Success is living a life you feel proud of

The key to success, and to happiness,
is being fully engaged in life -
leading yourself with inspiration and committed action -
setting your own fine and honorable example.

- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Success is not the key to happiness.
Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
- Albert Schweitzer

Success is getting and achieving what you want.
Happiness is wanting and being content with what you get.
- Bernard Meltzer

"Success" isn't about money or fame.
Success is living a life you feel proud of.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Doing Your Best

Wanting is Not Enough

Small Pleasures

Childlike Wonder
    

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
    

The Myth of the "Self-Made Man"

None of us got where we are solely by
pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps.
- Thurgood Marshall

Ingratitude often hides behind a mask of independence or self-sufficiency.
An assertion of being "self-made" is a rejection of God, one's ancestors, and society.
Your Genes, Place of Birth, and Upbringing are God's Gift to You.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Those who have succeeded at anything
and don't mention luck
are kidding themselves.
- Larry King

If I have seen further, it is
by standing on the shoulders of giants.
- Isaac Newton

The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness
of the interdependence of all these living beings,
which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.
- Thomas Merton

Civilization is not a spontaneous generation
with any race or nation known to history,
but the torch to be handed down from race to race from age to age.
- Kelly Millar

Success is a result of hard work,
plus being blessed with good genes, food,
a good country, an opportunity for education,
and much more which we never "earned"
or "deserved," and for which we owe
everlasting gratitude.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Debt to Those Who are Kind

Appreciating Our Blessings

Give Thanks

Gratitude for This Food
     

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
    

In All Circumstances, YOU Get to CHOOSE How YOU Respond

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

Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours.
- Richard Bach

You may not seem able to change some outer circumstances
but you can start by changing your inner experience of life and yourself.
- Joy Page

It's not the situation that's causing your stress,
it's your thoughts,
and you can change that right here and now.
- Gerald Jampolsky

Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself.
- James Allen

A little more persistence,
a little more effort, and
what seemed hopeless failure
may turn to glorious success.
- Elbert Hubbard

Eventually we all have to accept full and total responsibility for our actions,
everything we have done, and have not done.
- Hubert Selby Jr.

Your RESPONSE to any situation is your own RESPONSibility.
You are given your circumstances; you choose your response.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Don't Give Up

Thoughtful Response, Not Panic

Life is Not Hopeless

Create Happiness
    

Play to Win, but be Cheerful in Defeat

It's one of life's great paradoxes ...
Accepting with gratitude whatever life throws at us
is critical to happiness.
Yet without a goal and commitment, life loses much of its value.
The best we can do in the face of this paradox
is to play to win, but be cheerful in defeat
and ready to play again.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The greatest test of courage on earth
is to bear defeat without losing heart.
- Robert Ingersoll

Remember you will not always win.
Some days, the most resourceful individual will taste defeat.
But there is, in this case, always tomorrow -
after you have done your best to achieve success today.
- Maxwell Maltz

Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Further reading: Do What You Can; Trust God With The Rest (Serenity Prayer)

Make Lemonade

What is Defeat? 
      

Seek Mastery of Life

A happy life consists not in the absence,
but in the mastery of hardships.
- Helen Keller

Only one who devotes himself to a cause
with his whole strength and soul
can be a true master.
For this reason mastery demands all of a person.
- Albert Einstein

Self-disciplined begins with the mastery of your thoughts.
If you don't control what you think,
you can't control what you do.
Simply, self-discipline enables you
to think first and act afterward.
- Napoleon Hill

How different our lives are when we
really know what is deeply important to us,
and keeping that picture in mind,
we manage ourselves each day
to be and to do what really matters most.
- Stephen Covey

Further reading: How to Choose Your Life Purpose

Master of My Emotions

Live Your Inspired Life

Master of My Fate

Laugh at Life
           

Vision Plus Action

Success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.
- Thomas A. Edison

A dream doesn't become reality through magic;
it takes sweat, determination and hard work.
- Colin Powell

If you dream of something worth doing
and then simply go to work on it
and don't think anything of personalities,
or emotional conflicts, or of money,
or of family distractions;
it is amazing how quickly
you get through those 5,000 steps.
- Edwin Land

Vision without action is merely a dream.
Action without vision just passes the time.
Vision with action can change the world.
- Joel A. Barker

To lead a great life:
Dream, Take Action, Repeat.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Some people dream of success
while others wake up and work hard at it.
- Anonymous

Further reading: You Are What You Do

Walking Your Path

Fulfilling Your Dreams

Action Beats Inaction
    

Luck marches with those who give their very best

 

Those who have succeeded at anything
and don't mention luck
are kidding themselves.
- Larry King

Luck is preparation meeting opportunity.
- Seneca

I find that the harder I work,
the more luck I seem to have.
- Thomas Jefferson

Remember that not getting what you want
is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work.
- Harry Golden

Luck marches with those who give their very best.
- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Further reading: Aging With Grace

Maybe So, Maybe Not

Get Un-Stuck
       

First, Seek to Understand

 

Seek first to understand,
then to be understood.
- Stephen Covey

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening
when you'd have preferred to talk.
- Doug Larson

Friends are those rare people who ask how we are
and then wait to hear the answer.
- Anonymous

Most of the successful people I've known are the ones
who do more listening than talking.
- Bernard Baruch

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand;
they listen with the intent to reply.
- Stephen R. Covey

Give whatever you are doing
and whoever you are with
the gift of your attention.
- Jim Rohn

Further reading: Pay Attention

Through the Eyes of Another

True Understanding

Be Aware
   

In Spite of the Constraints of Circumstance, We Still have Free Will

Our circumstances define the playing field, not the outcome.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life consists not in holding good cards
but in playing those you hold well.
- Josh Billings

Customs form us all.
Our thoughts, our morals, our most fixed beliefs,
are consequences of our place of birth.
- Aaron Hill
Yet within these quite extreme constraints, progress, success, and happiness are still possible.

You play the hand you're dealt.
I think the game's worthwhile.
- Christopher Reeve

All men and women are born, live, suffer and die;
what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams,
whether they be 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.
- Joseph Epstein

Our Free Will is Highly Constrained,
Which Makes the Free Will that We Do Have Even More Precious.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We all have free will, but only within the harsh constraints of predestination.
Within the limits placed upon our lives by the circumstances of our genes,
our place and condition of birth, the parenting we receive,
and other events beyond our control,
we are defined by the free will we can still exercise.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Make Your Dreams Come True

Do What You Can Do

Choose to Soar
    

 

Follow Your True Calling

 

It's work only if I say it's work,
but it's play if I say it's fun.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.
- Dale Carnegie

It's kind of fun to do the impossible.
- Walt Disney

What work I have done I have done because it has been play.
If it had been work I shouldn't have done it.
- Mark Twain

If we like what we do, if we always do our best,
then we are really enjoying life.
We are having fun, we don't get bored,
we don't have frustrations.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Further reading: Cherish the Whimsey

Dream. Begin. Persevere.

Realizing Success

We Come This Way But Once

Bounce Back
      

Don't Hold Back, Engage with Life

The key to success, and to happiness,
is being fully engaged in life -
leading yourself with inspiration and committed action -
setting your own fine and honorable example.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Wherever you go, go with all your heart.
- Confucius

You can choose to follow your heart always.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Further reading: I Dreamed a Dream

Live With Enthusiasm

Think Big, Act Big

Choose to Follow Your Heart
   

 

Just Do Your Best

Give the world the best you have
and it may never be enough.
Give the world your best anyway.
- Kent Keith (frequently attributed to Mother Teresa)

Simply do your best, and you will avoid
self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Success has a simple formula: do your best, and people may like it.
- Sam Ewing

Success comes from knowing that
you did your best to become the best
that you are capable of becoming.
- John Wooden

Today's affirmation:
I will do my best...
and then relax in the knowing
that I have done all I could.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Take Charge of Your Life

Play to Win, but be a Good Loser

DO IT

Ignore Your Critics
    

Appreciate Excellence in Others

Appreciation is a wonderful thing.
It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
- Voltaire

The more we care for the happiness of others,
the greater is our own sense of well-being.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life
comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.
- Robert A. Heinlein

Sadly, it is human nature to measure success by comparison with our neighbors.
A consequence of this tendency is the instinct to wish for others to fail
and our own status to therefore appear higher by comparison.

Strive to cheer whenever others succeed
and to avoid viewing your own achievements in comparison to others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Eight Rules for Living Your Greatest Life

Empathy

Light for Others

Disappointment

The Art of Listening

Offer Comfort
      

Keep learning, keep trying, and always do your best

Things turn out best for the people
who make the best of the way things turn out.
- Art Linkletter

Do your best, accept the rest.
Stop demanding joy, attention and friends.
Allow people to disregard you, it's fine.
Who you are should never depend on externalities like your image or possessions.
Every externality can fade (looks, fame, power, money, etc.)
Become ZEN!
- afcpoop on Reddit

Success seems to be connected with action.
Successful people keep moving.
They make mistakes, but they don't quit.
- Conrad Hilton

Some decisions don't turn out well,
but if you did your best,
you have nothing to be ashamed of.
Never second guess your decisions.
Keep learning, keep trying,
and always do your best.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Do you remember the things you were worrying about a year ago?
Didn't you waste a lot of fruitless energy
on account of most of them?
Didn't most of them turn out all right after all?
- Dale Carnegie

Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go;
they merely determine where you start.
- Nido Qubein

Further reading: Let It Go - Be Zen

Maybe So, Maybe Not. - Ancient Taoist Proverb

Fear of Striking Out

How to get over regrets and resentments Forgive Yourself
       

 

Discover What You Love To Do, And Do It

 

The key to success, and to happiness,
is being fully engaged in life -
leading yourself with inspiration and committed action -
setting your own fine and honorable example.

- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Success is not the key to happiness.
Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
- Albert Schweitzer

Success is getting and achieving what you want.
Happiness is wanting and being content with what you get.
- Bernard Meltzer

"Success" isn't about money or fame.
Success is living a life you feel proud of.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Doing Your Best

Wanting is Not Enough

Small Pleasures

Childlike Wonder
    

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
    

Being "Self-Made" is a Myth

 

None of us got where we are solely by
pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps.
- Thurgood Marshall

Ingratitude often hides behind a mask of independence or self-sufficiency.
An assertion of being "self-made" is a rejection of God, one's ancestors, and society.
Your Genes, Place of Birth, and Upbringing are God's Gift to You.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Those who have succeeded at anything
and don't mention luck
are kidding themselves.
- Larry King

If I have seen further, it is
by standing on the shoulders of giants.
- Isaac Newton

The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness
of the interdependence of all these living beings,
which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.
- Thomas Merton

Civilization is not a spontaneous generation
with any race or nation known to history,
but the torch to be handed down from race to race from age to age.
- Kelly Millar

Success is a result of hard work,
plus being blessed with good genes, food,
a good country, an opportunity for education,
and much more which we never "earned"
or "deserved," and for which we owe
everlasting gratitude.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Debt to Those Who are Kind

Appreciating Our Blessings

Give Thanks

Gratitude for This Food
     

Assumptions and Expectations Create Suffering

 

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