Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursday – Scribd

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Goodreads, gratefulness, Gratitude, Happy, Kindle, Learning, Productivity, Reading, Scribd, self-improvement, Studying

Today, I’m thankful for the Scribd app. If you aren’t familiar, the Scribd app gives you access to tons of books, magazines, and audio books. I read a bunch of books each year, and this saves me a lot of money. I am reading two books right now that retail for $15 each on Amazon right now. So the $8.99 I pay each month is well worth it. I like reading a few books at a time, so this service is terrific. Here’s a link if you’d like to check it out. https://www.scribd.com/

If you are an avid reader, who wants to save a few bucks, I’d highly recommend Scribd. I read about 60 books a year, and most of them are on Scribd. I am not an affiliate and get ZERO dollars if you join up, but trust me, this is a terrific service. You can also download this app to your tablets and phone. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten my reading done sitting in a dental or doctor’s office. For a really good combination, you can listen to a song or two on Apple Music or Spotify, if you get these music services. I enjoy reading with either a focus or some other purely instrumental genre in the background. From time-to-time I’ll listen to classical, but for the most part, calming instrumentals that aren’t too “busy” work great for me.

Another great companion to reading is the Kindle and Goodreads apps. Most of my friends and colleagues use both of these, and it’s a great way to track what you’ve read, and share it with friends and like-minded folks, who enjoy the same genres you do. If you have a Goodreads account, it’ll automatically track what you read on the Kindle, but you can add books manually, particularly those you read on Scribd if you choose to try it out.

Well, that’s it for today, folks. Happy Reading!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Striving

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Exercise, Improving, Learning, Meditation, Reading, self-improvement, Striving, Studying, Writing

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” George Eliot

Wow, what a great quote right? How many stories have been told through the ages of a life wasted? Wow, he or she could have been this, if only….?

When you wake up in the morning, do you realize that you are the best you’ve ever been, ever? It only gets better moving forward. I realize this may sound to be a little over the top from a positivity perspective, but why can’t it be like that? It can be.

One of the things I’ve discovered since beginning this blog and following others is that there are a lot of folks who are striving. Striving to improve. Striving to be better. Striving to heal. Striving to be heard. I really enjoy reading the thoughts of others and try to put myself in their position, really feeling where they are in life. But, living a life well-lived is about the striving, right? I think it is.

I am striving for many things. I want to become a writer. I want to tweak my prose so people will be drawn to my books, my blog, or whatever I create for a reader to consume. I want to be in the best shape of my life so my brain and body will serve me as long as humanly possible. I strive toward this goal with daily exercise, eating right, a daily dose of reading, learning, writing, and meditation. I want to be loved, so I strive to interact with people, cultivate new relationships by putting myself out there, and maintaining the relationships I have with my family and my friends by staying in touch and doing those little things that make my loved ones know they are my world and they can depend on me.

I strive for a great many things that pertain to my physical well-being, my financial well-being, my mental and intellectual well-being, my spiritual well-being, and my social well-being. This striving is what keeps me alive. I continuously look for ways to improve and get better, all while taking care of the most important person in my life—me. If I am not striving for that next goal, that next hilltop, that next landmark, then I am moving backward.

Don’t get me wrong. We all get sick. We all get old. We all get blind-sided by those things that we didn’t see coming, which put us into a temporary tailspin. What I’m talking about here is purposeful striving, continuing forward, regardless of what we get hit with or encounter.

This is where the quote above really hit me. I don’t want to be that person that looks back over their life regretting that I didn’t do something I could have done. I don’t want to be that person that cowered in fear and avoided something because it might be too hard or too scary to even try. I want to look back on my life and say, I did the very best I could with what I had and from where I started. Man, what a great ride this life has been.

We all come to this world with our own baggage and circumstances. Some are outright advantageous, while others are the exact opposite. If you are ever discouraged, look around the web for a bit or go to your local library. You’ll find a story about a person who had it rougher than you and excelled. You’ll also find a person who had everything and wasted their opportunity. A well-lived life is not all about the accolades and accomplishments. It is about the striving.

By the way, I chose the Ballerina picture, as a way of demonstrating striving in action (they work really hard to get good at this particular kind of dance).

Until next time…