Ray’s Daily
April 23, 2020
“Gratitude turns what we have into enough.”
If you are like I am you do not always find it easy to stay positive. That is especially true these days when there is so much happing that we can’t control. I know in my case being isolated from friends and family just reinforces the price we pay for the challenges imposed by today’s crisis.
The good news that many of us have developed coping skills that allow us to do OK, skills I never realized I had. Recently Marc Chernoff wrote an article that shred how he deals with his bad days. Here is an excerpt from his article thatmake sense to me.
The Art of Being Grateful on Really Hard Days
- I am married to a loving, encouraging, beautiful woman named Angel.
- I am alive.
- I have a relatively healthy body.
- I have a roof over my head.
- I have loving parents and other extended family members, who I love.
- I have a few close friends.
- I have the ability to learn new things and grow.
- I can read.
- I can hear music.
- I can see the sun rise and set.
- I can run at the beach (at the time we lived in San Diego, walking distance to the ocean).
- I can taste delicious home-cooked food (Angel is a pretty darn good cook).
The list keeps going and going, of course, but you get the gist. The little yet marvelous things I was taking for granted every day were now in black and white right in front of me. The hard times I was struggling to cope with didn’t suddenly vanish, but things were put into better perspective. I was no longer focusing solely on the hard times with tunnel vision, but instead broadening my focus into the periphery of my life where a whole list of amazing things existed that could nurture my inner spirit.
Yes, there are incredibly painful parts of my life, and it’s OK to feel the pain they bring. But it’s also important that I remember the rest of my life too, and to also remember that even the painful experiences make life as intricate and remarkable as it is. Life would be impossible without challenges. There is no happiness without some sadness—one requires the other.
~~~
“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
Melody Beattie
~~~
- How do you get a redhead to argue with you? A: Say something
- How do you get a redhead’s mood to change? A: Wait 10 seconds
- If you love a Redhead, set her free…..if she follows you everywhere you go, if she pitches a tent in your front lawn, and if she puts your new girlfriend in the hospital, she’s yours.
- How do you know a guy at the beach has a redhead for a girlfriend? A: She has scratched “stay off MY TURF!” on his back with her nails.
- What do you call a Redhead with an attitude? A: Normal
- How do you know when your redhead has forgiven you? A: She stops washing your clothes in the toilet bowl
- Only two things are necessary to keep a redhead happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.
One of my favorite friends is a red headed professor and I know she is not like that (Don’t tell anyone but if I said she was I would be afraid of the consequences).
~~~
Some people are discovered, others are found out.
~~~
A little boy is told by his mother that he has been very bad this year. Thus, he would probably not get anything for Christmas.
“What? Nothing for Christmas?” cried the little boy.
“Well,” said mom, “maybe if you write a letter to baby Jesus and tell him how sorry you are, Santa will bring you some presents.”
The little boy returned to his room and began his letter. With each attempt at writing he would first apologize and then promise to be good for a certain amount of time. Each letter he crumpled up started again, making the “be good” time shorter with each letter.
Finally in frustration, he gave up and then was struck by a bolt of inspiration! Running to the living room he carefully removed the little Mother Mary figure from the family’s manger scene and just as carefully wrapped it in a sock, placing it in his top drawer. Returning to his desk, he took out a clean piece of paper and began to write:
“Dear Baby Jesus, if you ever want to see your Mother again…”
~~~
You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
Dale Carnegie
~~~
Wanting to lose weight, a woman placed a picture of a shapely, pinup model INSIDE her refrigerator to remind her of her goal. It worked like a charm as the woman discovered that she had lost ten pounds in the first month of using this method.
The downside to this was that her husband spent so much time going into the fridge to look at the picture that he ended up gaining fifteen pounds!
~~~
You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, “My God, you’re right! I never would’ve thought of that!”
Dave Barry
~~~
During the Second World War, when many young men were being trained for combat, they were stationed in the south, and it was the custom for some of the local residents to offer some Southern Hospitality to our fighting men.
One day, in a camp that will remain nameless, the phone rang; a woman at a local woman’s school offered to entertain a dozen soldiers at a party being held the upcoming weekend, and would the captain send some of her best behaved men over? The captain agreed, but before he could finalize the agreements, the woman made a request: “Please, suh, don’t send any Jewish boys.”
The captain agreed … no Jews.
The day of the party, the soldiers were dropped off at the school, and knocked on the door. The hostess opened the door … to the sight of a dozen Black soldiers, all in dress uniforms.
“Why, th-there m-must be some kind of m-mistake,” she stammered.
“No, ma’am,” said one of the soldiers, “Captain Rabinowitz, he doesn’t make mistakes.”
~~~
“Everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them.”
Richard Buckminster Fuller
~~~
Joe: Why don’t you play golf with Bob anymore?
Mike: Would you play with someone who curses after each shot, cheats in the bunkers and enters false scores on his card?
Joe: No!
Mike: Neither will Bob.
~~~
“I read somewhere that 77 per cent of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I’m more intrigued by the 23 per cent who are apparently doing quite well for themselves.”
~~~
“In ordinary life, we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
~~~
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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