“Do the things you used to talk about doing but never did. Know when to let go and when to hold on tight. Stop rushing. Don’t be intimidated to say it like it is. Stop apologizing all the time. Learn to say no, so your yes has some oomph. Spend time with the friends who lift you up, and cut loose the ones who bring you down. Stop giving your power away. Be more concerned with being interested than being interesting. Be old enough to appreciate your freedom, and young enough to enjoy it. Finally know who you are.” ~ Kristin Armstrong
The 10 Universal Laws of the Warrior Code by Dawn Callen
1. Pay Attention. Stay in the present. It’s the only place anything real is happening.
2. Take Responsibility. This is your life, take it back. Either you get to own it or you get to blame someone or something else for it. Choose.
3. No Kvetching (to complain persistently). No whining, no sniveling – it takes you out of the present and lets you abdicate responsibility.
4. Don’t Take Any Abuse. It’s very bad for ones self esteem to take any abuse. Stand up to your tyrants, both internal and external. The cost is too great not to.
5. Do It Anyway. Hard choices temper our strength and our integrity; they make the difference between a life of excellence and a life of mediocrity.
6. Don’t Quit. Look at what stops you, at where you give the effort up. That is the edge between becoming a victim or a warrior.
7. Keep Your Agreements. A warrior is only as good as his or her word. The way we build self-trust and trust in others is by making and keeping agreements.
8. Keep Your Sense of Humor. Otherwise what’s the point? Humor helps us to stretch beyond our own limits and ourselves.
9. Love One Another. Otherwise where’s the meaning? It’s the way we remember we’re not alone in the universe.
10. Honor Your Connection To The Source. There is a force in the universe, greater than ourselves that creates us, provides for us, cares for us, guides us, and loves us. It speaks to us from within. Trust it.
“You don’t really pay for things with money, you pay for them with time. In five years, I’ll have put enough away to buy that vacation house we want. Then I’ll slow down. That means the house will cost you five years – one-twelfth of your adult life. Translate the dollar value of the house, car, or anything else into time, and then see if it’s still worth it.” ~ Charles Spezzano, Author
“Our days are like identical suitcases. Even though they are all the same size, some people area able to pack more into them then others. The reason? They know what to pack.” ~ John C. Maxwell, Leadership Gold
“While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes, learning from them, and becoming superior.” ~ John C. Maxwell, Leadership Gold
“Cats do what cats do, ducks do what ducks do, and eagles do what eagles, do. If you take a duck and ask it to do an eagles’ job, shame on you. As a leader, your job is to help your ducks to become better ducks and your eagles better eagles – to put individuals in the right places and help them reach their potential.” ~ John C. Maxwell, Leadership Gold
“People may teach what they know, but they reproduce what they are.” ~ John C. Maxwell, Leadership Gold
“How easily we can forget how precious life is! So long as we can remember, we’ve just been here, being alive. Unlike other things for which we have a good comparison– black to white, day to night, good to bad– we are so immersed in life that we can see it only in the context of itself. We don’t see life as compared to anything, to not-being, for example, to never having been born. Life just is. But life itself is a gift. It’s a compliment just being born: to feel, breathe, think, play, dance, sing, work, make love, for this particular lifetime. Today, let’s give thanks for life. For life itself. For simply being born!” ~ Daphne Rose Kingma
“I like to walk alone on country paths,
rice plants and wild grasses on both sides,
putting each foot down on the earth
in mindfulness, knowing
that I walk on the wondrous earth.
In such moments, existence is a miraculous
and mysterious reality.
People usually consider walking on water
or in thin air a miracle.
But I think the real miracle
is not to walk either on water or in thin air,
but to walk on earth.
Every day we are engaged in a miracle
which we don’t even recognize:
a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves,
the black, curious eyes of a child–
our own two eyes.
All is a miracle.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh