Understand How Others View Our World

Unhappiness is generally a result of spending too much time
regretting and resenting the past or worrying about the future.
The key to happiness and success is focusing,
with awareness, on the present moment.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie  

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
- Aldous Huxley

The ability to be in the present moment
is a major component of mental wellness.
- Abraham Maslow 

Dwell in stillness.
Observe without reacting and without judging.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Life is simple.
Everything happens for you, not to you.
Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late.
You don't have to like it... it's just easier if you do.
- Byron Katie

 Be still and know who you are.
- Kirtana

Give yourself permission to allow this moment to be exactly as it is,
and allow yourself to be exactly as you are.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

You're either attaching to your thoughts or you're inquiring. There is no other choice.
- Byron Katie

What is necessary to change a person is
to change his awareness of himself.
- Abraham Maslow

When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.
- Byron Katie

Have you ever arrived at work after your morning commute, and noticed that you didn't remember a single thing you saw during your drive? Let today be a day of awareness. Consciously pay attention to what is going on around you as drive, walk, do your business, or relax. Consider the world from the perspective of those you pass - the small child, the elderly lady trying to cross the street, the homeless person, the truck driver, the policeman, the executive in the big limo. 

First accept reality, only then choose how to react to it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Cherish This Moment Question Your Questions

Byron Katie - No one can give you freedom but you 

Truth isn't True. Reality isn't Real.

Cultivate Awareness Consciousness

Live in the Present

Cease Striving 

VISION - the fifth Point of Simply An Inspired Life

Breath by Breath
        

Choosing Compassion Toward ALL is Heroic

To go against the dominant thinking of your friends,
of most of the people you see every day,
is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform.
- Theodore H. White

The opposite of courage in our society
is not cowardice, it is conformity.
- Rollo May

Life is a sum of all your choices.
- Albert Camus

Today's affirmation
I CHOOSE with Open Mind and Open Heart.
I renounce all assumptions and expectations.
I thoughtfully consider all possibilities.
I CHOOSE with courage, awareness, consciousness, and compassion toward all.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: The Trouble with Conformity

Make Decisions

Embrace Change

Do What You Know Is Right

Try Being Outrageous
       

Appreciate the Basics

 

Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into.
- Wayne W. Dyer

Our journey into consciousness of wealth begins with the realization
that we have already arrived!
- Michael Bernard Beckwith

Appreciate again and again, freshly and naively,
the basic goods of life, with awe,
pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy,
however stale these experiences may have become to others.
- Abraham Maslow

A Table Grace of Thanksgiving:
We gather today in gratitude for the bounty of the land,
the joyful company around this table,
and all the other blessings of this life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: A List of Gratitudes - a Thanksgiving

Thank You God

Gratitude: Virtue and Joy

Let Each Day be a Thanksgiving
    

Grow Your Own Happiness

The foolish seek happiness in the distance;
the wise grow it under their own feet.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer (paraphrase)

Do the small things of life with a relaxed awareness.
When you are eating, eat totally -
chew totally, taste totally, smell totally.
Touch your bread, feel the texture.
Smell the bread, smell the flavor.
Chew it, let it dissolve into your being.
- Osho

Happiness is to be Found in Small Things, Close to Home.
...
Pay attention to rainbows, and snowflakes,
butterflies and the songs of birds,
the crash of storm-driven waves
and the mirror-surface of a quiet pond.
Let the depths of nature become a part of your innermost being.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It is wisest and best to fix our attention on the beautiful and the good,
and dwell as little as possible on the evil and the false.
- Richard Cecil

Further reading: Cultivate Awareness

The Power of Focus 

Manage Your Wayward Mind

Life is Beautiful
   

Look Deeper - Don't Make Assumptions

Be aware of what is going on around you today - truly conscious.
Don't make assumptions. Focus on looking behind the obvious.
Make a conscious effort to observe life objectively,
and to avoid the natural tendency to see only
what you are expecting to see.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say.
I just watch what they do.
- Andrew Carnegie

Be an Observer of Life.
Gaining wisdom from carefully observing life
is not a substitute for action -
it is a prerequisite for informed action.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Your work is to discover your world
and then with all your heart give yourself to it.
- The Buddha

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
- Marcel Proust

Today's Affirmation:
I am a Passionate Observer of Life.
I See the events, feel the emotions,
and recognize the difference.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: New Eyes

What You See

Lifelong Learning
      

Never Ignore the Beauty in Life

Even those things which seem out of reach of our choice
are governed by how we choose to perceive them.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Much in life can be seen as ugly or beautiful - it's our choice.
Why would we choose to see any part of life as ugly?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There is nothing true anywhere,
The true is nowhere to be seen;
If you say you see the true,
This seeing is not the true one.
- Abraham Lincoln paraphrasing Lao Tzu's Tao te Ching

Always Look, with Gratitude, for the Best in Life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Seeing the light is a choice, not seeing the light is no choice.
- Douglas Horton

Change what you see,
by changing how you see.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Labels

Opinions

Finding Beauty
    

Practice Keen Awareness

The eye sees what it brings the power to see.
- Thomas Carlyle

Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.
- Jonathan Swift

We never see what we are not ready to see.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.
- Napoleon Hill

Today is a unique and special day.
It is unlike any other day you have ever experienced.
If you assume that today is like every other day,
you will never notice today's uniqueness.
If you practice keen awareness, you will get
to savor today's uniquely wonderful qualities.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading:

What You Focus On

What You See

Cultivate Awareness

Be a Passionate Observer

Manage Your Wayward Mind
    

Consistent Common Sense

Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are,
and doing things as they ought to be done.
- Josh Billings

Success is more a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius.
- An Wang

Common sense in an uncommon degree
is what the world calls wisdom.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it,
or who said it, no matter if I have said it,
unless it agrees with your own reason
and your own common sense.
- The Buddha

A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
- William James

I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal
to reason and is in conflict with morality.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Pause. Take the time to THINK before you act.

Further reading: Take Nothing On Authority

Trust Reason

Consciousness

See, Really See
       

Practice Compassion

 

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.
- Jesus (Matthew 25:40)

Do to others as you would have them do to you.
- Luke 6:31 (the "Golden Rule")

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded.
It's a relationship between equals.
Only when we know our own darkness well
can we be present with the darkness of others.
Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.
- Pema Chodron

Our opportunity is to visualize a kinder world.
To sing glad songs of tomorrow -
imagining a world of love -
of the whole world filled with love.
To offer our hand... often.
To breathe deeply and honor ourselves.
To pause and contemplate... just because.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

For me, an area of moral clarity is:
you're in front of someone who's suffering
and you have the tools at your disposal
to alleviate that suffering or even eradicate it,
and you act.
- Paul Farmer

Further reading: Feed the Hungry

Comfort, Rainbows, and Laughter

Accept Others

Compassion, Kindness, Humility
      

Find something to enjoy and to appreciate about TODAY

 

Find something to enjoy and to appreciate about TODAY.

Today's affirmation:
My Cup Runneth Over - My Life Is Abundant.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Not what we have,
but what we enjoy,
constitutes our abundance.
- Epicurus

Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.
- Wayne Dyer

Our journey into consciousness of wealth begins
with the realization that we have already arrived.
- Michael Beckwith

Abundance is not something we acquire.
It is something we tune into.
- Wayne Dyer

Further reading: Know that You have been Blessed

Have Gratitude for THIS Moment

Is your glass of life half empty? Or half full?

Appreciate Your Abundance

Practice Keen Awareness

Today's affirmation: I practice keen awareness,
and make my choices with consciousness, courage,
and compassion toward all.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Let us not look back in anger
or forward in fear,
but around in awareness.
- James Thurber

Today, begin to look on all things
with love, appreciation and open-mindedness.
- A Course in Miracles

It is the Consciousness with which we participate
in activities that makes the difference.
- Michael Beckwith

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious
privilege it is to be alive -
to breathe,
to think, to enjoy, to love.
- Marcus Aurelius

Pay attention. Cultivate awareness.
Life cannot be lived fully or joyfully if
our thoughts are focused on regretting the past,
preoccupied with anticipating the future,
or lost in the mind-fog of unconscious habitual behavior.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

What is necessary to change a person is
to change his awareness of himself.
- Abraham Maslow

For some of us, the world appears to provide
only a fixed quantity of each resource -
a limited amount of food, of money,
of love, of success, of appreciation.
For others, life is unlimited.
Their world expands with the generosity, compassion,
inventiveness, and service that they contribute.
In this world-view, money that is spent
or given away returns multiplied.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Let Go and Accept This Moment

Assumptions are Dangerous

Be Open - Welcome the New

Bounty of the Earth
      

 

Consider the world from the perspective of others

Unhappiness is generally a result of spending too much time
regretting and resenting the past or worrying about the future.
The key to happiness and success is focusing,
with awareness, on the present moment.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie  

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
- Aldous Huxley

The ability to be in the present moment
is a major component of mental wellness.
- Abraham Maslow 

Dwell in stillness.
Observe without reacting and without judging.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Life is simple.
Everything happens for you, not to you.
Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late.
You don't have to like it... it's just easier if you do.
- Byron Katie

 Be still and know who you are.
- Kirtana

Give yourself permission to allow this moment to be exactly as it is,
and allow yourself to be exactly as you are.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

You're either attaching to your thoughts or you're inquiring. There is no other choice.
- Byron Katie

What is necessary to change a person is
to change his awareness of himself.
- Abraham Maslow

When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.
- Byron Katie

Have you ever arrived at work after your morning commute, and noticed that you didn't remember a single thing you saw during your drive? Let today be a day of awareness. Consciously pay attention to what is going on around you as drive, walk, do your business, or relax. Consider the world from the perspective of those you pass - the small child, the elderly lady trying to cross the street, the homeless person, the truck driver, the policeman, the executive in the big limo. 

First accept reality, only then choose how to react to it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Cherish This Moment Question Your Questions

Byron Katie - No one can give you freedom but you 

Truth isn't True. Reality isn't Real.

Cultivate Awareness Consciousness

Live in the Present

Cease Striving 

VISION - the fifth Point of Simply An Inspired Life

Breath by Breath        

Be a Hero, Choose Compassion Toward ALL

 

To go against the dominant thinking of your friends,
of most of the people you see every day,
is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform.
- Theodore H. White

The opposite of courage in our society
is not cowardice, it is conformity.
- Rollo May

Life is a sum of all your choices.
- Albert Camus

Today's affirmation
I CHOOSE with Open Mind and Open Heart.
I renounce all assumptions and expectations.
I thoughtfully consider all possibilities.
I CHOOSE with courage, awareness, consciousness, and compassion toward all.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: The Trouble with Conformity

Make Decisions

Embrace Change

Do What You Know Is Right

Try Being Outrageous
       

Appreciate Every Day the Basic Goods of Life

 

Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into.
- Wayne W. Dyer

Our journey into consciousness of wealth begins with the realization
that we have already arrived!
- Michael Bernard Beckwith

Appreciate again and again, freshly and naively,
the basic goods of life, with awe,
pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy,
however stale these experiences may have become to others.
- Abraham Maslow

A Table Grace of Thanksgiving:
We gather today in gratitude for the bounty of the land,
the joyful company around this table,
and all the other blessings of this life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: A List of Gratitudes - a Thanksgiving

Thank You God

Gratitude: Virtue and Joy

Let Each Day be a Thanksgiving
    

Pay Attention to the Beautiful and the Good

 

The foolish seek happiness in the distance;
the wise grow it under their own feet.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer (paraphrase)

Do the small things of life with a relaxed awareness.
When you are eating, eat totally -
chew totally, taste totally, smell totally.
Touch your bread, feel the texture.
Smell the bread, smell the flavor.
Chew it, let it dissolve into your being.
- Osho

Happiness is to be Found in Small Things, Close to Home.
...
Pay attention to rainbows, and snowflakes,
butterflies and the songs of birds,
the crash of storm-driven waves
and the mirror-surface of a quiet pond.
Let the depths of nature become a part of your innermost being.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It is wisest and best to fix our attention on the beautiful and the good,
and dwell as little as possible on the evil and the false.
- Richard Cecil

Further reading: Cultivate Awareness

The Power of Focus 

Manage Your Wayward Mind

Life is Beautiful
   

Don't Make Assumptions, Look Behind the Obvious

 

Be aware of what is going on around you today - truly conscious.
Don't make assumptions. Focus on looking behind the obvious.
Make a conscious effort to observe life objectively,
and to avoid the natural tendency to see only
what you are expecting to see.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say.
I just watch what they do.
- Andrew Carnegie

Be an Observer of Life.
Gaining wisdom from carefully observing life
is not a substitute for action -
it is a prerequisite for informed action.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Your work is to discover your world
and then with all your heart give yourself to it.
- The Buddha

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
- Marcel Proust

Today's Affirmation:
I am a Passionate Observer of Life.
I See the events, feel the emotions,
and recognize the difference.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: New Eyes

What You See

Lifelong Learning
      

Always Look, with Gratitude, for the Best in Life

 

Even those things which seem out of reach of our choice
are governed by how we choose to perceive them.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Much in life can be seen as ugly or beautiful - it's our choice.
Why would we choose to see any part of life as ugly?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There is nothing true anywhere,
The true is nowhere to be seen;
If you say you see the true,
This seeing is not the true one.
- Abraham Lincoln paraphrasing Lao Tzu's Tao te Ching

Always Look, with Gratitude, for the Best in Life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Seeing the light is a choice, not seeing the light is no choice.
- Douglas Horton

Change what you see,
by changing how you see.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Labels

Opinions

Finding Beauty
    

Look Deeply

The eye sees what it brings the power to see.
- Thomas Carlyle

Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.
- Jonathan Swift

We never see what we are not ready to see.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.
- Napoleon Hill

Today is a unique and special day.
It is unlike any other day you have ever experienced.
If you assume that today is like every other day,
you will never notice today's uniqueness.
If you practice keen awareness, you will get
to savor today's uniquely wonderful qualities.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading:

What You Focus On

What You See

Cultivate Awareness

Be a Passionate Observer

Manage Your Wayward Mind
    

 

Pause, Think, and See Things as They Are

 

Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are,
and doing things as they ought to be done.
- Josh Billings

Success is more a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius.
- An Wang

Common sense in an uncommon degree
is what the world calls wisdom.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it,
or who said it, no matter if I have said it,
unless it agrees with your own reason
and your own common sense.
- The Buddha

A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
- William James

I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal
to reason and is in conflict with morality.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Pause. Take the time to THINK before you act.

Further reading: Take Nothing On Authority

Trust Reason

Consciousness

See, Really See
        `

Visualize a Kinder World

 

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.
- Jesus (Matthew 25:40)

Do to others as you would have them do to you.
- Luke 6:31 (the "Golden Rule")

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded.
It's a relationship between equals.
Only when we know our own darkness well
can we be present with the darkness of others.
Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.
- Pema Chodron

Our opportunity is to visualize a kinder world.
To sing glad songs of tomorrow -
imagining a world of love -
of the whole world filled with love.
To offer our hand... often.
To breathe deeply and honor ourselves.
To pause and contemplate... just because.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

For me, an area of moral clarity is:
you're in front of someone who's suffering
and you have the tools at your disposal
to alleviate that suffering or even eradicate it,
and you act.
- Paul Farmer

Further reading: Feed the Hungry

Comfort, Rainbows, and Laughter

Accept Others

Compassion, Kindness, Humility