twain
American Author

Today's dose of Inspiration


"What you possess in the world will be found at the day of your death to belong to someone else. But what you are will be yours forever."

--Henry Van Dyke
American Author and Clergyman

"Be such a man, and live such a life, that if every man were such as you, and every life a life like yours, this earth would be God's Paradise."

--Phillips Brooks
American Episcopal Bishop

TODAY'S DOSE OF INSPIRATION

Courage

We are not born with character. It is developed by the experiences and decisions that guide our lives. Each individual creates, develops and nurtures his or her own character. Being a man or woman of character is no easy task. It requires tough decisions, many of which put you at odds with the more commonly accepted social morés of the times.

Making the right ethical choices must become a habit. Decisions cannot be situational, based on other's actions or dependent upon whom is watching.

Cowardliness in character, manifested by a lack of integrity, or honor, will sooner or later manifest itself as cowardliness in other forms. People who have the courage to face up to the ethical challenges in their daily lives, to remain faithful to sacred oaths, have a reservoir of strength from which to draw upon in times of great stress in the heat of battle.
--author unknown

TODAY'S DOSE OF INSPIRATION


"We must not leap to the fatalistic conclusion that we are stuck with
the conceptual scheme that we grew up in. We can change it, bit by bit,
plank by plank..." --Willard Van Orman Quine

Today's Dose of Inspiration

"So many dreams at first seem impossible. And then they seem
improbable. And then when we summon the will, they soon become
inevitable."--Christopher Reeve

I had promised Rebecca and the TB women's group that I'd include some lessons in Jamaican Patois under this column. Here's today's lesson:

Term: a
Meaning: to be, am.
English: I am going to Town
Patois: Me a go a Town
English: My stomach is hurting me
Patois: Me belly a hat me.

TODAY'S DOSE OF INSPIRATION

LIFE

Life is a self-fulfilling prophecy. What you believe is what you
become. What you expect is what you will get. What you think you can reach
is what you will hold.

Do you believe in yourself? Believe and be all that you can be.

Do you believe in people around you? Believe and surround yourself
with winners.

Do you believe in your joy? Believe and enjoy every day for being
alive.
--author unknown


TODAY'S LESSON IN PATOIS

aaks/ax: ask
English: May I ask you a question?
Patois: May I aaks/ax you a question?

TODAY'S DOSE OF INSPIRATION

Attitude

You can spend your whole life trying to get all those other people to
change their bad habits, their irritating actions, their misguided
notions. In the end, all you will have done is grown frustrated and bitter.
Or you can accept them (I did not say "agree", just "accept") and
change your own actions to accommodate the things they are doing.

For instance, instead of complaining about "all those other drivers"
cutting in front of you, you could just give them space, let them move
ahead and enjoy the ride.

Of course, if you enjoy being frustrated, you can honk the horn and
shout and enjoy a wonderfully miserable life.
--author unknown

___________________________

TODAY'S LESSON IN JAMAICAN PATOIS

annoder: another
English: I have another sister.
Patois: Me have annoder sista.

TODAY'S DOSE OF INSPIRATION

"When thinking about the future, make sure you're not trying to fulfill
someone else's dreams. You're more likely to succeed if you stick to
your own agenda."
--author unknown

________________________________

TODAY'S LESSON IN PATOIS

annoder: another

English: I need another drink.
Patois: Me need annoder drink.