I offer you PEACE. I offer you LOVE. I offer you FRIENDSHIP. I see your BEAUTY. I hear your NEED. I feel your FEELINGS. My wisdom flows from the HIGHEST Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for PEACE, LOVE and UNITY... I WELCOME you WHOLEHEARTEDLY & I hope you find INSPIRATION in my NOTES & QUOTES!!
SMILE!!!! It is a simple ACT, but sometimes takes a lot of EFFORT. A smile can cause BOUNDARIES to MELT, hearts to warm up, and DISTANCES to REDUCE. Why don't we SMILE more often? Is it too TOUGH to smile? The answer lies in our ATTITUDE towards life. If we are more ACCEPTING of situations, we will be able to SMILE more easily.
A SMILE costs nothing, but GIVES much. It ENRICHES those who receive, without making POORER those who GIVE. It takes but a MOMENT, but the MEMORY of it sometimes lasts FOREVER.
None is so RICH or MIGHTY that s/he can get along WITHOUT it, and none is so POOR but that he can be made RICH by it. A smile is a language even a baby can understand, it costs nothing, but it credits much. It happens in a flash but the memory of it may forever last.
A smile creates HAPPINESS in the home, fosters good will in business, and is the countersign of friendship. It brings REST to the weary, CHEER to the discouraged, SUNSHINE to the sad, and is nature's best ANTIDOTE for trouble. Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is of no VALUE to anyone until it is given away.
Some people are too TIRED to give you a smile. Give them one of YOURS, as none needs a smile so much as he who has no more to GIVE.
A smile is the best lighting system of the face, the best cooling system of the head, and the best warming system of the heart. Keep smiling! =)
EVERY relationship has a cycle. When you fell in LOVE with your spouse, you anticipated their phone CALL/SMS, wanted their TOUCH, and liked their IDIOSYNCRASIES. Falling in love with your spouse wasn't hard. In fact, it was a completely NATURAL and spontaneous experience. You didn't have to DO anything! That's why it's called FALLING in love, because it's just HAPPENING to you.
People in Love sometimes say, “I WAS SWEPT OFF MY FEET”. Think about the IMAGERY of that expression. It implies that you were just standing there; doing nothing, and then something came along and HAPPENED to you.
Falling in Love is easy. It's a PASSIVE and SPONTANEOUS experience. But after a few years of RELATIONSHIP, the EUPHORIA of love fades. It's the natural cycle of EVERY relationship. Slowly but surely, phone CALLS become a bother (if they come at all), TOUCH is not always welcome (when it happens), and your partner's IDIOSYNCRASIES, instead of being CUTE, drives you NUTS! The SYMPTOMS of this stage vary with every relationship, but if you think about your RELATIONSHIP, you will notice a dramatic difference between the initial stage when you were CRAZY in love and a much duller or even angry subsequent stage.
At this point, you and/or your spouse might start asking, “AM I INVOLVED WITH THE ‘RIGHT’ PERSON?” And as you and your spouse ponder over the euphoria of the love you once had, you may begin to DESIRE that experience with someone else. This is when relationships/marriages breakdown. People BLAME their spouse for their UNHAPPINESS and look outside their relationship/marriage for FULFILLMENT.
Extramarital fulfillment comes in all forms. Infidelity is the most obvious. But sometimes people turn to their work, a hobby, friends, excessive TV, or abusive substances or social networking sites (like FACEBOOK, TWITTER, MXIT, etc.). When in actuality, the answer to this DILEMMA does NOT lie outside your relationship. It lies WITHIN it. I'm not saying that you couldn't fall in love with someone else. You could. And TEMPORARILY you'd feel better. But you'd be in the SAME situation a few years later. Because THE KEY TO SUCCEEDING IN MARRIAGE IS NOT FINDING THE RIGHT PERSON; IT'S LEARNING TO LOVE THE PERSON YOU FOUND.
SUSTAINING love is not a passive or spontaneous experience. It'll NEVER just happen to you. You can't 'find' LASTING love. You have to 'MAKE' it day in and day out. That's why we have the expression 'THE LABOR OF LOVE.' Because it takes TIME, EFFORT and great ENERGY, and most importantly, it takes WISDOM. You have to know WHAT TO DO to make your relationship/marriage work.
Make no mistake about it. Love is NOT a mystery. There are specific things you can do (with or without your spouse) to succeed with your marriage. Just as there are physical laws of the universe (such as gravity), there are also laws for relationships. Just as the RIGHT diet and exercise program can make you physically stronger, certain HABITS in your relationship can make your relationship stronger and better with each passing day. It's a direct CAUSE and EFFECT. If you know and apply the laws, the results are predictable... You can 'MAKE' it because Love in relationships/marriages is also a 'DECISION'... Not just a FEELING!
Always bear in mind that though fate/God MAY determines who walks into your life, it’s up to you to decide who you DECIDE to let go, who you ALLOW to stay, and who you REFUSE to let go!
I walked into Miss Nartey's home, and found that her living room is dominated by a beautiful grand PIANO. I asked her for a RECITAL, to which she replied that she doesn't PLAY. As I turn my hand over the sleek exterior of this magnificent instrument, I said to myself, "WHAT A SHAME..."
I think human beings are like grand pianos - incredible creations capable of producing wonderful MUSIC. But too often that POTENTIAL goes untapped. We think that GREATNESS is meant for someone else, that we don't have the TALENT (the looks, the energy, the money, the time, the breaks...) And so we live lives "OF QUIET DESPERATION," occasionally entertaining thoughts of "WHAT IF...?"
What if Shakespeare had hidden his talent? (Or Dr Kwame Nkrumah, or Nelson Mandela, or Martin Luther, or Gandhi or anyone else who has made a positive difference). I'm not saying that everyone should feel compelled to live that BIG, but if one has that INKLING... It seems a shame that, as Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "THE AVERAGE PERSON GOES TO THEIR GRAVE WITH THEIR MUSIC STILL IN THEM."
Imagine a world where people felt free to share their grandest music and make a huge POSITIVE DIFFERENCE. Or, at least, were free from the NEGATIVITY that causes them to HURT themselves and others. Consider what would be POSSIBLE. That's a future I want us all to help create. To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury; and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable; and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasion, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony.
All men and women are born, live suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our DREAMS, be they dreams about WORLDLY or UNWORLDLY things, and what we do to make them come about... We do not choose to be BORN. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the TIME and CONDITIONS of our DEATH. But within this realm of “CHOICELESSNESS”, we do choose how we LIVE
