Today is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday.
I’m sure you’re familiar with his famous, “I HAVE A DREAM” speech…(as I type the words I can hear his impassioned voice saying,
Dr. King was one of those rare people who had a vision so big that it didn’t just serve him or his family or a city or a state or a country…It was a vision so powerful that it served (and transformed) humanity.
Can I ask you something?
Can I Ask You Something? And NO, it’s not what you’re thinking–I’m not going to ask if the glass is “half-full” or “half-empty” 😉
My question is…How heavy is this glass of water?
(insert the Jeapordy music)…lol
OK… do you have an answer?
We’ve all heard the hype about “making money in your underwear”, right? Well, here’s what happened to me…
I’ve done the whole office thing–big conference room with a huge table and lots of chairs around it, fancy furniture, offices full of staff–the whole 9 yards. Been there, done that for MANY years. Now I work from home. We still have an office and we also have team members working remotely from their homes.
But that’s not what this story is about. It was this last Saturday. I don’t work on weekends but something came up and I needed to make a quick tweak to one of our websites. No big deal. Like I said, I work from home.
Except my “office” isn’t in my house.I live on 10 acres and I’ve got a couple offices on the property (in separate buildings) PLUS a really cool treehouse (with AC, electric, etc). My office is down a little stone path about 30 steps from the back deck entrance off my bedroom. It’s a really big property– the house is found down a tree lined driveway, far from the road. My point is, it’s very private.
So, when I realized I needed to run out to my office to make a few quick tweaks I grabbed my keys and headed out the door…Yep, you guessed it…IN MY UNDERWEAR. Long boxers– not tighty whiteys 😉
Like I said– it’s very private here.
Anyway, I got the work done quickly and back to the weekend. No sweat.
Then came Monday morning. I was headed outside to start my day and opened my drawer to find…NO KEYS.
Just when I am feeling like the weight of the world is crashing down on me, I get a reminder that things aren’t really so bad after all!! I know that many of you are dealing with personal/family problems and over shadowing many people is the economy. It’s easy to focus our attention on only these things and forget to see the bigger picture.
I was reminded twice recently about this. We have very good friends, Jim and Debora, who are missionaries in Africa. Let me tell you—if I had to face the hardships and dangers those dear friends face all the time, I would probably have run home as fast as I could long ago. I notice that when they are in the states, their hearts and minds are back in Africa with the children in the orphanage they run. Those children have all lost their parents due to AIDS.
If Only I Could Be Like……
Each of us has our own unique skills, talents and strengths, yet I wonder how often we downplay our own abilities and wish we could be like____________(you fill in the blank). As confident as we might look on the outside, we feel inferior inside. It’s so easy to recognize the strengths of those around us while we focus on our own (perceived) weaknesses.
I was once in a meeting led by several individuals. One person was rather aggressive in her approach…another had years of experience in this field….another didn’t have much experience but was full of energy and enthusiasm….one man was rather shy but completely sincere in his approach. What a wonderful combination! Because of the varied abilities and strengths, that meeting was a complete success and each person in the audience could certainly identify with some of the qualities represented that day.
Sometimes it is easy to see the rainbow…the good in every situation. Other times, it is hard to see past the storm clouds, wind and rain. It does take effort and determination to realize that these less than wonderful situations will pass–that there is a rainbow just waiting for us.
I have a friend who (as a joke) used to sing the song from the old television show Hee-Haw. Do you remember it?
Gloom, despair and agony on me
Deep dark depression, excessive misery
If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all
Gloom, despair and agony on me
I am sometimes amazed that Lisa Diane can take what seems so simple and make us understand how we can drastically change our lives by doing that one simple thing. Read on and “Change Your Life Forever”.
I saw this sign today…
“Objects in the mirror may appear closer than they actually are…”
As soon as I read it, it was like one of those “a-ha” moments… like finding a secret hidden message in plain sight.
We can’t always choose the cards we have been dealt, but we can learn to play them. Like a flower that grows through a crack in the concrete, sometimes we have to make the best of our situations and bloom where we have been planted.
You may not be where you want to be in life just yet. You may be working a day job that is not your passion and working on your dream through the night.
Keeping our dreams alive is what uplifts the human spirit. But how can we deal with the fact that sometimes we may have to tolerate something that we do not like to eventually get to where we want to be?
Not everyone can quit their jobs and follow a dream. Sometimes our dreams take time. So instead of getting bitter and upset at your situation, why not try blooming where you have been planted?
Here is how I think we can do that and why it makes a difference:
1) Every step in life prepares you for the next one
You may not realize it, but where you are now is providing you with vital life lessons for your next adventure.
When late producer, director, author and screenwriter Michael Crichton was interviewed about how his training as a physician helped him to be a writer, he said this:
THE AUTHOR IS NOT KNOWN. IT WAS FOUND IN THE BILLFOLD OF COACH PAUL BEAR BRYANT, ALABAMA, AFTER HE DIED IN 1982
Imagine that you had won the following *PRIZE* in a contest:
Each morning your bank would deposit $86,400 in your private account for your use. However, this prize has Rules:
The set of Rules:
1. Everything that you didn’t spend during each day would be taken away from you.
2. You may not simply transfer money into some other account.
3. You may only spend It.
4. Each morning upon awakening, the bank opens your account with another $86,400 for that day.
5. The bank can end the game without warning; at any time, it can say, “Game Over!” It can close the account, and you will not receive a new one.
What would you personally do?
Raise your hands if you have made New Year’s Resolutions and did not succeeded in keeping them longer than a month!! A week…a day? Why is that? We have good intentions and usually our resolutions would create better lives for us.
Often we create expectations we couldn’t possibly keep….like these:
**‘I am going to lose 75 pounds this year.’
**‘I will work out 2 hours a day.’
**‘I am going to eat healthy—no more sweets for me!’