Ray's Daily

“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

Abraham Lincoln

I continue to be surprised how little we know about ourselves. When asked we often frame our responses through what we do for a living, or the family statistics like I am married with three children or the like. When pressed we might report on an award or special event but almost always we leave out who we truly are. I often sit for hours with folks who just take for granted the things that make them special, things like their kindness, their caring for others, their intellectual prowess, their creativeness − you get the idea − the list can go on and on.

We are the people who show up every day doing what we do until it becomes so routine that we don’t think who we are and what we do is all that special, yet it really is. You succeed because of what you do. People care about you for what you do every day and not because you won a medal in the past or have a neat title and so on, they care for you because you are worth it. Sadly some of us hide our positive aspects from others as we shyly feel they really are not all that important, but they really are. I hope you will learn to know and like yourself for what you are as much as I like those of you I know.

The following was recently posted on the Positive Present blog, it was written by Brian Tracy and Christina Tracy Stein. I know that it will make today’s Daily longer than usual but it is worth your reading.

7 truths about you

No matter where you are today, or what you have done or not done in the past, you need to accept seven essential truths about you as a person:

1. You are a thoroughly good and excellent person; valuable and worthwhile beyond measure. No one is better than you or more gifted than you. Only when you doubt your essential goodness and value do you begin to question yourself. The inability to accept that you are a good person lies at the root of much of your discontent.

2. You are important, in many, many ways. To start with, you are important to yourself. Your personal universe revolves around you as an individual. You give meaning to everything that you see or hear. Nothing in your world has any significance except for the significance that you attribute to it. You are also important to your parents. Your birth was a significant moment in their lives, and as you grew up, almost everything you did was meaningful to them. You are important to your own family, to your partner or spouse, your children, and the other members of your social circle. Some of the things you do or say have an enormous impact on them. You are important to your company, your customers, your coworkers, and your community. The things you do or don’t do can have a tremendous effect on the lives and work of others. How important you feel largely determines the quality of your life. Happy, successful people feel important and valuable. Because they feel and act this way, it becomes true for them. Unhappy, frustrated people feel unimportant and of little value. They feel frustrated and unworthy. They feel “I’m not good enough,” and as a result they lash out at the world and engage in behaviors that hurt themselves and others. They don’t realize that they could be a prince or princess inside

3. You have unlimited potential and the ability to create your life and your world as you desire. You could not use your entire potential if you lived one hundred lifetimes. No matter what you have accomplished up to now, it is merely a hint of what is truly possible for you. And the more of your natural talents and abilities you develop in the present, the more of your potential you can develop in the future. Your belief in your almost unlimited potential is the key to becoming everything you are truly capable of becoming.

4. You create your world in every respect by the way you think and the depth of your convictions. Your beliefs actually create your realities, and every belief you have about yourself you learned, starting in infancy. The amazing thing is that most of the negative or self-limiting beliefs and doubts that interfere with your happiness and success are not based on fact or reality at all. When you begin to question your self-limiting beliefs and develop beliefs consistent with the incredible person you really are, your life will begin to change almost immediately.

5. You are always free to choose the content of your thoughts and the direction of your life. The one thing over which you have complete control is your inner life and your thinking. You can decide to think happy, fulfilling, uplifting thoughts that lead to positive actions and results. Or you can, by default, end up choosing negative, self limiting thoughts that trip you up and hold you back. Your mind is like a garden: if you do not deliberately cultivate flowers, weeds will grow automatically without any effort on your part. If you do not deliberately plant and cultivate positive thoughts, negative thoughts will grow in their place. This simple metaphor about the garden explains why so many people are unhappy and don’t know why.

6. You are put on this earth with a great destiny: you are meant to do something wonderful with your life. You have a unique combination of talents, abilities, ideas, insights, and experiences that make you different from anyone who has ever lived. You are designed for success and engineered for greatness. Your acceptance or nonacceptance of this point largely determines the size of the goals you set, your power of persistence in the face of adversity, the height of your achievements, and the whole direction of your life.

7. There are no limits to what you can do, be, or have except the limits you place on your own thinking and your own imagination. The biggest enemies you will ever face are your own doubts and fears. These are usually negative beliefs, not necessarily based on fact, that you have accepted over the years until you no longer question them.

As Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest, “What’s past is prologue.” Everything that has happened to you in the past has been a preparation for the wonderful life that lies ahead of you in the future. Remember the rule: It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from; all that really matters is where you’re going.

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“All wonders you seek are within yourself.”

Sir Thomas Browne

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A new flood is foretold and nothing can be done to prevent it; in six days the waters will wipe out the world. The leader of Buddhism appears on TV and pleads with everyone to become a Buddhist; that way, they will at least find salvation in heaven.

The Pope goes on TV with a similar message: “It is still not too late to accept Jesus,” he says.

The Chief Rabbi of Israel takes a slightly different approach: “We have six days to learn how to live under water.”

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“Most people would like to be delivered from temptation, but would like it to keep in touch.”

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A man was in front of me coming out of church one day, and the preacher was standing at the door as he always is to shake hands.  He grabbed the man by the hand and pulled him aside.  The Pastor said to him, “You need to join the Army of the Lord!”

The man replied, “I’m already in the Army of the Lord, Pastor.”

Pastor questioned, “How come I don’t see you except at Christmas and Easter?”

He whispered back, “I’m in the secret service.”

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The best things in life are free…. or have no interest or payments for one full year.

~~~

Paul was not the brightest guy around.  Every day, when he walked home from work, he would get stopped by three nasty men and they would beat him up and steal his money. Finally, Paul decided that it would serve his best interest to walk a different route, but also take some self-defense classes so this wouldn’t happen again. He joined a karate class and soon was doing very well with it. So, one day, on the way home from work, Paul confidently decided to take his old route home and, sure enough, there they were. He walked up to them and the battle ensued. The next afternoon, Paul went to his karate class with a black eye, a broken nose and a busted lip.

His instructor was shocked and asked for an explanation.

“Well,” explained Paul, “I took my old way home last night so I could beat those guys up who used to steal my money.”

His instructor said, “What happened?”

Paul replied, “They jumped me before I could get my socks and shoes off!”

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Some people drink deeply from the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.

Grant M. Bright

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The passengers were leaving the plane after landing, and one smiling, satisfied passenger paused to congratulate the flight attendant. “Stewardess,” he said happily, “I want to compliment you and the crew and especially the captain for getting here on time. It’s not often that an airline gets to where it’s going exactly when they claim it will. I’m going to call your home office and let them know how pleased I am.”

“Why, thank you, sir,” the flight attendant answered, “but I think you should know this is yesterday’s flight.”

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“Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.”

Buddha

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Stay well, do good work, and have fun.

Ray Mitchell

Indianapolis, Indiana

Management is not responsible for duplicates from previous dailies. The editor is somewhat senile.

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