Words of Encouragement
Each of us have pivotal moments that appeal deeply to our sense of values and to what
is essentially important to us. I share these thoughts and ideas in hopes they will
prove meaningful to your life.
Our deepest fear
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.” -- Marianne Williamson
On having perspective
The naturalist William Beebe - of visits he had with Theodore Roosevelt. “The two men would stroll out into the evening and look up at the night sky. They would search for the pale bit of light near the upper left-hand corner of the Great Square of Pegasus. Then, either would say:
That is the spiral galaxy of Andromeda.
It is as large as our Milky Way.
It is one of a hundred million galaxies.
It is two and a half million light-years away.
It consists of one hundred billion suns,
Many of them larger than our own sun!
After a moment of awesome silence, Roosevelt would grin and say, ‘Now I think we are small enough. Let’s go to bed!’”
Attitude is everything
Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness , or skill.
The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. We cannot change our past, nor can we change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We also cannot change the inevitable.
But I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you - we are in charge of our attitudes. -- Charles Swindoll
Power of choice
“One ship drives east and another drives west With the self same winds that blow. ‘Tis the set of the sail, and not the gales, That tells us the way to go.’ Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate; As we voyage along through life, 'Tis the set of the soul that decides the goal And not the calm, or the strife.” -- Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Inspiration
Eighty-five times Dick Hoyt has pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he’s not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars - all in the same day.
Dick’s also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once transported him across the United States on a bike. Officially, in 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.
Then somebody said, ‘Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?” How’s a guy who never learned to swim and hadn’t ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon?
Still, Dick tried. Now they’ve done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironman trials in Hawaii.
This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992 … only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don’t keep track, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time. -- Rick Reily, Sports Illustrated
