Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursday – Gifts

Tags

Blessings, Gifts, God, Grateful, Gratitude, Life, Reverence, Unique

Your talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God. – Leo Buscaglia

We all have talents. We are all good at something. Today, I am grateful for the natural gifts I have been blessed with.

One of my greatest gifts is my affinity for learning. I have always enjoyed school and learning new things. Now that I am done with formal schooling, the freedom to learn new things is important. I enjoy learning about everything. Obviously, I am focused on learning more about computer programming, writing, and continuous self-improvement, but I am always interested in finding courses on topics ranging from history to philosophy. I consider this ability to learn and my curiosity to be great gifts.

What gifts do you have? What God-given gifts do you have that you are grateful for?

If you are unaware of them, take a moment and do a personal inventory. What do you do for a living? What hobbies do you have? What do you enjoy doing? Your gift is in there somewhere. Maybe you have an affinity for exploring and adventure? Maybe you enjoy the gift of great motor skills and video games are your forte? Maybe you like a good story and you love to read and watch movies and television shows. Maybe you are a great organizer and a master at raising your kids. Or maybe your gift is an endless well of patience and love that you give to everyone around you.

You see, the gifts you receive are going to be unique to you and your life circumstances. They may not be as concrete as mine, but you will have them. You just have to look at what you do, where you are, and what you naturally gravitated towards. These gifts are priceless. They are what make us unique. They allow us to participate in life, adding to the quilt of our reality, where each of us plays a part.

Take some time to think about this today. You may have never thought about it before. I think you’ll be amazed at the gifts you have been given and how you use them in your everyday life. Still having difficulty? Check out this article: Self-Worth: 5 Ways to Identify Your Unique Gifts, provided by Tris Thorp from the Chopra Center. I think you’ll be surprised and you will get a huge A-ha when you begin thinking about this.

Once you know what your strengths are, take some time to see if there is anything you could do with this gift that you are not currently doing. This may provide you some direction that is lacking in your life, or you may just get a confirmation that you are doing exactly what you should be doing.

There are so many things to be grateful for in this life. Life is precious and a gift. Take full advantage of what you have. I wish all of you a terrific Thursday!

Until next time…

Dave

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Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Attitude Adjustment

Tags

Attitude, Blessings, Ego, God, Gratitude, Little Self, Mind

If we want to keep the blessings of life coming to us, we must learn to be grateful for whatever is given.

—Harold Klemp

The Language of Soul

Gratitude is an interesting character trait. It requires us at times to really dig deep to find something, something to be grateful for. As the quote says, we must LEARN to be grateful for whatever is given.

So, how do you learn to be grateful? I think this is an individual endeavor. What works for me may not work for you. I started out with the 5-minute journal and followed the instructions that it provides at the beginning of it when you pull it out of the package that arrives. “List three things you are grateful for” in the morning. “List three things you are grateful for” in the evening before bed. This simple, short exercise helped me finally grasp what it means to be grateful.

When I first started I listed out the common things everyone is grateful for. I was grateful for my wife. I was grateful for my stepdaughters. I was grateful for my immediate family. After a while, when I began to see the benefits of explicitly writing down what I was grateful for, I began to get more detailed. Instead of “I am grateful for my wife” I would write down “I am grateful for my wife because she works so hard to take care of me and our girls.” When I began writing the specifics of why I was grateful for something, the feeling I had changed to a stronger feeling.

There’s another quote I began to think about during this time period. The quote reads, “Things are done for us, not to us.” I don’t know who the author of this quote is, but it had an impact on me. Think about that for a moment. Things are done for you, not to you. Think of the last time you had that “woe is me” feeling. Now think about this quote. It is hard to capture gratitude when things are crumbling around you, but if you truly embrace, “things are done for you, not to you”, you begin to see that God is doing everything for you so you can become a more spiritual being.

Maybe God is trying to tell you to change your diet, or it’s time to get a new job, or it’s time to move to a new area. If you believe that God is doing things for you and not to you, some events in your life that are traumatic or unsettling, take on a whole new light.

These attitudinal changes make a huge difference in how you approach your day. Think how good you will feel when you discover that nothing can rattle you, that your internal happiness cannot be affected by the changes in weather, what other people do or don’t do, or how things turn out for you. The human mind is so feeble and incapable of grasping the whole that we rarely see how God works in our lives, nor in the lives of others. It is beyond the human mind’s capability to see the infinite amount of variables that intertwine to make our reality.

Gratitude is a simple character trait. It is being grateful for your life. It is being grateful for what you have. It is being purposefully grateful for the blessings that God has given you. The ego and the human mind are very small vessels. They are necessary for our survival, but easily offended, upset, and dumbfounded. This is where a faith-belief must take hold in your heart. If God is perfect, which IT is, everything in this universe must be in its rightful place—everything. Everything that God does for us must be received as a blessing not a curse.

When you begin shifting your attention from what you don’t have to what you do have your life will take on a whole new meaning. Try this out. Use a pad of paper, a journal, or a computer program (I use MS OneNote) to do my gratitude journaling. It has made a huge impact on my life and it will do the same for you.

If any of you try this, keep me posted on any changes you feel or what impact this change in attitude brings into your life. Feel free to leave your revelations or insights in the comments below.

As always, have a great Saturday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Bonus Content

Tags

Bonus Content, God, Good Story, Heart-warming, Human Heart, Link, Spiritual Saturday

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

How God Enters the Human Heart

This is a link to an article on the Eckankar Blog. You may enjoy the story. I hope so. Happy Saturday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursday – Counting Our Blessings

Tags

Bible, Calm, God, Grateful, Gratitude, Little Things, Peace, Serene, Thankful, Warmth

Image by Miesha Moriniere from Pixabay 

“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” — Willie Nelson

Expressing thanks for our blessings in life is a life-changing habit. It focuses our attention on what is good, rather than bad. When I first kept a gratitude journal, I started with the 5-minute journal. The 5-minute journal has you write 3 things you are grateful for when you wake up and again in the evening before you retire. At first I had to work at it, because I was so engrained with seeking what wasn’t working in my life.

Over the years it became easier to think about all the things I am grateful for and that has made all the difference. Now my gratitude spans multiple areas of my life. Imagine the difference this practice will have on you. Instead of waking up in the morning and saying to yourself, “Oh, God. I have this to do today and that to do today and I don’t like this and I don’t like that.” That was how my day began for years. Now, I start my day out with good music and journaling. I start with my dream journal, then I move to my gratitude journal, and then my morning pages. After my journaling is complete, I move right into writing for Daily Ramblings in a fantastic mood and ready to take on the world.

The key for me is to write and write and write until I get in that mood where I am grateful and not just going through the motions, which is easy to do. Here are some suggestions to help you out:

• I am grateful for God
• I am grateful for my Bible
• I am grateful for my life
• I am grateful for my Mom and Dad
• I am grateful for our pet (insert the name for a pet)
• I am grateful for my job and work mates
• I am grateful for my home
• I am grateful for my bed
• I am grateful for my Brothers and Sisters
• I am grateful for my friends
• I am grateful for my talents (list out each one or one helpful in your life)
• I am grateful for my ability to (read, write, learn, whatever)
• I am grateful for my health
• I am grateful for my experiences
• I am grateful for my wife
• I am grateful for my son
• I am grateful for my daughter

These are just a few prompts. Your gratitude journal will be unique to you. I literally keep writing what I am thankful for until I get a familiar feeling of satisfaction and peace, both of which come when you have found that state of gratefulness that always come when the mind focuses on what’s right, rather than what’s wrong. Gratitude feels like peace, calm, and warmth. It feels like a warm blanket.

If you are tired of being pissed off, stressed out, and all the rest, try starting your own gratitude journal. It will make a huge difference in your life.

Until next time…

Dave

 

Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursday – It’s Great to Learn New Things

Tags

Coursera, family, God, Learning, Life, Reading, Udemy, Writing

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Today I am grateful for the ability to read, write, and learn. Think about some people on the planet that are illiterate or have suffered from a traumatic brain injury or a learning disability that precludes them from learning the same way you and I learn. My wife is a special education teacher, and she works with these kids every day.

I am grateful for my interest in learning new things. I truly enjoy learning something I didn’t know yesterday. I enjoy taking a trip with an author and walking through the mental libraries they have created in their books. “Look here”, they say. “Look there. This is really important.” I am also grateful for the free repositories of books online and my local library. So many books to read and so little time.

Online learning is also a terrific thing. Think about it. You can learn a great deal by reading other people’s blogs, reading books, and attending classes and webinars, most of which are absolutely free. Why learn you ask? It adds to you. It provides you with skills that you can continue to earn a living with. It gives you a wide berth of experiences through other’s eyes that you may not have the ability to do on your own.

I recently read a book about finding out what you love to do. Think about how many people are in jobs they hate. Can you imagine going to a job that stressed you out and made you unhappy? We all have to make a living one way or another. People who are trapped in a job they hate is a really bad place to be in. Yet, many do not take advantage of the learning opportunities that are available to them. I am grateful that I am not one of these people.

I am always looking to improve. I want to improve my physical body; I want to improve my spiritual practice; I want to improve my skill set, and I want to build my knowledge. I am grateful I have that drive to do these things, day in and day out. Recently, I started listening to albums on Spotify, starting with various jazz artists. I also enjoy the classics, but wanted to start with Jazz. I listened to albums by Miles Davis and Bill Brubeck. Wow! What a treat. I am going to listen to Dizzy Gillespie next. It will be a nice treat. When I listen I put in my earphones, close my eyes, and picture myself in some speakeasy, listening and watching the band and the people there. It is terrific how music takes you places when it is really good.

I hope each of you can find things in your lives you are grateful for. It is a great feeling to sit back and think about all the things that contribute to your life and how nice it is to have them. Gratitude for God, for family, for your life, with all of its difficulties, and the rich experiences each of our lives contain, if we only look and appreciate them. Life is too short to be pissed off or afraid all the time. Take some time each day to express your gratitude for even the smallest thing. It will change the way you engage with the world and interestingly, when you have cultivated the gratitude habit, the world will give you more things to be grateful for.

Life is grand.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursday

Tags

Bible, Blog Schedule, family, Friends, God, New Followers, technology, Thank you

Thank you! It was nice to see some new followers this week. I really appreciate folks who take a chance on spending some time with my blog. I try to mix things up from time-to-time, but tend to stick with a pretty static schedule. Here it is for those of you who are new:

• Motivation Monday
• Ted Talk Tuesday
• Wisdom Wednesday
• Thankful Thursday/Thinking Thursday
• Funny Friday
• Spiritual Saturday
• Series/Story/Sunday (Once in a while)

Bonus content can be any day of the week, when I am inspired to write about something other than the above-scheduled topics

I also post my Workout Routines, when I do one. These are pretty boring, but if anyone needs good ideas for working out, a diet they can try, or any other information I believe will help someone start or continue an exercise program, it will be on these posts.

Today, I am grateful for technology. It is so nice to be able to get 100% of my work done on a laptop, anywhere I want. Sometimes I’ll be posting from my favorite coffee shop, a restaurant, or even the beach. Today, I’m working in my living room. The weather in Michigan is quite rainy and cold, so going outside is not realistic at this point.

I also enjoy technology because I can listen to music wherever I am and take online courses with the same flexibility. It truly is a blessing to be able to find a course to learn about something I want to know about and have access to universities across the globe to get at that information.

I am grateful for the ability to communicate with the world through this blog and other mediums. It is awesome. Some folks make good money running their blog. I run mine as a way to express myself and use this as a means of communicating my thoughts on a whole host of topics. It is a lot of fun!

I am also grateful for social media. I don’t spend a lot of time in these areas because they tend to eat up a lot of time if you let them, but it is really nice to interact with people all over the world–instantly. I think the more we can interact in these areas, the more closely we will come together as a planet. At least that’s my hope. There are some websites, like Twitter, which are an absolute war zone politically.

Finally, I am grateful for WordPress. WordPress makes things so easy and being able to run a blog for free is really nice. At some point, I’ll move to a paid sight, but that’s a bit off in the future, once I’ve achieved a higher follower count. I’m still tweaking my message and learning about blogging so I can build up a following that will provide me a larger platform. I have a great deal to say and enjoy the infrequent interactions with my followers.

Well, that’s what I’m grateful for this week. As always, I am grateful for my family, my friends, God, my Bible, my health, and our pets. It is a real privilege to be alive and have the opportunity to experience everything life has to offer. I wish all of you a terrific Thursday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Divine Spirit Steps In

Tags

Assistance, Dao, Divine Spirit, God, Guidance, Harold Klemp, Help, The Universe

You do what you can to make your life right. And when you have done 100 percent of everything you can do, Divine Spirit steps in with the miracle.

—Harold Klemp The Language of Soul

Have you ever had this happen? You work your tail off on something. It’s coming together but you need another person or another thing to come into place for your pet project to take off. Then, out of nowhere, you get exactly what you need.

I am a firm believer in persistence. I believe when we set ourselves to a project, we’ll get ideas for making it better. These ideas come from divine spirit, God, the universe, whatever you designate the higher power I believe exists. Our reality is about creation. When we create something, it aligns us with divine spirit, which is also a creator. This alignment opens us to divine spirit, which provides what we need, when we need it.

For some, this may be a little outlandish. For others, this is common knowledge. In my religion, we call divine spirit, the ECK. You may call this divine spirit, the Holy Ghost, the Dao, or many titles. The ECK is pervasive, eternal, and exists in matter, energy, space, and time and without these lower world phenomena. The ECK, like divine spirit is the communication medium used between God and Soul.

Like all things, the mind is our filter. We need the mind to live in this reality. Whatever your mind believes, you are right (Henry Ford, paraphrased). So, if you believe in God and divine spirit, you are right. If you do not believe in God or divine spirit you are also right. This posting is not designed to change your mind about these things, just my humble explanation of what I believe to be true.

Keep your eyes and ears open when you engage in something. You could be solving a problem, pursuing your dreams, or taking on a big project. Watch what happens when you really put yourself into these things. The right people will show up, the right ideas will reach you, and you’ll take the right actions to accomplish it. If you make a mistake, you’ll think about how to correct it, learn from it, and keep moving forward. Everything will fall into place. Just keep pushing forward. There will always be one more door to walk through, one more step to climb, or one more bit of polish to add. If you keep progressing, divine spirit will keep sending you ideas, options, and new avenues to take.

I hope all of you have a terrific Wednesday! I’ll be working on writing, reading, learning, programming, exercising, and meditating. See you at the finish line!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursdays – Happy Valentine’s Day

Tags

Challenges, God, Grateful, Loved, Satisfied, Thankful, Valentine's Day

“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.”―Seneca

Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you that celebrate. Today is the day we celebrate our loved ones. It is a day of delivering cards, candies, and taking the time to express our gratitude to the one’s we love.

How opportune that Valentine’s Day aligns with my Thankful Thursday posts. I am grateful for my wife. I love her beyond words. She is the one who takes care of me when I’m sick. She laughs with me, cries with me, and shares the burden of life with me. I am grateful she chose me to live her life with. I am eternally grateful for my wife.

I am also thankful for the new followers this week. I hope my blog is meeting your expectations. If you’re new, today is the one day a week I express my gratitude publicly for the things I have. We all have something to be grateful for. I use Thursdays to express my gratitude publicly to remind you you have something to be grateful for.

I am grateful for life’s challenges. Challenges provide us with the opportunity to solve problems. Challenges keep things interesting. Challenges make us stronger and more resilient.

I am grateful for my family and friends. I am grateful for good health. I am grateful for the opportunity to spend time with my folks are in their late seventies and enjoy their senior years with them. I am grateful for the morning conversations over coffee, talking about the news of the day, family memories, or what we will do today.

I am grateful for health. I am grateful that I can go to the gym and push myself beyond my limits every day. I am grateful for the access I have to good food. I am grateful for the technology we have available to us that allows me to learn new things, read new books, listen to music, play the games I like, and to create.

I am grateful for my new followers and the conversations I have with them. I am grateful for the ability to create a blog that people enjoy.

I am grateful for this life. It is an adventure that keeps me going, provides a multitude of opportunities, and challenges me daily.

I am grateful for God’s love. A love that transcends all and provides me with a feeling I am never alone.

I am grateful.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Thinking Thursday

Tags

Bible, Goals, God, Gratitude, Life, Love, Thanks, Travis Barker

“Thank you for life, and all the little ups and downs that make it worth living.” – Travis Barker

Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/travis_barker_468582?src=t_thankful

Life is a grand adventure! We learn, love, and laugh. We travel, we try new things, and we meet new people. When our cycle ends, others take up the mantle. Life continues.

I enjoy thinking about my life. The ups and downs, loves and heartbreaks. The scary and the serene. All these experiences weave themselves into a quilt with little facsimiles scattered about.

I look at all the technological changes that provide us access to so much information, music, and other forms of entertainment. I look at the technologies that provides us the ability to create a document, create a movie, create music, or even create a program of our own making.

Here’s what I’m up to:

Physical

I came down with a flu or cold a few days ago so the workout routine is out until I beat this bug.

Mental

I’m reading 4 books. I’m reading The One Thing, 2136, Shariyat-Ki-Sugmad, and Beyond Good and Evil. All these books are engaging. I’m goaled to read 12 books by the end of March.

I’m running through a JavaScript Project currently, employing the use of Objects, which is exciting. I had no idea that JavaScript was an Object-Oriented Language, but sure enough, it is.

I am still working on a section a day for my book and it is coming along nicely. By the end of next week, I’ll have my initial rough draft. I’m a little over schedule because I wanted to be finished by the end of 2018, but with my vacation visit to Phoenix, I over estimated how much I would get done while I was there (I had too much fun!).

Spiritual

I’m working through my bible and am on the 12^th discourse of my spiritual study for the year. I’ll be starting a new course in the next month or so.

I’m looking for ways to interact with more people. Last year I got a lot done but was a hermit for most of the year focusing on the important work of book writing and the rest. I am going to look at some different venues this year to work on my book writing, so I can continue to get my work done but interact socially with other people.

My book discussion is set for the 14^th of this month. I look forward to that.

Social

I’m still scanning my area for something fun to do this quarter.

Well, that’s it for today folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday

Tags

Dedication, Discipline, Doing your Best, God, Spiritual

“Give your best effort each day, and leave the rest to Spirit.”—Harold Klemp The Language of Soul

All of us have an internal measure of what our best is. Do that. It doesn’t matter if you make mistakes or fail. Do your best.

When I was in the Army, my first few years were a little rough. I did what I could to get by. I didn’t really dedicate myself as much as I should have. Then, I got the idea that maybe, just maybe, I should give everything I had to be the best soldier I could be. The day I decided to do that was the day my career changed forever.

You see, I put everything I had to keep my uniform looking a little better than the next guy’s uniform. I took pride in what I was accomplishing. I kept my room and my equipment a little cleaner than the other guys. I began studying regulations, field manuals and reading military history. I began putting extra effort into the gym at night when the other guys were going out and chasing girls.

I gave it my all and it paid off. This is all this quote is talking about. You give everything you have, and God will step in and give some help. That’s the way it works.

If you think your job sucks, your relationships suck, your life sucks, give everything your all. You will slowly begin to see that your job improves, your relationships improve, and yes, your life will improve. You will be expressing your gratitude for this life by giving life everything you have. That’s exactly what God put you here to do.

Until next time…

Dave