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Motivation Mondays: Father’s Day Matters
“I decided in my life that I would do nothing that did not reflect positively on my father’s life.” Sidney Poitier
Motivation Mondays: Why Father’s Day Matters
Dad, wherever you are, you are gone but you will never be forgotten. Conrad Hall
To be as good as our fathers we must be better, imitation is not discipleship. Wendell Phillips
When it comes to Father’s Day, I will remember my dad for both being there to nurture me and also for the times he gave me on my own to cultivate my own interests and to nurture my own spirit. Jennifer Grant
Why does Father’s Day Matter? On Sunday, June 18, we will have another chance to celebrate the Dads and Fathers in our lives and give thanks for all the men who made a positive impact on our lives. This day matters because it is a reminder that being a parent is an enormous responsibility and one that must never be taken lightly. For folks with sad or no memories of a father’s presence, it is an opportunity to pause and consider giving thanks to those who stood up for them in that role. For those of us with fond memories of our Dads, it is another chance to express our gratitude and remember that we can be a parental figure in the eyes of a child who needs love. Even though my Dad was a great and admirable figure looming over our household, he had very human qualities too. As an adult, I chose to remember his loving, generous spirit not his strict and sometimes unbending side. He was Dad to me and, in the eyes of a child, he was perfect and all knowing. In the eyes of a teen, Dad was annoying, and in the eyes of an adult, Dad’s life became our legacy and our foundation. We need all of these versions to complete the picture and memories as we curate what we will share with our kids and with the world.
Since I started writing this blog in 2008, I’ve written a post to celebrate my Dad and the many Dads I’ve admired over the years. I’ll add links to those posts here as a way to curate my posts on the topic. Take a look at all or any and enjoy.
Amidst the Deluge: Abundant Love for Father’s Day
On Father’s Day: The Gift of Wisdom
On Father’s Day: Memories of Love Lost & Found…
“It doesn’t matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.” Anne Sexton
Motivation Mondays: Why Father’s Day Matters
I admire my father greatly. Kojo Annan
We looked up to our father. He still is much greater than us. Wynton Marsalis
In our house, Mother’s Day is every day. Father’s Day, too. In our house, parents count. They do important work and that work matters. One day just doesn’t cut for us. Margaret Heffernan
Even though my Dad passed away some years ago, his fearlessness, generous legacy, worldview vision, wise teachings, philanthropy and blessings continue to guide and lift me and my loved ones up. I was raised Catholic but our friends were spread across the religious divide and we respected all. Dad always preached that the true testimony of our faith was how well we treated our fellow man/woman not just how well we memorized platitudes. Love thy neighbor as thyself was a tenet practiced in our household and he lived it till the day he died. Was he perfect? Nobody is perfect but his spirit of service and compassion for those in need was legendary. In our lifetime, we have a choice; we can choose the path of poison or of perfume and what we believe, we become. One of my teachers always said that we must make friends with our mind so it can remind us to connect to our hearts and view others through a lens of compassion and not judgement. Instead of wasting time criticizing how others live, we should all work at living our best, good Samaritan lives… the world needs more of that. For those folks who have not had the best relationship with their Dad, I’d encourage you to honor those who have supported and lifted you, and find the space in your heart to forgive your father. To move forward, we must learn to let go of the past and all its hurtful memories. We don’t have to forget but we must learn to forgive.
Inspiration: Happy Father’s Day…
Remembrance: Happy Father’s Day
Happy Father’s Day & International Yoga Day: 20 Things That Matter
A Story – Become A Lake (Advice a dad would give)
An aging Hindu master grew tired of his apprentice complaining, and so, one morning, he sent him for some salt. When the apprentice returned, the master instructed the unhappy young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it.
“How does it taste?” the master asked.
“Bitter,” spit the apprentice.
The master chuckled and then asked the young man to take the same handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake, and once the apprentice swirled his handful of salt in the water, the old man said, “Now drink from the lake.”
As the water dripped down the young man’s chin, the master asked, “How does it taste?”
“Much fresher,” remarked the apprentice.
“Do you taste the salt?” asked the master.
“No,” said the young man.
At this, the master sat beside the young man who so reminded him of himself and took his hands, offering, “The pain of life is pure salt, no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things… Stop being a glass. Become a lake.” Source The Little Zen Companion
The details for Motivation Mondays are below. Join in! The themes for May/June 2017 are:
05/01 – May Day, World Lyme Day, 02 National Teacher Day, 03 World Press Freedom, 04 National Day of Prayer,
05 Cinco De Mayo, 06 Kentucky Derby
05/14 – 14 Mothers Day, 20 Armed Forces Day
05/21 – 22 International Biological Diversity, 24 National Brother Day, 25 Ascension, 27 Ramadan starts
05/28 – 29 Memorial Day, 31 World No Tobacco Day
06/05 – World Environment Day, 08 National Best Friend Day, 08 World Oceans Day
06/11 – 11 Trinity Sunday, 14 Flag Day
06/18 – 18 Father’s Day, 19 Juneteeth, 20 World Refugee Day, 21 Summer Solstice/International Yoga Day, 23 Intn’l Widow’s Day, 24 Ramadan Ends
06/25 – 25 Eid al Fitr, 26 Against Drug Abuse Day,
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: ORDER
“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.” Thomas Merton
Photo Challenge: ORDER
Photo Challenge: ORDER – Prepped Veggies all in a row
There is order all around us; even in the littlest of things, the lines on a leaf, the striations in wood, the casual way we set our table or the prep work we do in the kitchen as we get ready to prepare a dish. All of life has a certain symmetry or order that pleases the eyes and stops us from imagining we have gone mad. Even in those moments where chaos reigns, we see signs of order and it pulls our eyes in. For this week’s exercise on ORDER, I was drawn to the vegetables I had on my kitchen counter. Like many cooks, prep work is fundamental to the process and I love to lay my ingredients out in an orderly manner so I can reach for them as needed. In this case, I was getting ready to make a vegetable soup and, as I washed and cleaned my ingredients, I was struck by the way they lay beautifully in the bowl and later on the tray. So, I grabbed my camera and took some shots. Later when I saw the challenge was on ORDER, I took some more photos… That’s life right?
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today, to get through this thing called life…” Prince
Remembering Prince ; a brilliant, extraordinary, musical genius
On an important and wistful note, today would have been Prince Rogers Nelson‘s 59th birthday. He left us too soon. May his music live as a legacy to his brilliance and extraordinary genius… I miss him. Recently, I read a few books written by those who knew him up close. I also read some articles that took my breath away. I would recommend the following.
READ: The Most Beautiful: My Life with Prince by Mayte Garcia
The Day It Snowed In April: A Memoir by Devin Devasquez
Exclusive: Never-Before-Seen Pictures of Prince, on His Birthday
More below! Read more…
Motivation Mondays: MODERATION
“In things a moderation keep; Kings ought to shear, not skin, their sheep.” Robert Herrick
Motivation Mondays: MODERATION – When does it matter?
Motivation Mondays: MODERATION – When does it matter?
Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide. Marcus Tullius Cicero
Be moderate in everything, including moderation. Horace Porter
Throw moderation to the winds, and the greatest pleasures bring the greatest pains. Democritus
MODERATION: Why does it matter? Recently, I was having a heart to heart chat with my loved ones and they were quite direct about the amount of time I spend on the internet. Between the groups I manage, the groups I participate in, the sponsored work and the many social media sites I use to promote my blog, I can definitely understand their concern. Even with the various services that help the process along, it can add up to long hours spent online doing endless chores that don’t add up in concrete ways. So being mindful about how we spend our time helps us gauge when we are veering off track. In the blogging world, there are endless ways to spend time, waste time, and kill our time on monotonous activities. Without the help of a Virtual Assistant or supreme control over when we engage with others, it can quickly become a stressful and overwhelming experience. We don’t have to join every group or participate in every campaign because, sooner or later, we will get caught in the hamster wheel of never finishing tasks or being satisfied with the outcomes.
How do we create balance when we have goals that we are determined to achieve? Prioritize! Pare down. Cut back. Say goodbye to minutiae and hello to more quality time spent with your loved ones and being truly creative. We often talk about throwing caution to the wind when we aim for success but then, in the next breath, we warn against indulging our passions or senses excessively. Sometimes, these conflicting messages make it hard to determine which actions bring success; excess or moderation? To stay the course, we need to be clear about our own limitations and draw a line in the sand. It is imperative to take time out for self and damn the consequences. Unfortunately, there are those who think we should be working like factory conveyor belts. When you fall off, a very human quality, they toss you like dirty laundry. That said, the onus is on us to get up and count our blessings and move forward with wisdom and clarity about where we want to spend our time. Where are you TRULY supported? Which path fits your personality? Which path will produce the best results and quality of life for you?
Most accomplished artists rarely develop their craft with temperance in mind; they obsess about their work, create, practice or rehearse endlessly, go over their work again and again, until they can express it in their sleep. Can you imagine Picasso, Monet or Cézanne painting moderately? Yet, there is some wisdom in paying attention to how and where we spend our time. If we spend our time laboring over tasks with few productive outcomes then we need to take a closer look and prioritize. We live in an age of smartphones and smart access to tons of things so, being mindful about not running our engines 24/7 is imperative. I think moderation, as Democritus references in his quote above, tends to come into play over things that are harmful for us; drugs, alcohol, smoking, unsafe sex, and perhaps excess food. In those things, balance is key… even abstinence. In seeking moderation, we need to clarify our expectations and choose wisely.
A STORY: The Little Glutton by Pedro Pablo Sacristán
Once upon a time there was a little glutton who only ate sweets and candy. One day, in an antique shop he found an old magnifying glass. He liked it very much, and his parents bought it for him. He was so happy with his magnifying glass! As soon as he could, he used it to look at a little ant. It was great! The ant looked so big. But then a strange thing happened. When he took the magnifying glass away, the ant stayed the same size it had appeared through the glass. Very surprised, the boy kept experimenting, and he found that anything he looked at through the magnifying glass would get bigger, and stay that way.Suddenly, he realized how he could best use this special ability, and he ran home. At home he took all the candies and sweets, and he made them gigantic with his magnifying glass. Then he completely stuffed himself with them, until he could eat nothing more. However, the next morning he woke up totally swollen, a bit purple, and with a huge bellyache. When the doctor came to see him, he said it was the worst case of upset tummy he had ever seen. Night and day, the little glutton suffered so much that for a long time he didn’t want to hear mention of large amounts of food. His parents were happy about this. Thanks to their son’s latest gluttony their pantry was full of the food he could not eat. What’s more, he gave up being a glutton who only ever ate sweets and candy. He wanted nothing to do with them.
And so it was that the little glutton learned that even with the best things in life, if you have too many of them, you will end up feeling ill. He decided to keep the magnifying glass in a box until he found something that would really be worth making bigger. How about you? What would you use the magnifying glass for?
“If one oversteps the bounds of moderation, the greatest pleasures cease to please.” Epictetus
Motivation Mondays: MODERATION – When does it matter?
Motivation Mondays: MODERATION – When does it matter?
Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. Mark Twain
Temperance is moderation in the things that are good and total abstinence from the things that are foul. Frances E. Willard
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. W. Somerset Maugham
When does Moderation Matter? Clearly, we don’t seem to think about moderation when it comes to creating talent or becoming the best at a skill but, it is an important quality when we consider excesses that can harm us or distract us from our goals. The story above teaches a lesson about excessive behavior; in this case with food, but we might react differently if the boy practiced the piano 12 hours a day or wrote great stories, crafted over hours and hours of laborious effort, with publishers bidding like crazy for his works. A life in moderation might be a bit challenging, perhaps, if one feels compelled to make a unique contribution to the world. However, such contributions demand tremendous effort and we must be clear about its value/impact before moderation is thrown to the wind. Once we address the obvious issues on what we will/will not moderate or indulge in, we must decide to live life fully or perish.
The details for Motivation Mondays are below. Join in! The themes for April/May 2017 are:
05/01 – May Day, World Lyme Day, 02 National Teacher Day, 03 World Press Freedom, 04 National Day of Prayer,
05 Cinco De Mayo, 06 Kentucky Derby
05/14 – 14 Mothers Day, 20 Armed Forces Day
05/21 – 22 International Biological Diversity, 24 National Brother Day, 25 Ascension, 27 Ramadan starts
05/28 – 29 Memorial Day, 31 World No Tobacco Day
06/05 – World Environment Day, 08 National Best Friend Day, 08 World Oceans Day
06/11 – 11 Trinity Sunday, 14 Flag Day
06/18 – 18 Father’s Day, 19 Juneteeth, 20 World Refugee Day, 21 Summer Solstice/International Yoga Day, 23 Intn’l Widow’s Day, 24 Ramadan Ends
06/25 – 25 Eid al Fitr, 26 Against Drug Abuse Day,
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…
