Challenge Yourself

If you have an impulse to do something, why not do it? It might be just the journey you've always needed.
(Timothy Hutton, actor, in Words That Matter, by Oprah Winfrey editors, p. 15)

... when you challenge yourself, doing much more than what's expected to learn new skills, you always feel more satisfaction in your work.
(Alexandra Stoddard, The Art Of The Possible, p. 34)
1 October 2015

Free Will

Botanical Garden, Washington, DC

Photo By: Mr. Dickie

Free will is not the liberty to do whatever one likes, but the power of doing whatever one sees ought to be done, even in the very face of otherwise overwhelming impulse.
(George MacDonald in Night Light by Amy E. Dean, 4 November)
30 April 2015

Be Done With It

Library of Congress Model

U.S. Botanical Gardens

December 2014

Several times a day, sit down and plan your actions for the next few hours. Ask yourself what impulse triggers may lie in your path and visualize yourself walking by them, nodding and smiling and saying, "No thank you."
(Cindy Glovinsky, Making Peace With The Things In Your Life, p. 158)

Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can.
(Ralph Waldo Emerson in Night Light by Amy E. Dean, 17 April)

To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.
(Ralph Waldo Emerson in The Little Book Of Virtues, 3 January)
3 January 2015

Free Will

Free will is not the liberty to do whatever one likes, but the power of doing whatever one sees ought to be done, even in the face of otherwise overwhelming impulse.
(George MacDonald in Night Light by Amy E. Dean, 4 November)
3 December 2013

Thanksgiving

Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received.

Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling.

Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse.

(Henry Van Dyke, in Peace Flowing Like A Gentle River, 21 November)

28 November 2013

What Wonderful Things

What wonderful things could happen in our lives if we could get rid of our natural impulse to justify our actions! (after One Day At A Time In Al-Anon, 9 June) 12 July 2013

Our Impulse

Our impulse may be to complain bitterly about the state of the world,
about the crises in our cities,
about the irresponsibility of the youth,
but our complaints have no good effect.
They solve nothing.
They only add to the frustration and turmoil.
What might we do instead?
(Karen Casey, Keepers Of The Wisdom, 10 November)
11 November 2012 (Veteran's  Day)