Act on Your Convictions

When you doubt your power, you give power to your doubt.
- Honore De Balzac

Action is our greatest weapon against fear.
Left to molder, fear grows upon itself,
but in the face of action,
fear is left in the dust.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

He who believes is strong; he who doubts is weak.
Strong convictions precede great actions.
- Louisa May Alcott

Make up your mind to act decidedly and take the consequences.
No good is ever done in this world by hesitation.
- Thomas Huxley

Live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation.
- Bertrand Russell

Further reading: Be an Instrument of Change

Action Beats Inaction

Gain Self Confidence

Feel Your Power
       

 

We Hide Our Emptiness

Society is a masked ball,
where everyone hides his real character,
and reveals it by hiding.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us,
but our emptiness.
The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.
- Eric Hoffer

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.
- Kurt Vonnegut

Whoever you pretend to be, you must face yourself eventually.
- Al Stewart

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
- Oscar Wilde

We all have a social mask, right?
We put it on, we go out, put our best foot forward, our best image.
But behind that social mask is a personal truth,
what we really, really believe about who we are and what we're capable of.
- Phil McGraw

What if we like our outrageous side best?
We "know" that the "right" thing to do is to suck it up,
put the costume and the happy face back in storage for another year,
re-dress in our frown and gray flannel suit,
and trudge back to job, chores, "responsibilities," and "duty."
Stop! Maybe TODAY is the day to put the frown and gray flannel
into that dusty storage locker, and start to LIVE.
Not just today, but EVERY DAY for the rest of your life!
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.
- William Shakespeare

Dignity is a mask we wear to hide our ignorance.
- Elbert Hubbard

Recognize the extent to which you hide your true nature from the world.
Consider revealing more of your true self.
...
Society censors our actions,
but our dreams reveal our true character.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: How To Not Care What Others Think

Need For Approval

How to Be Yourself

What lessons might Halloween hold for us?
     

The Power of Transformation

Leap and the net will appear.
- John Burroughs

Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.
- Anonymous

The only way to discover the limits of the possible
is to go beyond them into the impossible.
- Arthur C. Clarke

Come to the edge
We can't. We're afraid
We can't. We will fall. Come to the edge
And they came. And he pushed them
And they flew
- Guillaume Apollinaire

Today's affirmation:
When I Come To The Edge of the Familiar,
I Spread My Wings and Fly.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: The Winds of Grace

The Edge of All You Know

Live Your Life Fully

Accepting Miracles

Soar Your Spirit

Goodness of Humanity

Opportunity for Daily Thanksgiving
       

Patience and Gentleness

A person who is a master of patience is master of everything else.
- George Savile [paraphrase]

A tree that is unbending, is easily broken.
- Lao Tzu

When you encounter difficulties and contradictions,
do not try to break them, but bend them with gentleness and time.
- Saint Francis de Sales

Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is...
The only problem in your life is your mind's resistance to life as it unfolds.
- Dan Millman

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

Do not attempt to conquer the world with force,
for force only causes resistance.
- Lao Tzu

Read the Aesop fable The Oak and the Reeds

Further reading: The Secret of Happiness

The River of Life

Enjoy the Journey 
     

Naming Matters

Do not say, 'It is morning,' and dismiss it with a name of yesterday.
See it for the first time as a newborn child that has no name.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Shakespeare says, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,"
but I disagree...There is great power in naming.
"Urban wall art" and "graffiti" are very different, even when they are identical.
Think of other word pairs, like "flower" and "weed" - "antique" and "used" - "freedom fighter" and "terrorist"
that greatly color our perception of the object or person being described.
Call a plant beautiful, and it becomes a flower.
Call it ugly, and it becomes a weed.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Exercise: Consider the words that you and others in your life use to describe you. If the words are not complimentary, take action to change how you refer to yourself, and encourage others to speak differently of you. For example, if you describe yourself as "shy," choose a more positive term, such as "reserved."

Further reading: It Matters What You Call Something Or Someone

Finding Balance in Life Beats Moderation 
         

Stay Flexible, Stay Joyful

Life is not always as it seems.
What you have wished for is not always best.
What you have feared may become a blessing.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.
- Lao Tzu

Change always comes bearing gifts.
- Price Pritchett

Zig as Life Zigs and Zag as Life Zags.
Stay Adaptable, Stay Joyful
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Change of any sort requires courage.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Today's affirmation:
I choose to adapt to the circumstances in which I find myself.
I choose to be flexible in my dealings with those around me.
I understand that my way is not the only way -
that inner peace comes from respecting the ways of others,
and that, if I am open, I may gain great insights and happiness
from the ideas and traditions of others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Go With the Flow

Be Flexible

There is a Way

Enjoy the Journey
      

Choose to Care About Others

A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good,
but for neglecting his neighbor's.
- Richard Whately

Each of us must decide whether
to walk in the light of creative altruism
or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
- Martin Luther King, Jr. [paraphrase]

Personal importance, or taking things personally,
is the maximum expression of selfishness
because we make the assumption that everything is about me.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live,
it is demanding that others live as one wishes that they live.
- Oscar Wilde [paraphrase]

Ingratitude is the essence of vileness.
- Immanuel Kant 

Further Reading: Nobody is Self-Made

Be the First to Condemn Injustice

This God Called Money

Let there never be a day ...