Favorite Inspirational Quotes

Most people think that making decisions is hard, especially financial decisions, so they end up burying their heads in the sand, hoping someone else will make their decisions for them.  The thing to realize is that by not making decisions, we are really making decisions anyway.  We are really deciding that we will continue to do what we have done up until now.

Clayton J. Moore

Making decisions is hard.  Many people won’t make decisions unless forced to it.  If you make a decision, especially for a group of people, they’ll just tell you what is wrong with that decision but won’t make a decision themselves.

I have that problem with my family.  At times it’s so bad, I have to simply get them all together and tell them to figure things out and decide what to do as I walk away.  Used to be I did make all the decisions (the vast majority) for the family even though I would ask for input.  No one else would do it.  Someone had to.

Now they are adults and they feel free telling me what’s wrong rather than working with me to come to a decision.  That’s when I started doing the above of bringing them together and getting them to make a decision.  Why is that necessary?  Why don’t they just do it?

I knew a woman who would not even make a decision about what she wanted to happen in her life.  She would not choose a path or a desire and try to make it happen.  She just wanted to sail about wherever the winds and currents took her.

Sometimes I wonder if people as a whole don’t make decisions simply because they are not taught to do so and not allowed to do so in so many areas.  Think about it.

Your parents make the decisions while you’re growing up.  In school, teachers and the school board make the decisions.  Sometimes even what you decide to major in in college is heavily influenced by the people around you.

Once you graduate and start working, the company makes all the decisions which you have to abide by in order not to lose your job.  The politicians at all levels make the decisions about the laws you will abide by many times totally disregarding what the citizens tell them.  (I’m seeing this on a state level right now.  Never has there been such a turn out against some pending legislation but the politicians are ignoring it to do what they want.)  Society is full of decisions and rules made by others you must obey.

I guess someone else is making most of the decisions and we are used to it.  We just get in a rut and don’t realize we have to take control and make a decision for change if we want our lives to be different.  Maybe we can do little about many of those decisions that other make for us, but where we can decide, we need to decide what is best for us.

Tags: decisions

Treat you friends as you do your pictures, and place them in their best light.

Jennie Jerome Churchill

This quote from Winston Churchill’s mother reminds me of a chapter I read in John C. Maxwell’s book, Make Today Count.  In the chapter on relationships, there are two different things he says that really go along with this:

Value them by their best moments.

I practice the 101 percent principle.  I look for the one thing I admire in them and give them 100 percent encouragement for it.

What I get from all these quotes is to find the positive in a person, even just one thing, and focus on it.  If you focus on that person’s good point(s), it affects your attitude toward them.  After all, positive will beget positive.  It’s all in how we look at people.

I’ve said before I believe in giving people compliments.  These aren’t just any old compliment.  I’ve complimented salespeople when they do a good job with selling me something.  I’ve complimented people who looked very nice.  You can tell they took their time and appearance is important to them.  I compliment my daughter when she does very well in school.

It’s just a way of seeing someone in “their best light” and focusing on that.  Verbalizing it makes them feel good and I feel good for pointing out a positive.  Who knows what ripples any of it will make?

Tags: good point

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

John F. Kennedy

I believe this quote is telling me that if I am really grateful, if I really appreciate something, then I will act as if I am grateful.

It’s like the kid who is given a present that he doesn’t like.   Mom or Dad tells him to say, “Thank you.”  He does so grudgingly and you know he really doesn’t mean it.  It hurts the receiver of the grudging thanks.  You know he will not take care of it or even play with the item.

It’s the same way here.

I can say thank you for the job I have.  However, if I hate the job I have, I’m just saying the words because someone told me I should be grateful for all the things in my life.

On the other hand, if I really do like or even love my work and I say I am grateful, then I will feel it and you can see I am grateful by the way I act.  I will be glad to go to work.  I will feel fulfilled in my work.  I will laugh at work and I will work with enthusiasm.

I will not just be uttering the words.  I will be living my gratitude for what I have.  If I am really grateful for whatever, I will take care of it.  I will prize it and my actions will show just how much I really appreciate it.

However, let’s not forget that one method of changing our habits and ourselves is to act our way into that change.  Maybe that can apply here as well.  If we act as if we are grateful of the thing we really aren’t then perhaps over time our attitude will change and we will become grateful.  It’s worth a try.

Tags: change