Ray's Daily

Ray’s Daily

May 4, 2022

http://rays-daily.com

Problems are not the problem; coping is the problem.

Virginia Satir

There is a lot going on these days rhat we can not change, It is up to us to deal with what we encounter. Me, I tend to ignore what I can’t influence while concentrating on what I can do. It is not always easy but staying focused on making our days as trouble free as they can be is worth the effort.

I may have shared the following before but if I did I thnk it still is worth a reread.

6 Things You Gradually Learn as You Let Go of the Uncontrollable

1. On the average day, most people make themselves unhappy simply by finding it impossible to accept life just as it is presenting itself.

2. If you worry too much about what might be, and wonder too long about what might have been, you will ignore and completely miss what is.

3. The secret to getting ahead is to focus all of your energy not on fixing and fighting the old, but on building and growing something new.

4. Letting go doesn’t mean you don’t care about something or someone anymore. It’s just realizing that the only thing you really have control over is yourself in this moment.

5. In most cases, you can’t calm the storm – it’s not worth trying. What you can do is calm yourself, and the storm will pass.

6. There is absolutely nothing about your present circumstances that prevents you from making progress, one tiny step at a time…

Think about how these points relate to your life right now.

Your present response is often far more powerful than your present circumstance. A part of your life is unquestionably decided by completely uncontrollable circumstances, yet the vast majority of your life is decided by your responses to these kinds of circumstances.

Thus, the goal isn’t to get rid of all your painful thoughts, feelings or life circumstances. Because that’s impossible. The goal is to change your response to them starting today.

Once you begin to value your inner peace over your need to hold on, engage, react, or be right, you will in fact begin to feel more centered and whole (and in control). Truly, learning to let go of certain things and detach from certain people’s behavior, are two of the great paths to inner peace…

And yet, we collectively tend to hold on too tight!

Now imagine you pause, take a deep breath, and realize that there’s nothing nearby to hold on to. Just water around you. You can continue to struggle with grabbing at something that doesn’t exist… or you can accept that there’s only water around you, and relax, and float.

This is the process of letting GO. It can be liberating.

Angel Chernoff

~~~

Life is not what it’s supposed to be. It’s what it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference.

Virginia Satir

~~~

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the world-famous detective Sherlock Holmes, was not above telling tales about himself in which he was the laughing-stock.

In one situation, he was waiting at a taxi stand outside the railway station in Paris. When a taxi pulled up, he placed his suitcase in the car and took a seat next to it.

‘Where can I take you, Mr. Doyle?’ asked the taxi driver.

Doyle was flabbergasted. He asked the driver whether he knew him by sight.

‘No, sir, I have never seen you before.’

The puzzled Doyle asked him how he knew he was Conan Doyle.

‘This morning’s paper had a story about you being on vacation in Marseilles. This is the taxi-stand where people who return from Marseilles always come to. Your skin color tells me you have been on vacation. The ink-spot on your right index finger suggests to me that you’re a writer. Your clothing is very English, and not French. And so, I deduced that you are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.’

Doyle remarked, ‘This is truly amazing. You are a real-life counterpart to my fictional creation, Sherlock Holmes.’

‘There is one other thing,’ the driver said.

‘What is that?’

‘Your name is on the front of your suitcase.’

~~~

“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”

Beverly Sills

~~~

Funny Excerpts from Student Essays

Eventually, the Ramons conquered the Geeks. History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long. At Roman banquets, the guests wore garlics in their hair. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Nero was a cruel tyranny who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them.  

In midevil times most of the people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the time was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also wrote literature. Another tale tells of William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son’s head.  

Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock.  

The government of England was a limited mockery. Henry VIII found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee. Queen Elizabeth was the “Virgin Queen.” As a queen she was a success. When Elizabeth exposed herself before her troops, they all shouted, “hurrah.” Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo.  

The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespear. Shakespear never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He lived at Windsor with his merry wives, writing tragedies, comedies, and errors.

In one of Shakespear’s famous plays, Hamlet rations out his situation by relieving himself in a long soliloquy. In another, Lady Macbeth tries to convince Macbeth to kill the King by attacking his manhood. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Writing at the same time as Shakespear was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.  

In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java. The reward to the victor was a coral wreath. The government of Athens was democratic because people took the law into their own hands. There were no wars in Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn’t climb over to see what their neighbors were doing. When they fought with the Persians, the Greeks were outnumbered because the Persians had more men.  

~~~

I think of life itself now as a wonderful play that I’ve written for myself, and so my purpose is to have the utmost fun playing my part.

Unknown

~~~

A woman answered her front door and found two little boys standing there holding a long list.

“Excuse me,” one of them explained, “we’re on a scavenger hunt, and we still need three grains of wheat, a pork-chop bone and a piece of used carbon paper to earn a dollar.”

“Wow,” the woman replied. “Who sent you on such a challenging hunt?”

“Our baby-sitter’s boyfriend.”

~~~

As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might.

Marian Anderson

~~~

A few nights ago a few friends and I were in a bar, telling all the blond jokes we knew; boy what a feast! Anyway, I ducked into the restroom to sprinkle the old porcelain. While I was in there, this big guy came in and said to me, “Hey pal, I’m blond and I don’t like you telling all those blond jokes!”  

So I said, “Well, they’re not against you, pal, just against anyone blond.”  

“My mother is blond!” He screams, and pulls out a razor.  

Boy was I scared! I was sure he would have killed me, but luckily he couldn’t find a place to plug it in. 

~~~

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.

Havelock Ellis

~~~

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

Ray’s Daily has been sent for more than twenty 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@comcast.net. Back issues are posted at http://rays-daily,com/ currently there are hundreds of  readers from around the world.