“The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.” – Mark Twain
In case you haven’t made dinner reservations for next Saturday night, which is Valentine’s Day, it’s probably too late now. Similarly, I was in the grocery store yesterday afternoon and I noticed a swarm of people at the greeting card rack. It was a good prompt for me to find a card for Mary Beth before the selection is completely picked over.
While my wife and I celebrate Valentine’s Day, either one of us feel the pressure to exchange predictable gifts. Rather, we try to give what is needed to be whole and complete inside and outside of our relationship everyday – not just on Valentine’s Day.
What we want most for the other is just to be happy. Personal happiness is the foundation upon which to build and share a life. However, how we achieve happiness can be different for each one of us. Read more
It’s not having what you want. It’s wanting what you’ve got. – Sheryl Crow
The 45-minute drive home last Wednesday night from Leavenworth to Overland Park, Kansas gave me some time to think. I just dropped off my younger son, Andrew, for a five-day personal development seminar, and I welcomed the chance to remember a similar night six years ago.
Andrew, I concluded, was fortunate. Attending as a 17-year-old would give him valuable resources he could use for his entire life. I received these same tools shortly after my 41st birthday.
Not that I’m unappreciative to have received these tools later in life, just the opposite. In a way, I received a new lease on life and the opportunity to look at my world from a different point-of-view. For that, I will always be grateful.
Before attending the seminar, I didn’t understand the blessings that existed around me. I was too busy focusing on what I should have and less aware of what I already had. Knowing my son was about to walk in the same training room I once entered gave me the opportunity to recall the person I used to be. Read more
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot. With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot. Don’t it always seem to go. That you don’t know what you got until it’s gone.” – Joni Mitchell
Article written by Alex Blackwell. Connect with me on Facebook.
The coffee shop a few blocks from my house recently closed. On nights when I wanted to have a couple of hours to get some writing done, I would pack-up my laptop and head to this inspirational sanctuary. It never really occurred to me I would arrive one night and find it closed.
Likewise, it’s unsettling when, for as long as we can remember, we drive past the old farm house sitting on land covered with loblolly pines and oak tress only to look over one day from the car window and see it gone. Where a graceful, almost majestic home once stood has now been interrupted by earth movers and dump trucks. Our paradise has been deferred and we are uncertain of its new location. Read more
