Ray’s Daily
November 20, 2017
“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”
Dalai Lama
Here we go another week, this one is going to be special for those who live in my country. This coming Thursday is when we will celebrate our annual Thanksgiving holiday. It is a time when most of us will be able to spend time with our families and many of us will take some time to stop and appreciate all we have been given. The day after our time of thanks will be a day when many of us will lose all our inhibitions as we fight for bargains during the annual post-Thanksgiving super sales. Me? I was in the Korean conflict many years ago and have avoided battles ever since so I will be staying home.
One of the things I am thankful for is how well my life continues to be. Sure, I like you have had my pitfalls and stumbles but they are only minor interruptions. I have had a few grave medical events but my fantastic medical teams have done their miraculous work and always brought me back. I expect things to work out and they do, I have found that enjoying life is as much how you see it as anything else. Here is a story written by Lee Ryan Miller that is a good reminder that to a large extent we are who we decide to be.
Who You Are Speaks Louder To Me Than Anything You Can Say
At the beginning of my 8:00 a.m. class one Monday at UNLV, I cheerfully asked my students how their weekend had been. One young man said that his weekend had not been very good. He’d had his wisdom teeth extracted. The young man then proceeded to ask me why I always seemed to be so cheerful.
His question reminded me of something I’d read somewhere before: “Every morning when you get up, you have a choice about how you want to approach life that day,” I said to the young man. “I choose to be cheerful.” “Let me give you an example,” I continued. The other sixty students in the class ceased their chatter and began to listen to our conversation.
“In addition to teaching here at UNLV, I also teach out at the community college in Henderson, about seventeen miles down the freeway from where I live. One day, a few weeks ago, I drove those seventeen miles to Henderson. I exited the freeway and turned onto College Drive. I only had to drive another quarter-mile down the road to the college. But just then my car died. I tried to start it again, but the engine wouldn’t turn over. So I put my flashers on, grabbed my books, and marched down the road to the college.”
“As soon as I got there I called AAA and asked them to send a tow truck. The secretary in the Provost’s office asked me what had happened. This is my lucky day,” I replied, smiling.
“Your car breaks down and today is your lucky day?” She was puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“I live seventeen miles from here.” I replied. “My car could have broken down anywhere along the freeway. It didn’t. Instead, it broke down in the perfect place: off the freeway, within walking distance of here. I’m still able to teach my class, and I’ve been able to arrange for the tow truck to meet me after class. If my car was meant to break down today, it couldn’t have been arranged in a more convenient fashion.”
The secretary’s eyes opened wide, and then she smiled. I smiled back and headed for class. So ended my story to the students in my economics class at UNLV.
I scanned the sixty faces in the lecture hall. Despite the early hour, no one seemed to be asleep. Somehow, my story had touched them. Or maybe it wasn’t the story at all. In fact, it had all started with a student’s observation that I was cheerful.
A wise man once said, “Who you are speaks louder to me than anything you can say.” I suppose it must be so.
~~~
Each day is a new canvas to paint upon. Make sure your picture is full of life and happiness, and at the end of the day you don’t look at it and wish you had painted something different.
Author Unknown
~~~
A woman was determined to get her newly retired husband some attractive leisure clothes. She went into a men’s clothing store and told the salesgirl, “I’m looking for something youthful, something wild in a men’s pair of slacks.”
“Oh,” sighed the salesgirl. “Aren’t we all?”
~~~
”As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
~~~
My 50-something friend Nancy and I decided to introduce her mother to the magic of the Internet. Our first move was to acess the popular “Ask Jeeves” site, and we told her it could answer any question she had.
Nancy’s mother was very skeptical until Nancy said, “It’s true, Mom. Think of something to ask it.”
As I sat with fingers poised over the keyboard, Nancy’s mother thought a minute, then responded, “How is Aunt Helen feeling?”
~~~
The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.
Elizabeth Foley
~~~
The strangest mystery of all is a woman’s bladder. X-rays prove that the female bladder is proportional to the woman’s size, yet they always have to pee.
Driving in a car seems to irritate the problem. It also irritates the guy she’s driving with.
The big question is: How is it that women pee every 10 to 15 minutes; yet they are always retaining water?
~~~
There is always a certain peace in being what one is, in being that completely.
Ugo Betti
~~~
He said: About five years ago the battery in my beat-up VW beetle had died because I left the lights on overnight . I was in a hurry to get to work on time so I ran into the house to get my wife to give me a hand to start the car.
I told her to get into our second car, a prehistoric oversized gas guzzler, and use it to push my car fast enough to start it. I pointed out to her that because the VW had an automatic transmission, it needed to be pushed at least 30 MPH for it to start. She said fine, hoped into her car and drove off.
I sat there fuming wondering what can she be doing. A minute passed by and when I saw her in the rearview mirror coming at me at about 40 MPH, I realized that I should have been A LOT clearer with my directions.
~~~
“Happiness is not a goal… it’s a by-product of a life well lived.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
~~~
Ray Mitchell
Indianapolis, Indiana
Management is not responsible for duplicates from previous dailies. The editor is somewhat senile.
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