FearAlone

Love and Magic

Love and magic have a great deal in common. They enrich the soul, delight the heart. And they both take practice.

Nora Roberts

A Quote Worth Reading

It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you're not. ~Author Unknown

What a great quote.

How many times have you let your own idea of your limitations hold you back from greatness?

I've heard over and over people say they don't have it in them to quit [ insert bad habit here]. When in actuality they are limiting themselves... And in my experience we are limitless beings.

I always end up surprising myself when I'm able to push past this feeling and reach my goal.

You are limitless. Greatness is owed to you, you need only reach out and grab it.

2 weeks over

So, for those of you that have not been following my blog.  I gave up TV for two weeks, as an experiment.  I felt that in this day and age we are over stimulated.  I wanted to see what would happen if I took out a major stimuli.

The two weeks were over as of Sunday. I got to say for the most part I am not surprised at all on the outcome, but a couple of things were not expected.

During the first week I made sure to keep my life pretty active.  I started to go to a Zen Buddhist temple and meditate regularly.  I figured one thing I wanted more time for was spirituality.  Which wasn't lacking in my life, but we could always use more of.

Another thing I did was to volunteer.  It was something I used to do a lot as a teenager, but haven't had a chance to since. 

Week 2 I wanted to see how my day to day life was affected.  In truth, it wasn't as productive as I wanted it to be.  But, I don't think the time was wasted.  I had hoped to catch up on some reading, but instead focused more on listening to the people in my life.

I think because we listen to a TV without being able to give input.  When we are face to face with people, we tend to want to just give input without the listening part.  So, I feel a lot of relationships are lost because of the fact that we find it hard to just listen to the people that we love.  We'd rather listen to a box.

After the two weeks, I am forever changed.  I crave more the interaction of people.  I look forward to my times of meditation at the temple.  I am excited about more volunteering.  TV just doesn't have as big of a draw to me now.  I spend less time watching complete strangers do the things that I have always wanted to do, and grabbing a hold of life by doing them myself.

I still want to own a TV, but I am rethinking cable.  Although I might miss some of the more educational programs that I watched.  I can get the same on DVD or Netflix (with the watch instantly option).

Since yesterday was Martin Luther King day I think it's fitting to close this with some of his great words.

 

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. - Martin Luther King

Unforgetable Happiness Quotes

Happiness Quotes

 

The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness.  You have to catch it yourself.  ~Benjamin Franklin

 

If you want to be happy, be.  ~Leo Tolstoy

 

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.  ~Mark Twain

 

Those who can laugh without cause have either found the true

meaning of happiness or have gone stark raving mad.  ~Norm Papernick

 

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys.  If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.  ~Fyodor Dostoevsky

 

What a wonderful life I've had!  I only wish I'd realized it sooner.  ~Colette

 

"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best," and then he had to stop and think.  Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called.  ~A.A. Milne

 

 

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier.  The way it actually works is the reverse.  You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.  ~Margaret Young

 

Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.  ~St. Augustine

 

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.  ~Abraham Lincoln

 

We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing andappreciating what we do have.  ~Frederick Keonig

 

It's never too late to have a happy childhood.  ~Berke Breathed

 

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.  If you want to be happy, practice compassion.  ~Dalai Lama

 

If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.  ~Bertrand Russell

 

Cheerfulness is what greases the axles of the world.  Don't go through life creaking.  ~H.W. Byles

 

My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.  ~William Shakespeare

 

She thinks that happiness is a mat that sits on her doorway.  ~Rob Thomas, "3 A.M."

 

One joy scatters a hundred griefs.  ~Chinese Proverb

 

If the day and night be such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more immortal - that is your success.  All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself.  ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden

 

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.  ~Mahatma Gandhi

 

Happiness is your dentist telling you it won't hurt and then having him catch his hand in the drill.  ~Johnny Carson

Actors and Musicians have low self esteem?

Actors and Musicians have low self esteem?

It appears there’s a direct correlation between Creative people and low self esteem.  Check out this article that I found (it’s small, but sheds a lot of light on this subject). http://talentdevelop.com/523/self-esteem-and-actors/

I find it ironic because these are the people that we all look up to, and they have the same exact issues both you and I have.  Self esteem is harder to spot with actors because there job is to suspend your belief.  

But some musicians make a living on letting us know their self esteem issues.  Let’s first look at one of the most obvious… Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain.  Kurt Cobain’s death was a tragedy, but he left many signs that he was having self esteem issues.  Here are some quotes from Kurt Cobain that clearly show some problems…

A friend is nothing but a known enemy.
Kurt Cobain

Drugs are a waste of time. They destroy your memory and your self-respect and everything that goes along with with your self esteem.
Kurt Cobain

I had a really good childhood up until I was nine, then a classic case of divorce really affected me.
Kurt Cobain

I really haven't had that exciting of a life. There are a lot of things I wish I would have done, instead of just sitting around and complaining about having a boring life. So I pretty much like to make it up. I'd rather tell a story about somebody else.
Kurt Cobain

I started being really proud of the fact that I was gay even though I wasn't.
Kurt Cobain

I'm so happy because today I found my friends - they're in my head.
Kurt Cobain

I'm too busy acting like I'm not Naive. I've seen it all, I was here first.
Kurt Cobain

If you die you're completely happy and your soul somewhere lives on. I'm not afraid of dying. Total peace after death, becoming someone else is the best hope I've got.
Kurt Cobain

Rather be dead than cool.

Kurt Cobain

If that isn’t telling, then I don’t know what is.

How about the singer from the band Staind, Aaron Lewis.  It’s hard to find a song on any of his ablums that doesn’t in some way tell us how depressed he is because of his low self esteem.

Mariah Carey has also stated to have self esteem issues.  It’s harder to see with her because she doesn’t really use this as her inspiration as the previous two do.  Here’s a quote from her.

“I’ve always had low self-esteem, and I still do. What’s weird about that is being onstage, and the love that you get, and the adoration that you feel from your real fans.”

–Mariah Carey

We clearly buy the music of those that relate to us on a deeper level.  They seem to have an understanding of our lives. We have a common bond in that they share our low self esteem.  The inspiration they use is the years of abusively low self esteem, and we are drawn to it.  Not just lyrically, but it’s within their essence.

Some would say that the low self esteem is maybe the driving factor in them becoming so creative.  It allows a release from it.

So we are really not all that alone after all.  

Regret

So this morning I was thinking a lot about regret.

My sister told me awhile ago that my father had a lot of regrets when he died.  My father was the life of the party.  The man you would never think associate with the word regret.

I want to learn from my father's mistakes so I did a search for "regret quotes" on google and came up with some inspirational quotes.

"Have no regrets. The elderly usually don't have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets." Author Unknown, from Dreams

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh. Henry David Thoreau

If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow." Chinese Proverb

Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true. Robert Brault

I would rather regret the things that I have done than the things that I have not. Lucille Ball

Live in the present tense, facing the duty at hand without regret for the past or worry over the future. William de Witt Hyde, from Grammar

A man is not old until his regrets take the place of his dreams. Yiddish Proverb

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. Harriet Beecher Stowe

I have no regrets. I wouldn't have lived my life the way I did if I was going to worry about what people were going to say. Ingrid Bergman

We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment. Jim Rohn
Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. Sydney J. Harris

Looking back, I have this to regret...that too often when I loved, I did not say so. David Grayson

Regrets are the natural property of grey hairs. Charles Dickens

Regret Quotes Found Here