Daily Ramblings – Ted Talk Tuesday – The Amazing Effects of Gratitude

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Benefits, effects, Gratitude, Life, Looking at the bright side, TedEd, Thankful, Thankfulness

I figured since we are so close to Thanksgiving, this would be an appropriate video for those of you may not keep a Gratitude Journal or practice counting your blessings each day. It is a wondrous time of year!

A good friend of our family provided a quote that I’ve kept close to the chest since hearing it. He said, “When things go bad in your life, you have to remember that these things are not done to you, but for you.”

This quote is all about turning a sour note to a wondrous melody. Sure, we all have our relationship, financial, health, and other problems, but in the end there’s some lesson to be learned. We learn how strong we are. We learn how loving we are. We learn how resilient we are. I think we learn the most when times are tough. What a gift, right?

Gratitude is about looking at every situation with a sense of thankfulness. It’s being thankful for what we have, not what we do not have. It is realizing that we have all we need. Perhaps it isn’t all we want, but it is what we need.

I hope you enjoy this video.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursday – Life

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Adventure, Dark Night of Soul, enduring, Happiness, Humility, Life, Love, Overcoming, Tragedy

I’m sitting here in my living room, with laptop up, and our little dog Bella resting in her doggy bed. Mom and Dad are out running errands, and I am just relaxing while I knock out my daily tasks.

Today, I am grateful for this life. I have experienced so many things, and sometimes I reminisce and am blown away by all the things I have done, all the people I’ve come to know, and all the adventures that await. It has been one terrific ride.

Now that I am retired, the adventure continues. I have more time to read, write, learn, and pursue all kinds of things. It is terrific to have so many choices and so many opportunities.

Has life been easy. Far from it. But, every experience is a treasure. The hard times made me stronger, more grateful, and more humble. The good times created good memories I can revisit over and over again, when I think about life, like I am today.

Each one of you has experienced trauma, loved ones passing, sickness, and all kinds of tragedies, too many to mention here. You survived, and even though the troubled times may have lingered, things always got better, right?

When I am ever in the “dark night of Soul”, I remind myself that “this too shall pass”. And you know what? It does.

So here’s to the many shades and colors of life. May all of our lives be filled with adventure, love, laughs, tears, and all the rest. Life is truly worth living and one hell of a rollercoaster ride!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – William James

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5 Quotes, Belief, Life, philosophy, Prejudice, Psychiatry, Stress, Wednesday, William James, wisdom

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.

William James

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.

William James

The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.

William James

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.

William James

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

William James

As always, if you’d like to learn more about William James, here is the fascinating life who influenced a great deal of our thought today https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursday – Home

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cozy, Grateful, Gratitude, Happy, Home, Life, Nook, Thankful

Today, I’m grateful for a warm, comfortable home. It’s paid for, everything works, and it is just so cozy. I have my little nook in the living room by the front room window where I do my work, read, write, learn, etc. When I go to bed at night, I think about how grateful I am for this life. It didn’t turn out the way I thought it would, but the surprises in life along the way have been terrific.

Life is full of surprises, yet in the end, things always work out for the best—a “best” we could not have foreseen. I’ll leave it here for today. Take stock of what you are grateful for. I do this every day, and it is a treasured time to contemplate all the good in my life. We have so much control over how we react to the challenges, joys, and surprises in life. Look for the good and you’ll find it.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Ted Talk Tuesday – 4 Lessons

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Balance, Changes, Lessons learned, Life, Pandemic, Patty McCord, vaccination, Work

All of us experienced lockdowns in one way or another in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic touched everyone across the globe. In this video, Patty McCord discusses what the pandemic taught us over the last year. I wanted to share this today, because I am getting the COVID vaccination today. My folks and I need to get this thing because they both have underlying conditions and since I live with them, need to get vaccinated as well. I hope you enjoy this video as much as I did.

Have a great Tuesday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – 5 Quotes

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Chinese, Content, Daoism, kindness, Lao Tzu, Life, Love, Nature, Philosopher

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

Lao Tzu

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.

Lao Tzu

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.

Lao Tzu

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Lao Tzu

Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

Lao Tzu

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/biography/lao-tzu-biography

Lao Tzu is credited as the founder of Daoism. If you’d like to learn more about this Chineses philosopher, click the link above.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursday – Birthdays

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Birthday, born, Day Off, eat some good food, Happy, Life, play some games, Read, Relax

This is going to be short today, folks. It’s my 57th birthday and I’m going to be taking the day off. I’m grateful to be alive, grateful to have been born, and grateful for this life. It has been one hell of a journey so far.

Have a great day, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – 5 Quotes

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5 Quotes, Earl Nightingale, Enjoyment, Life, Quotes, wisdom, Wisdom Wednesday

Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.

Earl Nightingale

Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future. Think how really precious is the time you have to spend, whether it’s at work or with your family. Every minute should be enjoyed and savored.

Earl Nightingale

We can let circumstances rule us, or we can take charge and rule our lives from within.

Earl Nightingale

The more intensely we feel about an idea or a goal, the more assuredly the idea, buried deep in our subconscious, will direct us along the path to its fulfillment.

Earl Nightingale

The biggest mistake that you can make is to believe that you are working for somebody else. Job security is gone. The driving force of a career must come from the individual. Remember: Jobs are owned by the company, you own your career!

Earl Nightingale

I hope you are having a great Wednesday! I took my nephew and his girlfriend back to the airport today, for their flight back to Arizona. We had a great time with them. Enjoy these quotes and have a great day!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursday – Life

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Adventures, experiences, Grateful, Learning, Life, Thankful Thursday, Thanks

Today, I’m grateful for life. Oh, the adventures I’ve had. Some horrific, others wonderful. But the journey has been a great ride.

I’ve experienced love and heartbreak, achievement and failure, sickness and good health. Opposites are the nature of our universe. We have light and dark, good and evil, fun and boring, and the list goes on and on.

What makes the journey worthwhile? The ups and downs. When you’re up, you’re on top of the world. When you’re down, it sucks. But either side of this equation is necessary, so we know the difference.

How many people truly cherish life? It really depends on their outlook and belief system. For the nihilists out there, life is meaningless. For the optimist, everything is terrific. I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone that is totally this or that. Instead, you’ll find people that are in the middle somewhere.

I have always chosen optimism over nihilism. Perhaps I was lucky with my upbringing. Perhaps I was born at the right time period. Honestly, I choose to be happy.

My father taught me a terrific way to look at things. He said, “Son, you will always have things you have to do in life. You have to go to school, you have to work, you have to fulfill your responsibilities. You will not escape these responsibilities, unless of course, you want to have a hard life. If you fail to graduate your life will be hard. No one will want to hire you. If you don’t want to work, you will starve, or you will live a life of crime to support yourself. If you’re irresponsible, you will cause great pain for yourself and anyone that joins you on your life’s journey. So you have a choice. You can do the things you are required to do happily, or you can be pissed off your whole life. I choose to be happy. What will you choose?”

Obviously, I choose to be happy. Why be pissed off about the things you have to do anyway? The choice to me was obvious.

So today I’m grateful for the gift of life. I’m grateful for the things I’ve done and the things I have not done. I am grateful for the people who have come and gone in my life. I am grateful for the teachers and mentors who have helped me learn something new, grasp a new concept, or suggested I make an adjustment to the way I think or act. All of these things are a blessing.

Happy Thursday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursday – Grateful for my Teachers

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Books, Colleagues, Friends, leaders, Life, mentors, Parents, Professors, Teachers

All of us have had teachers in one shape or form that contributed to who we are today. I’ve had some great ones. I had great teachers in grade school. I had terrific professors in my undergraduate and graduate studies. The best teachers I’ve had were my parents, my leaders in the military, and life itself.

My parents taught me how to treat family, how to be a man, and how to treat a woman. My teachers gave me insights into the topics I was studying that you could not get from a book. They demonstrated how the book knowledge could be applied to the “real world”.

My military leaders taught me what service was about. They taught me how to take care of my equipment, learn my job, and lead others. They also taught me things that couldn’t be measured—things like honor, discipline, keeping your word, and being honest, even when things get screwed up.

One group I didn’t mention are the group of teachers I have not met. These are the authors of all the books I’ve read to date. Teachers like Covey, Allen, Guise, Twain, Einstein, Hawking, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Tolkien, and so many others.

All of us have had great teachers in our lives. Life is the final one. Life tends to blindside us. We learn from the cuts and bruises life dishes out. We learn things like being thrifty, planning, always striving for something better, but the most important lesson of all—we learn to treat other people with decency and respect.

I love learning. I love learning from the greats. Whether it is a book, a quote, a video, or in-person advice, our teachers have helped us achieve what we are achieving today. Today, I am grateful for every one of my teachers. I would not be where I am today without them.

Until next time…

Dave