Favorite Inspirational Quotes

You only lose energy when life becomes dull in your mind. Your mind gets bored and therefore tired of doing nothing. Get interested in something! Get absolutely enthralled in something! Get out of yourself! Be somebody! Do something. The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have.

Norman Vincent Peale

When I read this I though of people who get engrossed in a hobby or sport. Online in marketing circles it’s almost a cliche how enthralled golfers are in their sport. I know it can be the same for other pursuits.

When you are that enthralled, you are thinking about the subject most of the time. Can I go do it after work? I can hardly wait for the weekend so I can do it. Will that gadget help me do it better?

You get excited and wound up in your search and your pursuit of better whatever. That gives you more energy. Don’t you feel a little energized just thinking of being that excited?

Contrast that with someone whose life consists of coming home from work (if they work), opening a beer, and vegging in front of the tube watching someone else doing something or living their fantasy lives. Not much energy expended or generated in that. It just gets boring and you get tired and more tired. Makes me tired just thinking of it. Talk about dull.  Zaps the energy right out of me.

Putting energy into something that excites brings a return of energy and I believe at a higher level. What is bigger than yourself that you can give energy to and that enthralls you? Find it and expend that energy. You won’t be bored and if you become tired, it’s going to be a good tired of having done something real. Sounds good to me.

Tags: Norman Vincent Peale

If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan.  And guess what they have planned for you?  Not much.

Jim Rohn

If I just go along with the flow, then I will bump into someone else and end up flowing along with them and their plan, if they have one.  But since it’s their plan and not mine, it will do nothing for me.  I will just be on the outside or along the edges of it.  It won’t be to make good of my life, to create success for me.  If they have no plan either, we are both in deep ….

I need to design my own life plan.  It should center around my desires and wants, not what my parents, religion, friends or society say should be my desires and wants.  And, wow, do all those have a definite way of trying to tell you what you can and can’t do and what you should and shouldn’t do.

Sure some of those have your best interests at heart but since they don’t really know you, they can’t know what that is.  Having been on both sides of the parent equation now, it’s not any easier facing this as a kid or as a parent.

Sure it can take some experimenting with and experiencing of life to figure out all those wants and desires.  It might take some time to figure our what my strengths are.  For some of us, it can take a real long time and maybe even a life time.  It’s likely something that will change as we progress through our lives.

But even if I don’t have it all figured out, I need to have a plan for my life.  A plan is a living organism that adapts to life and mine will adapt as I learn more about me, my wants, my desires, my strengths, my weaknesses and what I like and don’t like.  I can’t rely on anyone else but me to make these decisions either as they don’t really know me.  Even someone as potentially close as a spouse doesn’t know the me inside.

It’s up to me to figure out my life plan.  It’s up to me to take the steps of that life plan.

Tags: wants

The more anger towards the past you carry in your heart, the less capable you are of loving in the present.

Barbara De Angelis

If my heart is full of anger, there’s little room, if any, for love or anything else for that matter. If I focus on the past and my anger about what happened, I can’t exactly focus on the present. All my attention lies elsewhere. And as I am learning now, my very surroundings can reflect this with the detritus of the past which overwhelms my present.

That anger eats at you making all your emotions negative, spiraling downward in negativity. Anger takes energy and uses it up making you tired. You have nothing left with which to be in the present - no energy to give to the present.

All that just goes to show that I should learn my lessons from the past, without anger, and put my energy and focus on today. It’s with today and the actions I take now that I create my tomorrow. I must put the past in the past and say, “What’s done is done.”

If I don’t want to look back on today when it is the past with loss or anger, then I must focus on today. With love in the present, I will create fond memories for what will become the past and also create a more joyful future. That’s the plan anyhow.

Tags: Barbara De Angelis