Welcome to Mirth and Motivation!
Before you leave a comment, STOP, consider this: Our comments are part of our digital footprint on the internet. They tell the world how we think and respond to information. I know YOU took time out of your busy schedule and landed here. I’m rooting for you to say something inspiring that will help others who read my posts. THANK YOU! ❤
Motivation Mondays: MORAL COMPASS
“The self is just our operation center, our consciousness, our moral compass. So, if we want to act more effectively in the world, we have to get to know ourselves better.” Gary Wolf
Motivation Mondays: MORAL COMPASS
Make Your Bed… University of Texas at Austin 2014 Commencement Address – Admiral William H. McRaven
Your inner knowing is your only true compass. Joy Page
Definition moral compass: a natural feeling that makes people know what is right and wrong and how they should behave: Cambridge U Dictionary
Truth lies within a little and certain compass, but error is immense. Henry St. John
Set your compass to beauty, humor, and grief; stay the course no matter what, and I’ll support you with everything I’ve got. Chris Jordan
It’s the community that helps form our moral compass. It’s those attitudes that I’ve remembered through my entire lifetime. John Morgridge
A Compass is an instrument that guides travelers; especially sailors on the sea/road. A Moral Compass is also an attitude we adopt towards life and the events that shape our lives. We gauge our reactions and actions on a moral footing that informs our choices. We all need that gauge and we all have our own that we follow and our compass adds to our life’s blueprints and karmic record. Whether we choose the path of positive or negative action, we accumulate a body of works that help us contribute to the world we inhabit. What does your compass say about you? Our moral compass is shaped by our environment, our choices and the life lessons we embrace as we travel the path we call life. We often say that to change the world, we need to change ourselves first.
Admiral McRaven’s 10 lessons that he learned as a Navy Seal trainee are examples of a compass of life lessons that can guide us throughout the journey: 1. Make your bed. 2. Find people to paddle with you. 3. Measure the size of heart, not flippers. 4. Get over being a sugar cookie and keep moving forward. 5. Don’t be afraid of the circuses. 6. Sometimes you have to slide down obstacles head first. 7. Don’t back down from the sharks. 8. You must be your very best in the darkest moments. 9. Start singing when you’re up to your neck in mud. Hope for everyone. 10. Don’t ever, ever ring the bell. Our moral compass is developed over time and as we master certain behavior patterns, both good and bad, a pattern develops that becomes our brand… our face to the world. How are you shaping yours?
READ: Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…And Maybe the World by William H. McRaven
“On the ocean of life let your mind be the ship and your heart be the compass.” James David Manning
Motivation Mondays: MORAL COMPASS
Conscience is a man’s compass. Vincent Van Gogh
What comes first, the compass or the clock? Before one can truly manage time (the clock), it is important to know where you are going, what your priorities and goals are, in which direction you are headed (the compass). Dennis Merritt Jones
It is necessary to keep one’s compass in one’s eyes and not in the hand, for the hands execute, but the eye judges. Michelangelo
If one has no compass, when one doesn’t know where one stands and where one wants to go, one can deduce that one has no leadership or interest in shaping events. Helmut Kohl
Families are the compass that guide us. They are the inspiration to reach great heights, and our comfort when we occasionally falter. Brad Henry
How are you shaping your compass on your life journey? If we want to be honest, some of us might admit that it’s a bumpy road with pitfalls and perspective shifters. If we spend our time worrying about everything that crosses our path, then we create more to keep us on edge. In a recent article I read by author/blogger, Mark Manson, he says we spend way too much time traveling on someone else’s compass vis a vis living the expectations we assume others have of us. To take charge of life, we must take charge of our stuff and understand the three 3 Ideas That Can Change Your Life 2017. To paraphrase what he said in several pages, 1. Don’t take stuff personally: it’s not about you. 2. Your assumptions are wrong: Shift your perspective. 3. Take a chance on life: Be present and spontaneous… Live.Live your own life not vicariously through someone else’s.
Think about those mornings in traffic when the guy cuts you off as he rushes to catch a train… It’s not about you. Think about that fellow blogger who didn’t respond to your specific comment on a post…. your comment was valid he/she turned to respond to a wailing child and forgot to come back or simply moved forward. Remember that event you wanted to go to? Remember the compliment you withheld from another creative? Take a chance and just do it. Spontaneity is the very essence of a life lived well. If you plan every single move, you close the door to amazing miracles and opportunities that might come your way… live larger than your myopic perspective of “shoulds.”
Come back for more!
The details for Motivation Mondays are below. Join in! The themes for NOV/DEC 2017 are:
11/05 — 05 Guy Fawkes, 7 Election Day, 10 Science Day, 11 Veterans Day
11/12 — 13 World Kindness Day, 14 Diabetes Day, 16 International Day of Tolerance, 17 National Unfriend Day
11/19 — 20 Universal Children’s Day, 21 World TV Day, 23 Thanksgiving Day
11/26 — 27 Cyber Monday, 28 Giving Tuesday
12/01 – World Aids Day, 12/02 Abolition of Slavery,
12/03 – Start of Advent, 12/7 Pearl Harbor Remembrance, 12/8 Immaculate Conception, 12/9 Anti-Corruption Day,
12/10 – Human Rights Day, 12/11 Green Day, 12/12 Start of Hanukkah,
12/17 – 12/18 International Migrant’s Day, 12/20 End of Hanukkah, 12/21 Winter Solstice, 12/23 Super Saturday
12/24 – 12/25 Christmas, 12/26 Start of Kwanzaa, 12/31 New Year’s Eve
Are You Looking for Ways to Stay Creative in 2017?
– Join the Daily Post Post-a-day or Post-a-week Challenge.
— Join the BlogHer Writing Lab
More Below Read more…
Photo Challenge: ASCEND
“I’ll lift you and you lift me, and we’ll both ascend together.” John Greenleaf Whittier
Photo Challenge: ASCEND
Photo Challenge: ASCEND
Truth cannot be brought down; rather, the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountaintop to the valley. If you would attain to the mountaintop, you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices. Jiddu Krishnamurti
ASCEND: It is that time of year where groups of birds forage for last minute seeds then, gathering their collective strength in numbers, they ascend into the sky on their way to warmer climes. They soar into the heavens and we, at least those of us who pay attention to such things, marvel at the brilliance that intuitively tells them the brutal cold of winter is fast approaching and they must leave to stay alive. Some birds stick around; the Cardinals, Blue Jays and winter loving birds and they depend on the generosity of humans who feed them. I feed them and have gotten to capture their presence on my porch but that is not what this exercise is about. It is about ascending. The birds in the shots above are seagulls and they tend to stick it out around our local Sam’s Club… until quite late in the season.
More Below Read more…
Motivation Mondays: PRESCIENCE
“Human vision cannot pierce the surrounding clouds to see where and how the path lies; human prescience cannot resolve the involved movements of the world, the interlaced mechanism of Providence, to know how one event is fitted to all … ” George Washington Howard
Motivation Mondays: PRESCIENCE
Definition of prescience: foreknowledge of events: divine omniscience, human anticipation of the course of events: foresight. Merriam-Webster
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today. Abraham Lincoln
Happiness is not a brilliant climax to years of grim struggle and anxiety. It is a long succession of little decisions simply to be happy in the moment. J. Donald Walters
You can’t convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it’s based on a deep-seated need to believe. Dr Carl Sagan
How does Prescience operate in your life? What motivates our actions? Why do we choose certain actions/decisions over others? Do we have an intuitive urge that guides us in one direction over another or are all our decisions based on pure logic? I’ve been re-reading some of my books and posts on the subject of intuition and how they have played a role in certain decisions I’ve made. What has struck me even more than the actual intuitive, reflective, or prayerful decisions we all make is that the impact isn’t always what we anticipated or hoped for. Instead, in some of those decisive choices we made based on our sense of prescience, we had important life lessons and even challenges that presented themselves in our lives and we had to learn them. That said, honoring our intuition can save our life. It must not be taken lightly and we can develop it and become keenly attuned to its gifts.
I often ask people who live by five-year plans what helps them determine what steps they plan to take and how they will achieve them. Most say they have an inner knowing that helps them develop a trajectory of their future plans, goals and achievements. Others admit that they pin the horse blindly and hope it sticks. Then, there is that brave group of folks who trust their intuitive voice and live life by being present, engaged and resourceful. All have merit but which do you think has more gravitas? There is no wrong answer. We gravitate to a path that suits our personality and experiences. Yet, our intuitive spirit is alive in all of us and we can learn to harness its gifts so we can become acutely aware of shifts around us. Recently, I’ve been reading Gavin de Becker’s book, The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals that Protect Us From Violence, and with the holiday season on our doorsteps, we need to be even more vigilant about our activities and surroundings. This is not intended to scare you but to remind you that prescience is the foresight to make choices that are beneficial to us in so many ways. Be motivated to keep yourself and your loved ones safe and know that you have the intuitive power and skill to act wisely at all times.
Thoughtful for Winter’s future sorrow,
Its gloom and scarcity;
Prescient to-day, of want to-morrow,
Toiled quiet Memory.
‘Tis she that from each transient pleasure
Extracts a lasting good;
‘Tis she that finds, in summer, treasure
To serve for winter’s food.
And when Youth’s summer day is vanished,
And Age brings Winter’s stress,
Her stores, with hoarded sweets replenished,
Life’s evening hours will bless. Charlotte Bronte
READ: The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals that Protect Us From Violence by Gavin de Becker
Reflections: On Early Memories & Intuition…
Motivation Mondays: A QUESTION Of BALANCE
Oprah.com: Save Your Own Life
“Intuition is always right in at least two important ways; It is always in response to something. it always has your best interest at heart.” Gavin de Becker
Motivation Mondays: PRESCIENCE
YouTube: Trusting your Intuition (Gavin de Becker & Sam Harris)
We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us. John Culkin/ Marshall McLuhan
What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also. Julius Caesar
Science can only ascertain what is but not what should be, but beyond of its domain value, judgments of all kinds are necessary. Albert Einstein
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. John Quincy Adams.
There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time. Malcolm X
If you could foresee the outcome of all your actions, would you be mindful? While some of us like to think that human behavior is such a complex science that it would be dangerous to even assume that if we all had the gift of prescience, we’d act in beneficial ways to uplift humanity, it is imperative to listen to our inner guidance. Why, you might wonder? Because our intuition rises above the noise and judgements we often carry with us. When we enter a space and we feel the urge to leave, what is behind that prompting? What triggers our spirit to respond in a protective manner in seemingly ordinary situations? We must pay attention to these promptings because they often come from a place deep in our soul and they are pulling us to pay attention to our surroundings and to respond with caution and wisdom. Yes, we have other qualities and genetic markers that play a role in our choices and so we might still find ourselves leaning in the direction of Y, engaging in destructive or constructive behavior because of an inclination to do so. However, if we developed more self-awareness and an inner bellwether that guides our moral compass, we would probably choose a path that leads to X; we would learn that our renewed awareness and foresight will dictate an outcome that might not be entirely shape-shifting but will save our life.
The truth is that, even with knowledge of probable outcomes, some of us will go ahead and enter that relationship, take that job and respond to that annoying person in an expected way. Even with the gift of insight and precognition, many of us will still answer the call of our destiny and follow a path that is both familiar and predictable because it is what we know and how we have always responded to X. So, the point I am trying to make here is that we are creatures of habit, and viewing a TV screen with clear outcomes for choices we might make would not necessarily have us veer in a new direction. If anything, the stubborn goats among us might become determined to prove the whole thing is nonsense as they barrel ahead. Some of us will make poor choices even with clear indications that our choices might put our career and personal goals in peril… But we don’t have to surrender to our demons and let life happen to us. Stand up. Become aware. Embrace your intuition. Make friends with it. Be motivated to live your life fully and take charge of those foggy areas. We all have the ability to develop a keen intuitive awareness and choosing to let life happen to us is defeatist. Life is about becoming masterful over our successes and challenges and while we need both the dark times and the light moments to create balance and learn gratitude, we still have the right to CHOOSE.
Is there a way around this? Yes, embrace it. Kick back and enjoy a spa treatment, a facial or other beauty treatments to help calm you. Surprised?
READ: Reflections: On Perspective & Voice…
Intuition 101: Hello… Is Your Intuition Calling?
NYTimes: The Gift of Fear – Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence
The details for Motivation Mondays are below. Join in! The themes for NOV/DEC 2017 are:
11/05 — 05 Guy Fawkes, 7 Election Day, 10 Science Day, 11 Veterans Day
11/12 — 13 World Kindness Day, 14 Diabetes Day, 16 International Day of Tolerance, 17 National Unfriend Day
11/19 — 20 Universal Children’s Day, 21 World TV Day, 23 Thanksgiving Day
11/26 — 27 Cyber Monday, 28 Giving Tuesday
12/01 – World Aids Day, 12/02 Abolition of Slavery,
12/03 – Start of Advent, 12/7 Pearl Harbor Remembrance, 12/8 Immaculate Conception, 12/9 Anti-Corruption Day,
12/10 – Human Rights Day, 12/11 Green Day, 12/12 Start of Hanukkah,
12/17 – 12/18 International Migrant’s Day, 12/20 End of Hanukkah, 12/21 Winter Solstice, 12/23 Super Saturday
12/24 – 12/25 Christmas, 12/26 Start of Kwanzaa, 12/31 New Year’s Eve
Are You Looking for Ways to Stay Creative in 2017?
– Join the Daily Post Post-a-day or Post-a-week Challenge.
— Join the BlogHer Writing Lab
More Below! Read more…
