My Burdens are Lightened When I Laugh at Myself

What appears very scary is probably nothing to fear when thoughtfully examined in the light.

Take time to laugh at yourself. Those who feel too important to laugh at themselves rob themselves, their family, and their friends of a great source of joy.

Grin your smile; giggle your laugh; unfurl your joy;
dash the last trace of your self-consciousness;
and cavort your most uninhibited play.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
- e. e. cummings

The burden of the self is lightened when I laugh at myself.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Laugh at yourself and at life.
Not in the spirit of derision or whining self-pity,
but as a remedy, a miracle drug, that will ease your pain,
cure your depression, and help you to put in perspective
that seemingly terrible defeat and worry
with laughter at your predicaments,
thus freeing your mind to think clearly
toward the solution that is certain to come.
Never take yourself too seriously.
- Og Mandino

I will not play tug o' war.
I'd rather play hug o' war.
Where everyone hugs instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles and rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses, and everyone grins,
and everyone cuddles, and everyone wins.
- Shel Silverstein

Further reading: Lighten Up, Be Happy

Laughter

The Need for Humor

Not Too Serious
        

The Miracle of Gratitude

Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received.
Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling.
Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse.
- Henry Van Dyke

The miracle of gratitude is that it shifts your perception
to such an extent that it changes the world you see.
- Robert Holden

None is more impoverished than the one who has no gratitude.
Gratitude is a currency that we can mint for ourselves,
and spend without fear of bankruptcy.
- Fred De Witt Van Amburgh

Our opportunity is to Soar our Spirit.
To see Light and Joy in everything.
To spread our wings and fly boldly.
To give thanks for rainbows and butterflies -
our symbols of renewal and rebirth.
To offer daily Thanksgiving - for ourselves, our family,
our friends, our community, for the whole world.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: The Miracle of Gratitude

Give Thanks for the Commonplace

Appreciate Today

Gratitude for THIS Moment
   

Appreciate the Commonplace

The enlightened give thanks for what most people take for granted.
- Michael Beckwith

The invariable mark of wisdom is to
see the miraculous in the common.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A thankful heart is the greatest virtue.
- Cicero

Today's affirmation:
I find joy and inspiration in the commonplace
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: The Commonplace

Simple Pleasures

Beauty is Everywhere
    

Choose Peace and Joy

Instead of dwelling on negative thoughts,
cause your mind to dwell on peace and joy.
- Ernest Holmes

Our lives are defined not by the challenges we encounter,
but by how we respond to those challenges.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

My life has been filled with terrible misfortune;
most of which never happened.
- Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The longer we dwell on our misfortunes,
the greater is their power to harm us.
- Voltaire

Don't dwell on what went wrong.
Instead, focus on what to do next.
Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer.
- Denis Waitley

Further reading: Are You Scared of What MIGHT Happen?

Set Goals - Take Action

Choose to Soar

Create Your Own Legacy
    

Be Of Service - Share Yourself

Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none,
and anyone who has food should do the same.
- Luke 3:11

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

What power there is in our service
when our actions line up with our mission, skills and joy.
– Mary Anne Radmacher

The most eloquent prayer is the prayer through hands that heal and bless.
- Billy Graham

Further reading: Serve Others

The Power of Generosity

We Belong to Each Other

Helping
    

Appreciate Small Pleasures

Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures.
- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

The simplification of life is one of the steps to inner peace.
A persistent simplification will create an inner and outer well-being
that places harmony in one's life.
- Peace Pilgrim

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength;
loving someone deeply gives you courage.
- Lao Tzu

To love. To be loved.
To never forget your own insignificance.
To never get used to the unspeakable violence
and the vulgar disparity of life around you.
To seek joy in the saddest places.
To pursue beauty to its lair.
To never simplify what is complicated
or complicate what is simple.
To respect strength, never power.
Above all, to watch. To try to understand.
To never look away. And never, never, to forget.
- Arundhati Roy

A small compassionate act enlarges the scope of community.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

A cool breeze.
A golden sunset.
A quiet walk on the beach, or the neighborhood street.
A furry friend snuggled next to you.
A cool drink of water.
A lick of an ice cream cone.
A loving hand on your shoulder.
A butterfly enjoying the flowers.
A rainbow after the storm.
Appreciate Small Pleasures.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Stand Rapt in Awe

Live Gently

Beyond Understanding

Compassion, Kindness, Humility
      

Care and Share

Share your heart as deeply as you can reach.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Live your life from your heart.
Share from your heart.
And your story will touch and heal people's souls.

- Melody Beattie

There never was any heart truly great and generous,
that was not also tender and compassionate.
- Robert Frost

Love cures people - both the ones who give it
and the ones who receive it.
- Karl A. Menninger

I have found that among its other benefits,
giving liberates the soul of the giver.

- Maya Angelou

The greatest gift that you can give to others is the
gift of unconditional love and acceptance.
- Brian Tracy

It costs you nothing to make another happy -
and you gain your true self through the act of spreading joy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Be Proactive in Your Love

Be Tender

What Does Love Look Like?
       

Don't Make Assumptions; Don't Hold Expectations

Cultivate a Beginner Mind.
(be open to newness)

Bringing a childlike wonder
and a beginner's mind to life
maximizes both success and joy.

- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Become more and more innocent,

less knowledgeable and more childlike.
Take life as fun -
because that's precisely what it is!

- Osho

Innocence isn't ever lost completely;
we just need to maintain our goodness to regain it.
- Jewel

Children are born innocent.
Before they are domesticated they live in the moment,
love without fear, and don't even think about the opinions of others.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Over the years, we come to see life as we expect it to be. We make assumptions that support how we "KNOW" that things ARE. We make expectations of others and of ourselves based on those assumptions. For example, we "KNOW" what kinds of people are "good" people and which kinds or people are "bad" people.

Imagine what life would be like if you could forget all the past resentments and perceived offenses that color your thinking and your emotions. Buddhists call that state "beginner mind" - an opening to experience life without the jaundiced filter of past disappointments, to move past assumptions about the nature of life, and really SEE your surroundings - especially the people you interact with - with new eyes.

Today is your day to shed the scales from your eyes.

Further reading: Reverence

Growing Up - Staying Young

Natural Web
    

Rise Above the Madness of the World

May your life always be Counterpoint to the Clamor of the World.
May you delight in Dancing Lightly With Life.
May you soar on eagle wings, high above the madness of the world.
May you always sing Melody in the Symphony of Your Life.
May you taste, smell, and touch your dreams of a beautiful tomorrow.
May your sun always shine, and your sky be forever blue.

- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world,

we lose connection with one another - and ourselves.
- Jack Kornfield

Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
It offers me its busyness.
It does not believe that I do not want it.
- Mary Oliver

The world clamors, "Do more! Be all that you can be!"
But our Father whispers, "Be still and know that I am God [Psalm 46:10]."
- Joanna Weaver

Today's affirmation:
I am Counterpoint to the Clamor of the World.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Ten Little Tips to Feel Happier Right Now

A Life of Harmony

Make Healthy Choices to Relieve Stress

Try Meditation

12 Ways to De-Stress Your Life
    

Choose Compassion, Experience Oneness

You may call God love, you may call God goodness.
But the best name for God is compassion.
- Meister Eckhart

Praying without ceasing is not ritualized,
nor are there even words.
It is a constant state of awareness of oneness with God.
- Peace Pilgrim

I distrust those people who know so well
what God wants them to do,
because I notice it always coincides
with their own desires.
- Susan B. Anthony

He who is persistent will realize God.
So try your best to make meditation
a regular experience in your life.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

The style of God venerated in the church, mosque, or synagogue
seems completely different from the style of the natural universe.
- Alan Watts

When the universal sacraments of compassion and joy
fill the vast cathedral of our being,
we become the face of God.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Everything is God

Surrender to God

Solitude vs. Feeling Lonely

Be an Open Channel
    

Breathe, Smile, Create Happiness

Just smiling goes a long way toward making you feel better about life.
And when you feel better about life, your life is better.
- Art Linkletter

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen?
Then prepare to accept it.
Then proceed to improve on the worst.
- Dale Carnegie

The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive.
The great opportunity is where you are.
- John Burroughs

Smile and the world smiles with you.
- Anonymous

Peace begins with a smile.
- Mother Teresa

Always do the best you can,
and everything else will take care of itself.
Focus your energies on doing what you can
rather than worrying about what you can't.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A smile that begins as an effort and a pretense quickly grows to become genuine,
and given time, a habit of happiness. In the words of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, "Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

Inner Smile Exercise:
1. Breath slowly, deeply, and consciously.
2. Close your eyes and set the corners of your mouth in just the slightest smile.
3. Visualize your smile growing larger and larger, and your happiness increasing.

Today's affirmation:
Every day in every way I am getting better and better.
- Émile Coué

Further reading: Ten Little Tips to Feel Happier Right Now

No Regrets

Beyond Your Worries
   

For Any Provocation, You Can Choose Your Response

We cannot choose our external circumstances,
but we can always choose how to respond to them.
- Epictetus

You don't have the power to make life "fair,"
but you do have the power to make life joyful.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I am determined to be cheerful and happy
in whatever situation I may find myself.
For I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness
is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition.
- Martha Washington

Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.
- Charles R. Swindoll

CHOOSE Your Response to Life's Provocations.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Joy is a Choice - but Not an Easy Choice

Life as a Dance

Your attitude determines the quality of your life
    

I Hope You Dance with Life

Today is your day to dance lightly with life,
sing wild songs of adventure,
invite rainbows and butterflies out to play,
soar your spirit, and unfurl your joy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Your life within God's arms,
Your dance within God's arms,
Is already Perfect!
- Hafiz

When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor.
It's to enjoy each step along the way.
- Wayne Dyer

Life is like dancing.
If we have a big floor, many people will dance.
Some will get angry when the rhythm changes.
But life is changing all the time.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Life may not be the party we hoped for,
but while we are here we might as well dance.
- Anonymous

Dance like no one is watching,
love like you'll never be hurt.
Sing like no one is listening.
Live life like it's heaven on earth.
- Anonymous (various attributions and alternate phrasings)

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement
and the thrill of creative effort.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

When you get the choice to sit it out or dance,
I hope you dance.
- Lee Ann Womack

Further reading: How to Find Joy in Our Troubled Lives

Choose to Love Life

Appreciate Today

Today is Your Day (long form of my poem)
    

Human Nature is Life's Greatest Riddle

Life is a riddle.
We cannot expect to understand life's twists and turns as they occur each day,
and we greatly frustrate ourselves in the futile attempt.
Be content to appreciate that there is an overarching purpose,
though that purpose be known only to God, and to history.
Choose service. Choose joy. Accept the unknowing.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand.
- Jose Ortega Y Gasset

We learn more by looking for the answer
to a question and not finding it
than we do from learning the answer itself.
- Lloyd Alexander

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize
how little we understand about life,
ourselves, and the world around us.
- Socrates

Half of everything you were ever taught is wrong;
the question is which half.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The book of life is filled with incoherent riddles.
(and human nature is perhaps life's greatest riddle.)
Life's true lessons are inscribed in a corner of the margin.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Read more about The Book of Life

Further reading:  The Nature of Learning

Lessons from Life

Beyond Understanding
      

Aspiration AND Pragmatism

Remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
- Confucius

If you do not know where you come from, then you don't know where you are,
and if you don't know where you are, then you don't know where you're going.
And if you don't know where you're going, you're probably going wrong.
- Terry Pratchett

When you jump for joy, beware that no one
moves the ground from beneath your feet.
- Stanislaw Jerszy Lec

The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do,
and the more genuine may be one's appreciation
of fundamental things like home,
and love, and understanding companionship.
- Amelia Earhart

Keep your feet firmly planted on the ground
as you reach for the stars.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Honor Your Roots

Perspective on Tradition: An Open Mind

A Strong Foundation

Fulfill Your Dreams
    

Try the Inner Smile Exercise

 

Although it is always better to live with conviction and enthusiasm,
some days it is better just to go through the motions than to do nothing.
Smile even when you feel grumpy.
Meditate or Pray even when you have nothing to say to God.
Cook a healthy meal even when you are tired.
Walk or exercise even when the thought doesn't excite you.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Act the way you'd like to be
and soon you'll be the way you act.
- Leonard Cohen

Repeat anything often enough
and it will start to become you.
- Tom Hopkins

A smile that begins as an effort and a pretense
quickly grows to become genuine,
and given time, a habit of happiness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile,
but sometimes your smile
can be the source of your joy.
- Thich Nhat Hanh

Inner Smile Exercise:
1. Close your eyes.
2. Breath slowly, deeply, and consciously.
3. Set the corners of your mouth in just the slightest smile.
4. Visualize your smile growing larger and larger, and your happiness increasing.

Further reading: Ten Little Tips to Feel Happier Right Now

Choose Your Habits, Choose Your Life

Grin your smile; giggle your laugh; unfurl your joy

Practice makes perfect - sometimes 

Tending the Garden of Our Lives

Overcome Being Negative
     

Happiness Comes from Inside Ourselves

 

It is not our circumstances
that create our discontent or contentment.
It is us.
- Vivian Greene

We Create Our Own Joy or Our Own Sorrow.
-Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When we cannot find contentment in ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Fortify yourself with contentment,
for it is an impregnable fortress.
- Epictetus

True humility is contentment.
- Henri Frederic Amiel

Further reading: Live Content

Rejoice

A Life of Abundance

True Riches
      

I Wish You Confidence, Courage and Patience

 

This is my wish for you:
Comfort on difficult days,
Smiles when sadness intrudes,
Rainbows to follow the clouds,
Laughter to kiss your lips,
Sunsets to warm your heart,
Hugs when spirits sag,
Beauty for your eyes to see,
Friendships to brighten your being,
Faith so that you can believe,
Confidence for when you doubt,
Courage to know yourself,
Patience to accept the truth,
Love to complete your life.
- Anonymous

Calm provides clarity. Pause to consider
the gifts you have been given,
the difference you have made
and the direction in which you are headed.
- Anonymous

As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand
that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives
for which we should be particularly grateful.
They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness --
just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it;
just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength;
the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm.
- Laura Ingalls Wilder

Lord, grant comfort, joy and health
to those I call friend,
to those I call enemy,
and to those I have cursed by my indifference.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Feel Your Connection With the Infinite - a Meditation

Give Unconditional Love

The Secret of Happiness

Offering Comfort
   

Try Looking at Things from a New Perspective

 

Half the joy of life is in little things taken on the run...
but let us keep our hearts young and our eyes open
that nothing worth our while shall escape us.
- Victor Cherbuliez

Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves
to recognize how good things really are.
- Marianne Williamson

Look for joy in your life; it's not always easy to find.
- Charles Kuralt

Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open.
- John Barrymore

Often, the greatest joy is to be found not in new things,
but in old things seen through new eyes.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Life Lessons I Learned From My Cat

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

Life is Beautiful

What we enjoy constitutes our abundance

How To Be Happy In Life
     

Regardless of Circumstances, Choose Joy

 

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...
It's about learning to dance in the rain.
- Vivian Greene

Instead of dwelling on negative thoughts,
cause your mind to dwell on peace and joy.
- Ernest Holmes

Have NO EXPECTATIONS.
Life will not meet your expectations.
Choose joy anyway.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Count Your Blessings - Not Your Troubles

Calm During Storms

Beyond Your Worries

When It's Darkest

Choose Joy Anyway