Life: How Well Can You Juggle?

Photo Credit: RadioKirk, Wikimedia Commons

I found this interesting little article on rogerknapp.com. The CEO of Coca Cola, who presented this talk, gives us 12 tips to remember when we try to “juggle the balls” of our lives.

“Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them – work, family, health, friends and spirit and you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls: family, health, friends and spirit are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life.
How?

1. Don’t undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others. It is because we are different that each of us is special.
2. Don’t set your goals by what other people deem important. Only you know what is best for you.
3. Don’t take for granted the things closest to your heart. Cling to them as you would your life, for without them, life is meaningless.
4. Don’t let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past or for the future. By living your life one day at a time, you live ALL the days of your life.
5. Don’t give up when you still have something to give. Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.
6. Don’t be afraid to admit that you are less than perfect. It is this fragile thread that binds us each together.
7. Don’t be afraid to encounter risks. It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.
8. Don’t shut love out of your life by saying it’s impossible to find. The quickest way to receive love is to give; the fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly; and the best way to keep love is to give it wings.
9. Don’t run through life so fast that you forget not only where you’ve been, but also where you are going.
10. Don’t forget that a person’s greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.
11. Don’t be afraid to learn. Knowledge is weightless, a treasure you can always carry easily.
12. Don’t use time or words carelessly. Neither can be retrieved. Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored each step of the way.”

Remembering Our Veterans on Memorial Day

Memorial Day takes place on Monday, May 27, 2013 this year and with that, it’s time for some Memorial Day quotes. The following is a collection of some of the best Memorial Day quotes and sayings that you can share with your loved ones and honor those who have gone before us.

They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this Nation. – Henry Ward Beecher

Who kept the faith and fought the fight; the glory theirs, the duty ours. -Wallace Bruce

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself. – Joseph Campbell

The patriot’s blood is the seed of Freedom’s tree. – Thomas Campbell

The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example. – Benjamin Disraeli

Each man is a hero and an oracle to somebody. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

But the freedom that they fought for, and the country grand they wrought for, is their monument today, and for aye. – Thomas Dunn English

For love of country they accepted death…  - James A. Garfield –

The greatest glory of a free-born people is to transmit that freedom to their children. – William Havard

The dead soldier’s silence sings our national anthem. – Aaron Kilbourn

For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity. – William Penn

On thy grave the rain shall fall from the eyes of a mighty nation! – Thomas William Parsons

The brave die never, though they sleep in dust: Their courage nerves a thousand living men. – Minot J. Savage

We come, not to mourn our dead soldiers, but to praise them. -Francis A. Walker

And I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free. And I won’t forget the men who died, who gave that right to me. – Lee Greenwood

Five Ways to Be Strong in Hard Times

Everything is going to be alright, may be it won’t happen today but eventually everything is going to be fine. Sometimes in our life, it looks like everything is falling apart and whatever you do fail. But you need to be strong in such hard times. It’s the hardest times that teach us the most valuable lessons of our life. Every struggle in your life has shaped you into the person you are today. You must be thankful for the hard times as they can only make you stronger.

Strength doesn’t come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength. So learn to be strong even in the hardest times of your life. Don’t worry about the hard times. Because some of the most beautiful things we have in life come from only changes and mistakes. So you need to understand the value of hard times and how it helps and ultimately be strong. Here are 5  ways you must remember to be strong in hard times.

Remember, Hard Times Don’t Last Forever.

As previously mentioned, everything is going to be alright.  May be not today, but eventually it’s going to happen. Your strength is not in the way you surrender, but in the way you fight with the difficulties. Hard times are not going be there in your life always. It’s only you who can make it stay in your life for a long time. You need to learn how to be strong in the hardest times of your life. Because this is something only you can do.

You can only make yourself stronger. Not anybody else. You can’t give up. Because anyone can give up. This is perhaps the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that is real strength.

Remember, Every Struggle in Life Only Makes You Stronger.

Struggles increase your inner strength. You can’t always realize what you can do until or unless you get a chance to actually do that. The hard times in your life gives you the opportunity to prove yourself. Every struggle in your life makes you stronger and helps you become more confident and productive. Hard times help you realize your inner strength. Remember, Hard times don’t create heroes. It is during the hard times when the heroes within us is revealed.

Be strong because things will get better one day. It might be stormy now. But it can’t rain forever. It’s really hard to believe that the most important lessons in your life you learn only through hard times and struggles. So discover your inner strength and find out what you can for yourself in best way possible. The most difficult phase of life is not when nobody understands you. It is when you don’t understand yourself.

Stay Positive with all Your Positive Thoughts.

Don’t wish away your days waiting for better times ahead. Right now is the only moment guaranteed to you. This is in your hand to live it in the best way possible. Don’t keep negative thoughts and wait for positive times. Learn to make your negative thoughts positive. Just because something is not happening for you right now, doesn’t mean that it will never happen in your life. You will never get positive results with negative thinking. Be strong enough to believe in your inner qualities.

Be strong to think highly of yourself. Because the world takes you at your own estimate. The struggles you face in life are not supposed paralyze you. They are supposed to help you discover who you are. Positive thinking is not about expecting the best to happen every time. Be strong enough to believe that whatever happens in your life is the best for this moment. Whatever life gives you, even if it hurts you, just be strong and act like the way you always do.

Find the Right Person to Be with You.

You can’t love everyone. But can’t leave someone who never leaves you in hard times. You can’t leave someone who always gives you the right lesson. True friends help you understand your inner qualities. They help you become more productive. Right guidance can solve even the most difficult problems of your life easily. So it’s very important to find the right person to be with. True guidance helps you become stronger and more productive.

It’s not about finding someone who won’t fight with you or make you sad. It’s about finding someone who will still be standing there wiping the tears away, holding you in their arms after a fight. The person who will never leave you. It doesn’t matter how hard things get. Be strong and live everyday of your life as the last day of your life. Don’t be afraid of hard times that come in your life only to make you stronger. Live with no regrets. Because everything happens for a reason.

Learn to Smile Through the Hard Times.

A smile is the first thing to fixing things. The trick is to enjoy life by noticing what’s right. Sometimes you just have to smile to make things easier. A smile is a gift to yourself in hard times. A smile acts like nothing is wrong or everything is going to be fine. Peace begins with a smile. A smile is perhaps the most beautiful expression in the world.

Be strong and learn to smile through the hard times. Let your smile change your world and don’t let the world change the way you smile. Smile at things that make you sad. Sometimes hard times don’t seem to get any better. But a smile is the first thing that can make the things easier to solve. Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile. But sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

When times get hard, don’t give up. Smile and start fighting until you win. You might make a lot of mistakes. But this is first step to unlock your inner strength if someone feels that they had never made a mistake in their life, it means that they have never tried a new thing in their life.

Quoted from http://uniquelifeguide.com

Photo Credit: commons.wikimedia.org

Other Source: http://karinasussanto.wordpress.com

To All The Moms Out There...

This is for all the mothers who DIDN'T win Mother of the Year last year, all the runners-up and all the wannabes. Including the mothers too tired to enter or too busy to care.

Robert Baker via Wikimedia

This is for all the mothers who froze their buns off on metal bleachers at soccer games on Friday night, instead of watching from cars. So that when their kids asked, "Did you see my goal?" They could say, "Of course, wouldn't have missed it for the world," and mean it.

This is for all the mothers who have sat up all night with sick toddlers in their arms, wiping up barf laced with Oscar Mayer wieners and cherry Kool-Aid saying, "It's OK honey, Mommy's here."

This is for the mothers who gave birth to babies they'll never see, and the mothers who took those babies and made them homes.

This is for all the mothers of the victims of school shootings, and the mothers of the murderers. For the mothers of the survivors, and the mothers who sat in front of their TVs in horror, hugging their child who just came home from school, safely.

This is for all the mothers who run carpools and make cookies and sew Halloween costumes, and all the mothers who DON'T.

What makes a good mother anyway? Is it patience? Compassion? Broad hips?

Is it the ability to nurse a baby, cook dinner, and sew a button on a shirt, all at the same time?

Or is it heart?

Is it the ache you feel when you watch your son or daughter disappear down the street, walking to school alone for the very first time?

Is it the jolt that takes you from sleep to dread, as you bound from bed to crib at 2 a.m. to put your hand on the back of a sleeping baby?

Is it the need to flee from wherever you are and hug your child when you hear news of a school shooting, a fire, a car accident, or a baby dying?

I think so.

So this is for all the mothers who sat down with their children and explained all about making babies, and for all the mothers who wanted to but just couldn't.

This is for reading "Goodnight, Moon" twice a night for a year. And then reading it again. "Just one more time."

This is for all the mothers who mess up. Who yell at their kids in the grocery store and swat them in despair and stomp their feet like a tired 2 year old who wants ice cream before dinner.

This is for all the mothers who taught their daughters to tie their shoelaces before they started school. And for all the mothers who opted for Velcro instead.

This is for all the mothers who bite their lips-sometimes until they bleed-when their 14 year olds dye their hair green. Who lock themselves in the bathroom when babies keep crying and won't stop.

This is for all the mothers who show up at work with spit-up in their hair and milk stains on their blouses and diapers in their purse.

This is for all the mothers who teach their sons to cook and their daughters to sink a jump shot.

This is for all mothers whose heads turn automatically when a little voice calls "Mom?" in a crowd, even though they know their own offspring are at home.

This is for mothers who put pinwheels and teddy bears on their children's graves.

This is for mothers whose children have gone astray, who can't find the words to reach them.

This is for all the mothers who sent their sons to school with stomachaches, assuring them they'd be just FINE once they got there, only to get calls from the school nurse and hour later asking them to please pick them up, right away.

This is for young mothers stumbling through diaper changes and sleep deprivation, and mature mothers learning to let go.

This is for working mothers and stay-at-home mothers, single mothers and married mothers, mothers with money, and mothers without.

This is for you all. So hang in there! We love you!

The Grateful Whale

If you read the front page story of the San Francisco Chronicle on Thursday, December, 15, 2005, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines.

The fifty-foot whale was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her her tail, her torso and a line tugging in her mouth.

A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farallone Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her - a very dangerous proposition. One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer.

They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently around - she thanked them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives.

The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.

May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate today - to be surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are binding you.

And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude!!!

What 57 Cents Can Buy

Grace Baptist Temple, Philadelphia

It is truly amazing how such small things can be used for a larger purpose!

“I can’t go to Sunday School,” she sobbed to the pastor as he walked by. Seeing her shabby, unkempt appearance, the pastor guessed the reason and, taking her by the hand, took her inside and found a place for her in the Sunday school class. The child was so happy that they found room for her, and she went to bed that night thinking of the children who have no place to worship Jesus.

Some two years later, this child lay dead in one of the poor tenement buildings. Her parents called for the kindhearted pastor who had befriended their daughter to handle the final arrangements.

As her poor little body was being moved, a worn and crumpled red purse was found which looked as if it had been rummaged from some trash dump. Inside was found 57 cents and a note, scribbled in childish handwriting, which read: “This is to help build the little church bigger so more children can go to Sunday School.” For two years the little girl had saved for this offering of love.

When the pastor tearfully read that note, he knew instantly what he would do. Carrying the note and the cracked, red pocketbook to the pulpit, he told the story of her unselfish love and devotion. He challenged his deacons to get busy and raise enough money for the larger building. But the story does not end there…
Soon afterwards, a newspaper learned of the story and published It. It was read by a wealthy realtor who offered the church a parcel of land worth many thousands of dollars. When told that the church could not pay much, he offered to sell it to the little church for 57 cents.

Soon church members were making large donations and checks came from far and wide. Within five years the little girl’s gift had increased to $250,000.00, which was no small sum at the turn of the century. Her unselfish love had paid huge dividends.

When you are in the city of Philadelphia, look up Temple Baptist Church. It currently has a seating capacity of 3,300. Be sure to visit the Temple University, where thousands of students are educated. Have a look, too, at the Good Samaritan Hospital and at the Sunday school building which houses hundreds of beautiful children, built so that no child in the area will ever need to be left outside during Sunday school again.

One of the rooms of the Sunday school building features the picture of the sweet face of the little girl whose 57 cents, so sacrificially saved, made such remarkable history. Alongside of it is a portrait of her kind pastor, Dr.Russel H. Conwell, author of the book, “Acres of Diamonds”.

When man goes in partnership with God, great things may, and often do, happen!
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Photo Credit: mdjunction.com