Philippians 4:13

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

The road to success is not straight.
There is a curve called Failure,
a loop called Confusion,
speed bumps called Friends,
red lights called Enemies,
caution lights called Family.

You will have flats called Jobs.
But, if you have a spare called Determination,
an engine called Perseverance,
insurance called Faith,
a driver called Jesus,
you will make it to a place called Success.

Author - Unknown

Thanks Luth for emailing it to me.

Rules for being human by Cherie Carter-Scott

I was cleaning the garage [for relaxation!] the other day and I found this piece of paper with ten rules for being human. It does not say who the author was and so I Googled and found more about the origins of this set of "rules". These "rules" first appeared from the book "If Life is a Game, These are the Rules" by Cherie Carter-Scott; and it seems there's more than ten of these "rules". I compared my written copy to what I found on the net and changed bits and pieces below:

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When you were born, you didn't come with an owner's manual; these guidelines make life work better.

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's the only thing you are sure to keep for the rest of your life.

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called "Life on Planet Earth". Every person or incident is the Universal Teacher.

3. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may not like the lessons or think of them irrelevant and stupid.

4. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiemtns that ultimately "works".["Failures" are as much a part of the process as "success."]

5. A lesson is repeated until learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you learn it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.

6. If you don't learn easy lessons, they get harder. External problems are a precise reflection of your internal state. When you clear inner obstructions, your outside world changes. Pain is how the universe gets your attention.

7. You will know you've learned a lesson when your actions change. Wisdom is practice. A little of something is better than a lot of nothing.

8. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

9. "There" is no better than "here". When your "there" becomes a "here" you will simply obtain another "there" that will, again, looks better than "here."

10. Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate in yourself.

11. Your life is up to you. Life provides the canvas; you do the painting. Take charge of your life -- or someone else will.

12. To say in another sense: What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

13. You always get what you want. Your subconscious rightfully determines what energies, experiences, and people you attract -- therefore, the only foolproof way to know what you want is to see what you have. There are no victims, only students.

14. There is no right or wrong, but there are consequences. Moralizing doesn't help. Judgments only hold the patterns in place. Just do your best.

15. Your answers lie inside you. Children need guidance from others; as we mature, we trust our hearts, where the Laws of Spirit are written. You know more than you have heard or read or been told. The answers to life's questions lie inside you; all you need to do is to look, listen, and trust.

16. You will forget all this.

17. But you are allowed to remember these anytime you wish, remember life is a continous lesson!

Live a life that matters by Michael Josephson

I am a fan of Michael Josephson and his Character Counts website commentaries. A friend, Inez sent me the following article and I am reposting here to share with you. By the way, above photo was taken late last year on a holiday - Santa Monica pier in California, on a "not so sunny day" but for this one-legged seagull it doesn't seem to matter - it already made a choice.

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WHAT WILL MATTER by Michael Josephson

Ready or not, someday it will all come to an end. There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours, or days. All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.

Your wealth, fame, and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.

It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed. Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear.

So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will expire.

The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.

It won't matter where you came from, or on what side of the tracks you lived, at the end.

It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant. Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built; not what you got, but what you gave.

What will matter is not your success, but your significance.

What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught. What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence, but your character.

What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you're gone.

What will matter is not your memories, but the memories that live in those who loved you.

What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident. It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice.

Choose to live a life that matters.