Saturday 27 February 2016

Don't bother to read....

....the words. Don't even look at the individual letters. Look at the spaces - the gaps. Read between the lines. Somewhere, hidden, there is a very important message. Try recording a tape of yourself reading it and then play it backwards! 


Or then again you might decide not to bother with any of that. You might decide to take at face value all you now see - and you might decide to trust it too. And you might find that this was a very good idea indeed.


We know what we are, but know not what we may be.  (William Shakespeare)

There's love and there's love.....

....Relationships, by and large, involve conditional love. No matter how much one person loves another, they can usually bring themselves to stop if the other person behaves badly enough. A particularly tolerant soul may forgive more... but the kind of love that flows between two people, wonderful though it may be, is not the kind of love that makes the world go round.





That's love for life itself.














Great relationships aren't built in a day.  Great relationships are built daily.

When is a gain....

....just a loss in disguise? When we think that we are going to benefit from a development, when in fact it is going to cost us so much to take advantage of an apparent opportunity that we might be better off allowing it to pass us by. And when is a loss actually a gain? When we cannot yet see the hidden benefits to letting go of something that we see as an asset but which is actually the cause of many problems.





There are times when we need to look more closely at whatever it is we think we don't like the look of.












A "should" is a "have to" with no teeth; it is dead energy. (Ruth Ross)

Wednesday 24 February 2016

You are entitled to....

....your dream. You are also entitled to the chance to try to make your dream come true. You may not want to do this. You may decide that your dream is providing you with a very comfortable escape mechanism. Were it to become a reality, it might also become a liability. But that is a choice for you to make. And it should be made through discrimination, not defeatism.




If you are offered an opportunity to pursue your dream, don't be too scared to take it.










Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought. (Basho)

We get things into our heads...

.....We decide they have to be a certain way. When they work out as we want them to, we celebrate. When they don't, we feel disappointed. So deeply attached do we become to these expectations that we cannot bring ourselves to question their importance. We are not interested in any other view of reality. Success equals what we wanted to happen. Failure equals something else.



Sometimes, by avoiding that attitude, we can experience a very pleasing development.


If you had not suffered as you have, there would be no depth to you, no humility, no compassion. (Eckhart Tolle)

Tuesday 23 February 2016

You may not know this.....

....but shortly after you were born, you were issued with a handbook. I suspect that the angels gave it to your parents at some point in your first year.  Now, you're not telling me that they didn't pass it on to you on your 13th birthday; are you? 
Haven't you poured over the carefully phrased instructions about how you must lead your life? If not, how do you know what's good for you? On what basis are you making your most crucial choices?






If you have read it, remember the bit where it says that there are times when you just need faith.









Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen   (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

My son waited for the punch-line....

.....when I told him that I grew up in a world so long ago and far away that there were only three TV channels. One of these was forbidden! It contained commercial breaks and there were serious fears that these would rot the mind of an impressionable youth. Hmmm, perhaps my parents had a point. Certainly something eroded the imagination of an entire generation. 



Make an effort to watch something inspiring on your inner-screen. Then make it a reality.


Do not wait to strike when the iron is hot, but make it hot by striking.   (W B Yeats)

Embrace change....



Saturday 20 February 2016

Grains of sand on the beach?....

.....Stars in the sky? Forget them. If you want an example of something that is truly infinite, try 'instances of human stupidity'. There's really no end to the amount of trouble that people can cause for themselves - and the those around them. There is equally no end to the amount of love and inspiration that our hearts can experience. 



That's what makes life so good and so bad, all at the same time. If a nice clear choice presents itself, you can dwell on the delightful or the dire. 


Don't limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do.  
(Mary Kay Ash)

.........and relax!

Thinking of others....


Wednesday 17 February 2016

There are often times....

......in our lives when we mull over how much we would like to tell someone if only we felt that they would listen. And, of course, there's always the flip-side to that -  how much they might wish they could communicate similar information to us. There are things we don't say because we feel we mustn't say them, because we fear we will betray confidences, because we suspect we may be judged harshly or perhaps just because we simply don't know how to find the words. 



When we are willing to engage in a gentle, honest, non-judgemental chats in which you pay close, caring attention to someone's deepest fears and feelings a brave breakthrough should occur and a deeper understanding reached.



The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the 
unobserved mind runs your life. (Eckhart Tolle)

Tuesday 16 February 2016

Sooner or later.....

Imagine being given a mathematical equation....

....to solve. Rather than attempt to work it out, you simply pick your favourite number and make it become the answer. Then you recalculate, adding an additional process here or there until it justifies the result that you want.


Very often, we all do something along these lines. We decide how we think things ought to be, then retrospectively create a set of arguments and explanations to support this idea. It might be far better to be more open-minded and honest.




Obstinacy and vehemency in opinion are the surest proofs of stupidity.  (Bernard Barton)


Can any of us argue with this.....

The treatment of others....

Life's too short....

Monday 15 February 2016

There's a plethora of.....

....drama schools. Why, then, are there no melodrama schools? Because none of us needs to be shown how to create one of these. It comes naturally. We eat, sleep, fulfil physical functions and stir up intense emotional vortices full of angst, passion, fear, desire and despair. Then, we eat and sleep again!


Oh, I forgot to add something. After the melodrama has been blown up out of all proportion, we worry about why we let this happen........................That's also normal!




Sad things happen.  They do.  But we don't need to live sad forever.  (Mattie Stepanek)


Never miss an opportunity....

Saturday 6 February 2016

May your choices....

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People are a bit like chickens....



....They are always concerned about their place in the pecking order. They scrabble about looking for nibblets of status that they can proudly claim for themselves. They get completely caught up in issues of self-worth and relative value. They are always measuring themselves to see how they shape up in comparison to their neighbours. And, of course, the more they do this, the more they ultimately belittle themselves. 




If any of us want to achieve something truly great we need to be big enough to see how small we really are. 


Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely is made for the eye of one who sees.   (Rumi)

People aren't petty, are they?....

....They don't devote their precious lives to scoring points and winning trivial disputes, and making others feel incompetent, do they? Isn't it true that they appreciate the importance of every moment, recognise how lucky they are to be alive and dedicate their time to feeling thankful and to bringing out the best in one another. Isn't it? 



Well, it would be nice to think so, wouldn't it? And you know what? Even if that's not what other people do, people like us really ought to at least try, ought we not? Set the right example today.


Pain is never permanent  (St Teresa of Avila)

Friday 5 February 2016

When people feel vulnerable....

....they put up barriers. They try to hide their own softness by feigning strength. This only increases their vulnerability! When we try to be tough, we become brittle. When we deny the truth to others, we also tend to deny it from ourselves. Then, we grow confused. 



For, if we cannot call upon the most sensitive side of our own nature, we cannot access the wisdom we need.


The gift is not how much you ARE loved, the gift is how much you are ABLE TO love.



Tuesday 2 February 2016

Some say that money makes....

....the world go round. Others feel equally sure that it is love. Scientists, though, say that the Earth rotates due to a series of gravitational forces. And that it will continue to do so regardless of how much cash or emotion there is in the world. 





We may never know the truth. But this much at least we do know; without love, the world can turn as much as it wants to - but it will mean very little to any of us.












Doubt is a pain that is too lonely to know that faith is its twin brother.   (Kahlil Gibran)

Monday 1 February 2016

I hope you can cope with....

.....a 'they say' moment this early in a new week -
They say, 'You live and learn.' You do indeed. We all do. But we do not all necessarily do it in this order. The trouble with doing it the other way round is that by the time you have finished doing all that learning, you are not in much of a mood to enjoy a whole lot of living. Then again, when you do the living bit first, the learning part can become even more difficult.


Sometimes, though, we are fortunate. We get a chance to learn and live simultaneously.



The veil of money has never been about how much money you have 
but about how much money has you.

Tell me....

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Our passions are not....

....always appropriate. We pour our hearts into our preoccupations - our opinions, our beliefs, our passing fascinations. We get heated and excited about issues of intellect whilst remaining strangely ambivalent about genuine matters of the heart. We attribute the outcome of arguments with life or death significance. Drunk on the heavy liquor of a petty perspective, we alienate ourselves from the rest of the human race.


Keep the flame of your faith but don't use this to ignite an unnecessary fire of feud.



The only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing  (Socrates)