Ignorance is the parent of fear

This is a quote by Hermann Melville, the author of Moby Dick.  

Today, think about the things you fear, and how a lack of full information and understanding of the issue feeds your fear about it.  

The solution is to learn more about what we fear, and not just from the places that want to feed our fear about it.

What do you need to learn more about?

Youth is a marvelous garment

“Youth is a marvelous garment” – Iris Murdoch

Take care of yourself.  You’ll either wish you did or be glad you did!

What is causing your personal problems?

Recently my lower back has been hurting and I have not been sleeping well.  I could go to the chiropractor (as I will) and not change anything.  I am a side sleeper.  I roll from left to right many times a night.  Where my hips hit the mattress it makes a dent; a crater in the mattress.  When my hips rotate into it, it makes a kink in my lower back.  Sleep all night that way and you don’t sleep well and wake up needing to go to the chiropractor.  So I rotated the mattress and slept out of the crater, and had a MUCH better sleep and my back didn’t hurt.

We have to look at what is causing our problems.  Chances are it’s our habits – both physical and mental.

What are you eating?  How are you moving (exercising) or not?  Sleeping?  Watching?  Reading?  Actions repeated daily add up and cause both good and bad things to happen.

What have you been doing that is causing your current condition?

We are getting richer

In human history, there have been millennia when nothing changed.  We live at a subsistence level, scratching for food and resources, and we didn’t live long. 

Today, the average American is much richer and working fewer hours with a higher standard of living than even 20 years ago.  This includes people at the “bottom”.  It’s a more comfortable, interesting, safer, and easier world.

This is certainly good news.  Living in the new world, given how we are designed, creates perils and opportunities.

Thankfulness

“All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the lack of thankfulness for what we have.” – Daniel Defoe, 1719

What are you thankful for?  I am sure there is a lot.  Think about it some each day.  When you see my box below saying who or what I am grateful for, make it a reminder for you to think about who or what you are thankful for.

When you are thankful, you will wind up with more to be thankful for.

“Let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find in every hour, some heavenly blessing. – Henry Ward Beecher

What are you doing with what you have?

We all have talents and we all have some assets.  These talents may not be the same as what others have, and they aren’t supposed to be.  Your combination of talents makes you unique.

The question is – are you using what you have to get better, to develop and hone specific skills, and to ultimately make a contribution to others that they value?

If you are doing something that you struggle to find meaning in, that you are not good at, and have little interest to get better at, then you are not in the right spot or activity that matches your talent.  When you are, time passes quickly, you like what you’re doing and are interested in getting better at it.

What are you doing with what you have?

Borrowing happiness from tomorrow

Drinking alcohol.

Produce more than you consume

If you produce more value for others than you consume yourself, you can save and invest.

If you consume more than you produce you become dependent and lose your freedom and happiness.

How are you doing?

Worthy – not because someone else says so

People who look for validation and permission from others that they are worthy and valuable are looking outside themselves.  This is risky and will result in an emotional rollercoaster of a life as people like you or do not like you for their own reasons that you cannot control.

I know – it’s not easy sometimes.  We all need love.  And it’s there for everyone if we are open and kind.

We need to see ourselves as worthy and valuable not because anyone else says so – we need to just know it regardless of what anyone else says. 

It’s in you, not out there. 

And when you see that, you will attract others who see it too.

Cry – Laugh – Rethink

Often when you grow the most is when you are having a difficult time and things go wrong. 

A crisis can teach us a lot – if we don’t change our identity to “I’m the one who has problems and bad luck”.

Feel the problem and then let it go right through you.  Don’t hold on to it or resist it.

Then rethink and learn.

Onward….smarter now…..