Category: Make the most of life

The wonder of this day

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

square-treees

All that is eternal in me
Welcomes the wonder of this day,
The field of brightness it creates
Offering time for each thing
To arise and illuminate.

May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shells of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today
To live the life I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.

John O’Donohue, Morning Prayer

Keep starting over

Karl Duffy3 Comments

File:Leaning tower of Pisa.jpg

Research by Carol Dweck at Stanford University says that it is better if we develop a “growth mindset”  which sees challenges and mistakes as opportunities to grow and does not give up when things go wrong. A learning organization is one that is prepared to make mistakes. And, as someone said to me yesterday, even the challenge of a person’s mood can be an occasion to learn:

If I had a message to my contemporaries it is surely this: Be anything you like…. but at all costs avoid one thing: success . . .

If you are too obsessed with success, you will forget to live.

If you have learned only how to be a success,

your life has probably been wasted

Thomas Merton

photo: cc-by-2.5

The life that’s waiting

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File:PSM V50 D193 Kew gardens cumberland gate with guard.jpg

We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned,

so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

Joseph Campbell

Doors

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Old red church door in village.jpg

Close some doors today.

Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance,

but simply because they lead you nowhere

Paulo Coelho.

Step through again and again

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

How do we work with this tendency to block and to freeze and to refuse to take another step toward the unknown? If our edge is like a huge stone wall with a door in it, how do we learn to open the door and step through it again and again, so that life becomes a process of growing up, becoming more and more fearless and flexible, more and more able to play like a raven in the wind?

The wilder the weather is, the more the ravens love it. They have the time of their lives in the winter, when the wind gets much stronger and there’s lots of ice and snow. They challenge the wind. They get up on the tops of the trees and hold on with their claws and then they grab on with their beaks as well. At some point they just let go into the wind and let it blow them away.  They have had to develop a zest for challenge and for life. 

Pema Chodron

photo Ingrid Taylar

Cheerfulness

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

File:Laughter 2 by David Shankbone.jpg

A post for the made-up “Blue Monday”, the day in the year,  they tell us,  we are most likely to feel gloomy.

Perhaps the best advice for our physical and mental health this week, as we bring our inner self to work with whatever outward situation we find ourselves in…. and not from a modern self-help book. 

A cheerful heart is good medicine

Proverbs 17:22

photo david shankbone