The measure of your success is how many lives you have made better

Believe in yourself,
in your vision for your future,
and in your ability to take a small step
each day toward achieving your vision.

- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

To leave the world a bit better ... to know that one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
- Bessie A. Stanley (commonly attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Anyone who proposes to do good
must not expect people to roll stones out of his way,
but must accept his lot calmly,
even if they roll a few stones upon it.
- Albert Schweitzer

True success is bringing joy to yourself and to others.
Success is measured in lives bettered, not in money or power.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We do not need to proselytize
either by our speech or by our writing.
We can only do so really with our lives.
Let our lives be open books for all to study.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Further reading: March On

Pay It Forward

Turn Crisis into Progress

Stand Together
    

Kindness is the quality that makes human life worth living

Kindness is perhaps the most essential quality of being fully human.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.
- Joseph Joubert

My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.
- Dalai Lama

Kindness in words creates confidence.
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness.
Kindness in giving creates love.
- Lao Tzu

Kindness is the quality that makes human life worth living.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Albert Pike: What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us.

Aesop: Gentleness and kind persuasion win where force and bluster fail

The Cab Ride
     

Hold Peace Toward ALL in Your Own Heart

Always hold peace toward all in your own heart.
If you are healthy, support those who are sick.
If you have a job, support those who have lost theirs.
If you are strong, support those who are feeble of body or mind.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

We can never obtain peace in the outer world
until we make peace with ourselves.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me:
I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
...
Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these
my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Matthew 25:35-40

If we have no peace,
it is because we have forgotten
that we belong to each other.
- Mother Teresa

Further reading: Feed Just One

Commitment To Service

The Good Samaritan

Help Others

Encourage Others

How Helping Others Helps You
      

Practice Acceptance and Compassion toward Everyone

One way or another, we all have to find
what best fosters the flowering of our humanity
in this contemporary life,
and dedicate ourselves to that.
- Joseph Campbell

You must not lose faith in humanity.
Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty,
the ocean does not become dirty.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

A generous heart, kind speech,
and a life of service and compassion
are the things which renew humanity.
- The Buddha

We cannot despair of humanity,
since we ourselves are human beings.
- Albert Einstein

Today's affirmation:
I choose acceptance and compassion toward all humanity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: We are One

The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

We are most like God when we forgive

Progress of the Human Mind
       

Make Life Less Difficult for Each Other

What do we live for, if it is not
to make life less difficult for each other?
- George Eliot

Generally, your greatest service to someone
in their time of trouble, sorrow, or confusion, is your comfort.
Take the time to listen to their troubles and concerns
with patience, kindness, and empathy,
but without offering unsolicited advice or suggestions.
Your kindly hand on their shoulder, supportive hug, and patient listening
are often the greatest gifts you can offer.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I've learned that people will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget how you made them feel.
- Maya Angelou

There is nothing better than the encouragement of a good friend.
- Katharine Butler Hathaway

Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always.
- Hippocrates

“Friendship," said Christopher Robin, "is a very comforting thing to have.”
- A. A. Milne

The best comfort I could offer
was to just let her tell her story.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Further reading: True Measure of a Successful Life

This is my wish for you...

Giving Love and Comfort

Encourage Others
      

The "Golden Rule" is a Universal Moral Precept

 

Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate;
only love can do that.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

That which you hate to be done to you,
do not do to another.
- Ancient Egyptian Proverb
[There is a form of the "Golden Rule" in virtually every religious and cultural tradition.
This is perhaps the earliest.]

You never hate that which you do not first fear.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When we hate our enemies, we are
giving them power over us:
power over our sleep, our appetites,
our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness.
Our enemies would dance with joy if only
they knew how they were worrying us,
lacerating us, and getting even with us!
Our hate is not hurting them at all,
but our hate is turning our own days
and nights into a hellish turmoil.
- Dale Carnegie

An "enemy" is a mirage -
an image of self reflected on the sands of Hell.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite [religious leader], when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan [Samaritans and Jews generally disliked and were suspicious of each other] came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds ... and ... took him to an inn and took care of him. ...
Jesus [said] "Go and do likewise."
- Luke 10:25-37 (The Parable of the Good Samaritan)

Hate returns upon itself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Be a Pillar of Goodness

Allow Love to Conquer Hate

Hatred vs. Love

Revenge, the Deadliest Sin?

Don't Get Burned by Your Own Anger
      

Savor the Small Joys of Life

 

The best portion of a good man's life
is his little, nameless, unremembered
acts of kindness and of love.
- William Wordsworth

A coincidence is a small miracle in which God chooses to remain anonymous.
- Anonymous

Miracles happen everyday,
change your perception of what a miracle is
and you'll see them all around you.
- Jon Bon Jovi

Our "Rainbows and Butterflies" are the small miracles of our life -
the little things that are so easy to overlook,
yet so awe inspiring when we take a moment
to notice and to pay attention.
Give thanks for the rainbows, for the butterflies,
for all God's creatures - large and small,
for the bright blue sky and the soft fog and the gentle rain,
for the tree veiled in the season's first frost,
for the baby's laugh,
for the touch of a hand and the whispered "I love you."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Everything is a Miracle

Appreciate Your Blessings

Appreciate Today

Have Gratitude for All Life
       

Bonus: Today is Your Rainbows and Butterflies Kind of Day

Lighten up, have a rainbows and butterflies kind of day.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

May a rainbow run beside you in a sky that's always blue.
And may happiness fill your heart each day your whole life through.
- Irish Blessing

Your attitude is like a box of crayons that color your world.
Constantly color your picture gray, and your picture will always be bleak.
Try adding some bright colors to the picture by including humor,
and your picture begins to lighten up.
- Allen Klein

The only limits in our life are those we impose on ourselves.
- Bob Proctor

The best portion of a good man's life
is his little, nameless, unremembered
acts of kindness and of love.
- William Wordsworth

Further reading: Cherish the Whimsey

Life as Play

Boldly Paint Your Life

Simple Living and Small Pleasures
      

 

Choose Charity, Acceptance, Love

 

Definition of "Affirmation" as used here: "Something that may not be true yet, but that I want to be true (usually about myself) and that I am working to make true."  For example, "Every day, I repeat the same positive affirmation of my worth as a person."

The following are all positive affirmations...

Today I choose the higher road -
the path of charity, acceptance,
love, selflessness, kindness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I am not a slave to my thoughts or emotions.
- Richard Carlson

I rest in the light of forgiveness.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

I am one with the power and wisdom of the Universe.
I have all that I need.
- Louise L. Hay

I come to life with an Open Mind,
Clean Hands, and a Loving Heart.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Standing in the inspiring vision of my future,
I boldly take every step - large and small -
with courage and intent.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I am at Peace with myself,
my family, my community, and the world.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Every day in every way I am getting better and better.
- Anonymous

Please take a look at my collection of positive affirmations, and consider subscribing to receive one each day.
www.jonathanlockwoodhuie.com
        

Never Stop Believing in Goodness

 

Believe in the goodness of life.
Believe in the power of time to heal and to renew.
Believe in the power of forgiveness and gratitude.
Believe in the gift of rainbows and butterflies.
Believe in the laughter of children.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Being part of the natural world reminds me
that innocence isn't ever lost completely;
we just need to maintain our goodness to regain it.
- Jewel

Believe in love.
Believe in magic.
Believe in others.
Believe in yourself.
Believe in your dreams.
If you don't, who will?
- Jon Bon Jovi

Be open to the goodness of life -
even in the midst of apparent adversity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Natural Goodness

Our Opportunity

Renewing Yourself

Believe in Humanity
    

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
      

Be Kind! Have Compassion for ALL

 

Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.
- Arthur Schopenhauer

Compassion is the ultimate value in life.
Service is the ultimate action.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Love is the foundation from which your decisions about
your life should be made.
- Darren L. Johnson

I can do no other than be reverent
before everything that is called life.
I can do no other than to have compassion
for all that is called life.
That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.
- Albert Schweitzer

Further reading: Keep the Golden Rule

Feed the Hungry

The Universal Sacrament of Compassion

True Measure of a Successful Life
   

Compassion Requires Empathy

 

To keep the Golden Rule we must put ourselves in other people's places,
but to do that consists in and depends upon picturing
ourselves in their places.
- Harry Emerson Fosdick (Founding Pastor of New York's Riverside Church)

That which is hateful to you,
do not do to your fellow.
That is the whole Torah;
the rest is the explanation.
- Talmud (Jewish Wisdom)

Do not do to others what would anger you
if done to you by others.
- Isocrates (Ancient Greek)

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

Make A Special Effort To Have Empathy
With Those Who Are Very Different From Yourself.

Know that the true essence of the Golden Rule
is always being compassionate, kind,
generous, and being in service to others.
Compelling others to behave as you wish
them to behave in the name of the
Golden Rule is a corruption of a sacred principle.
Compassion is the universal standard for moral living.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Allowing Others the Right of Free Speech

Social Morality

Make Empathy a Daily Practice

God Calls Us To Help Others
           

Accept that Everyone Walks Their Own Path

As we grow as unique persons, we learn to respect
the uniqueness of others.
- Robert H. Schuller

Share our similarities, celebrate our differences.
- M. Scott Peck

It is not our differences that divide us.
It is our inability to recognize, accept,
and celebrate those differences.
- Audre Lorde

You never really understand a person
until you consider things from his point of view.
- Harper Lee

Love is the power to see similarity in the dissimilar.
- Theodor Adorno

When we have expectations (demands), we think we know how people SHOULD behave, and we can have no compassion. Only after we accept that another person's uniquely "right" path does not follow our own preconceptions, can we be compassionate.

The essence of compassion is accepting others as unique individuals,
without believing that they are less good for not being carbon copies of ourselves.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Condemn None

Empathy

Understanding

Signs of a Compassionate Person

Do What You Can
     

No kindness is too small to be important

 

Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
- Colossians 3:12

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures
is not to hate them,
but to be indifferent to them:
that's the essence of inhumanity.
- George Bernard Shaw

The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Compassion is the basis of morality.
- Arthur Schopenhauer

It is my choice to care deeply about others.
No kindness is too small to be important -
the smile to the bank teller,
the sincere "thank you" for all kindnesses received,
the reassuring hand on the shoulder of a loved one or friend.
There is compassion in selfless generosity,
but there is also compassion in heartfelt empathy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: What Does Compassion Look Like?

Full Measure of a Person

Feed the Children

Be of Service

Take Charge of Your Life - 9 Secrets for Getting Un-Stuck
       

Value Honesty and Integrity

To be a person of honor is to live with honesty and integrity of action and thought.

This is my simple religion.
There is no need for temples;
no need for complicated philosophy.
Our own brain, our own heart is our temple;
the philosophy is kindness.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Honor, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Choice,
Vision, Action, Celebration, Unity -
The Values of an Inspired Life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today's project:
Meaningful and joyful lives are lived by adhering to one's personal value system - one's principles. Today, write your six to eight most important values on an index card, and refer to that card as you go about your life today.

Further reading: What We Are Made Of

Do What You Know Is Right

Secret of Happiness

Things Divine
     

Success is measured in lives bettered, not in money or power

 

Believe in yourself,
in your vision for your future,
and in your ability to take a small step
each day toward achieving your vision.

- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

To leave the world a bit better ... to know that one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
- Bessie A. Stanley (commonly attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Anyone who proposes to do good
must not expect people to roll stones out of his way,
but must accept his lot calmly,
even if they roll a few stones upon it.
- Albert Schweitzer

True success is bringing joy to yourself and to others.
Success is measured in lives bettered, not in money or power.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We do not need to proselytize
either by our speech or by our writing.
We can only do so really with our lives.
Let our lives be open books for all to study.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Further reading: March On

Pay It Forward

Turn Crisis into Progress

Stand Together
    

Kindness is the Quality that Makes Us Fully Human

Kindness is perhaps the most essential quality of being fully human.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.
- Joseph Joubert

My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.
- Dalai Lama

Kindness in words creates confidence.
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness.
Kindness in giving creates love.
- Lao Tzu

Further reading: The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Albert Pike: What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us.

Aesop: Gentleness and kind persuasion win where force and bluster fail

The Cab Ride
     

 

We Belong to Each Other

 

Always hold peace toward all in your own heart.
If you are healthy, support those who are sick.
If you have a job, support those who have lost theirs.
If you are strong, support those who are feeble of body or mind.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

We can never obtain peace in the outer world
until we make peace with ourselves.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me:
I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
...
Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these
my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Matthew 25:35-40

If we have no peace,
it is because we have forgotten
that we belong to each other.
- Mother Teresa

Further reading: Feed Just One

Commitment To Service

The Good Samaritan

Help Others

Encourage Others

How Helping Others Helps You
      

Generosity, Kindness, Service and Compassion

 

One way or another, we all have to find
what best fosters the flowering of our humanity
in this contemporary life,
and dedicate ourselves to that.
- Joseph Campbell

You must not lose faith in humanity.
Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty,
the ocean does not become dirty.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

A generous heart, kind speech,
and a life of service and compassion
are the things which renew humanity.
- The Buddha

We cannot despair of humanity,
since we ourselves are human beings.
- Albert Einstein

Today's affirmation:
I choose acceptance and compassion toward all humanity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: We are One

The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

We are most like God when we forgive

Progress of the Human Mind