Ray’s Daily
November 12, 2018
The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.
Michael Althsuler
Some of us as we age start to realize immortality is not in the cards so we need to decide how we will live the days we have left. Many of us decide to just stop and let new opportunities slip by as the days go on. Others, like me, learn that hibernating is debilitating and there is still time to enjoy the days ahead. The days we let slip by unused can never be relived so it us important that we use them all.
Recently Marc Chernoff wrote an article entitled 5 “Notes to Self” About the Precious Little Time You Have Left” (http://www.marcandangel.com/2018/10/21/5-notes-to-self-about-the-precious-little-time-you-have-left/) that reminded me of how important it is that we don’t waste our days. Here are highlights from the piece.
Notes to Self for Making YOUR Time Count
- Opportunity is only ever found in the present. – Some people wait all day for 5pm, all week for Friday, all year for the holidays, all their lives for happiness and peace. Don’t be one of them. Life is too short. Time is running out. Don’t wait until your life is almost over to realize how good it has been. The secret to happiness and peace is letting this moment be what it is, instead of what you think it should be, and then making the very best of it.
Realize this. What you do now matters more than what happened yesterday.
- Your entire life can be customized from day to day. – There are hundreds of people in every town on Earth who live their entire lives on the default settings, never realizing they can customize everything. Don’t be one of them. Don’t settle for the default settings in life.
Find your loves, your talents, your passions, and embrace them. The life you create from doing something that moves and excites you is far better than the life you get from sitting around wishing you were doing it.
- The willingness to do hard things makes life worth living. – Truth be told, one of the most important abilities you can develop in life is the willingness to accept and grow through life’s challenges and discomforts. Because the best things are often hard to come by, at least initially.
- Daily kindness is a beautiful legacy to leave behind. – Some people will be kind to you. Some won’t. Be kind anyway.
Through kindness you have the ability to make a profound difference in every life you touch, including your own.
- Everything will change again, faster and sooner than expected. – Nothing lasts. Everything changes. Day to day is a winding journey.
As human beings we are constantly outgrowing what we once thought we couldn’t live without, and falling in love with what we didn’t even know we wanted. Life literally keeps leading us on journeys we would never go on if it were up to us. Don’t be afraid. Have faith. Find the lessons. Trust the journey.
~~~
As we speak cruel time is fleeing. Seize the day, believing as little as possible in the morrow.
Horace
~~~
He said: Both sides of our family turned out for my wife’s college graduation. After the dean finished awarding all the diplomas, he requested, “Will all the cum laudes please stand up”?
My mother-in-law leaned over and whispered, “Wow! The Cum Laude family sure has a lot of kids!”
~~~
“Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.”
Samuel Johnson
~~~
As a language teacher, I usually award certificates of merit to deserving students. One year, I decided to change the format of the certificates and use a seal stamped with my initials.
I called a number of places to buy sealing wax, but they all had identical reactions: a long silence followed by an apology for not having any in stock.
On my last call, there was the silence, but then the salesman asked, “Why ceiling as opposed to floor?”
~~~
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
Howard Thurman
~~~
Consider the case of Frederick II, an 18th-century king of Prussia. Frederick fancied himself an enlightened monarch, and in some respects he was. On one occasion, he is supposed to have interested himself in the conditions of a Berlin prison. He was escorted through it so that he might speak to the prisoners.
One after the other, the prisoners fell to their knees before him, bewailing their lot and, predictably, protesting their utter innocence of all charges that had been brought against them.
Only one prisoner remained silent, and finally Frederick’s curiosity was aroused.
“You,” he called. “You, there!
The prisoner looked up. “Yes, your majesty?”
“Why are you here?”
“Armed robbery, your majesty.”
“And are you guilty?”
“Entirely guilty, your majesty. I richly deserve my punishment.
At this Frederick rapped his cane sharply on the ground and said, “Warden, release this guilty wretch at once. I will not have him here in jail where by example he will corrupt all the splendid innocent people who occupy it.
~~~
Right now I’m having amnesia and déjà vu at the same time. I think I’ve forgotten this before.
~~~
Two mothers are having a conversation about their children.
“How do you get your Pauly up so early on school mornings?” asks one of them.
“Oh, that’s easy,” replies the other. “I just throw the cat on his bed.”
“Why does that wake him up?”
“He sleeps with the dog.”
~~~
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.
Steve Jobs
~~~
Ray Mitchell
Indianapolis, Indiana
Management is not responsible for duplicates from previous dailies. The editor is somewhat senile.
Ray’s Daily has been sent for more than fifteen years to people who want to start their day on an upbeat. If you have system overload because of our daily clutter, let me know and I will send you the information via mental telepathy. If you have not been getting our daily you can request to be added by e-mailing me at raykiwsp@gmail.com. Back issues are posted at http://rays-daily,com/ currently there are more than 2000 readers from around the world.
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