the sun through a bullet hole

Dodging Bullets

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Do you remember a time when you felt “bulletproof”?

Superman was impervious, and Wonder Woman had those awesome bracelets, but the average person (or superhero) needs to find a realistic way to avoid those small but potentially deadly projectiles.  The first – and best – course of action is obviously to just avoid getting shot at in the first place. Barring that option, however, the next best thing to do is to duck, dodge, or otherwise evade the bullets that life will inevitably throw at you.

Aaron Potts

Sometimes it’s really difficult to summon up the gumption to forge ahead with goals which, in morning’s light seemed achievable, but which now, after a frustrating day of stumbling effort, suddenly seem impossible to achieve.  That’s when I have to dig deep… and, in the words of Corey Adler Leidersdorff, “Go back to the time when everything was possible… remember when you were bulletproof, when the world was full of promise.”

Surprisingly, I do remember feeling bulletproof – surely that sense of invincibility was an illusion.  Yet it carried me ’round sharp corners and through tight spaces.  Call it chutzpah or call it naiveté – whatever it was, it pulled me through before I had a chance to get discouraged.

Your success and happiness lie in you. Resolve to keep happy and your joy shall form an invincible host against difficulties.

— Helen Keller

Not so this day.  This day started in a burst of arrogance and high spirits – Continue reading » Dodging Bullets

Baby steps

Lots of Little Changes

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Imaginary obstacles are insurmountable. Real ones aren’t. But you can’t tell the difference when you have no real information. Fear can create even more imaginary obstacles than ignorance can. That’s why the smallest step away from speculation and into reality can be an amazing relief. The Reality Solution means: Do it before you’re ready.

— Barbara Sher

You and I both know that we have lots of self-improvement projects that we’d like to get to.  But just like our home improvement projects, we don’t have the time or the energy to make the changes that we’d like to make.  Not being able to make the changes we’d like to make, we get discouraged and give up.

Recently, an old idea has been reshaped and moved into a new discipline.  Kaizen – the Japanese word for Continue reading » Lots of Little Changes

Happy Girl with Glove

I Go to the Jedi…

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See the girl in the purple tee? See her I-can-do-this mojo? – I want me some of that!

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

— William Wordsworth

Recently a friend gifted me with a journal – a beautifully bound, preciously blank book.  But, to my chagrin, I find that the pristine pages intimidate me.

I’m Breaking Out My Catcher’s Mitt

We have a great deal of freedom to choose exactly how we will live … each day is made up of a myriad of ‘choice points’ and Morning Pages [daily journaling] creates our ‘catcher’s mitt’ for many small ideas that lead to larger breakthroughs…

— Julia Cameron
from The Writing Diet: Write Yourself Right-Size

When it comes to journaling I prefer Continue reading » I Go to the Jedi…

Tug o' war with a one-pound kitten

Tug the Thread

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originally published December 16, 2010


Have you ever looked back and wondered over a thread that, when tugged upon, changed your life?

Begin to weave and God will give you the thread.

— Anonymous

During these last few weeks of 2010 I find myself drifting into a nostalgia that’s tempered with curiosity about the future… a comment in The Power of Flow: Practical Ways to Transform Your Life with Meaningful Coincidence by Belitz & Lundstrom prompted my reverie: Continue reading » Tug the Thread

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Ready the Boat

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What are you doing now to create your future?

I’ve learned this: it doesn’t matter what awaits me just across the sea if I haven’t built a boat.

Steve Goodier

Unlike Leroy Jethro Gibbs (a character in the TV series NCIS) I don’t have the makings of a boat in my basement.  Heck, I don’t even have a basement!  And unlike California sailor Abby Sunderland, the 16 year old who set out last year to sail solo around the globe, I’m not piloting a state of the art, Open 40 sailboat… nor, for that matter, am I 16 anymore.

I am, however, descended from a family of Scouts who endeavored to be prepared at all times for every contingency we could imagine.  So, these days, as I prepare to Continue reading » Ready the Boat

Cup o’ Inspiration

cup with steam swirl

Take a short break and consider the following:

“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

2 Corinthians 4:17-18

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