Feed Your Good Dog

Positive Thoughts | Positive Actions | Positive Results

Monday Motivational Quotes

Mindfulness – Practice Makes Perfect

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mindfullness at Blue Ridge Mountains in Asheville NC2 Sources to help you practice mindfulness.

“Before you plunge into your day’s work, put yourself in tune with your highest ideals, think of the things which you would like to have come true during the day. Hold persistently in your mind the thoughts, hopes, the expectations, which are in keeping with your aspirations and your ambition. Think only of those things which will help you to be the man or the woman you long to be, to do the things you are ambitious to do.

If you can do this for one day, you can do it for two days. And every day’s triumph will add to your strength to win out the next day. Each succeeding day’s victory will become easier and easier, until you have formed the habit of making life a success as you go.”

Sources:

And, remember, Feed Your Good Dog so your good dog always wins!

Harold Solomon, Jr. | A Father’s Inspiration for a Uniquely Difficult Time

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Protea represents courage Image by Werner Weisser on Pixabay
Protea represents courage, change and hope.
Image by Werner Weisser from Pixabay

“These times are challenging and if someone can be comforted, reaffirmed and reassured by the poem Courage, I say scream it from the rafters.” ~Kyra Solomon

I recently joined the Atlanta West End Rotary Club in Atlanta, GA and have enjoyed meeting other members and making new friends. One new friend, Kyra, gave the invocation at a recent club meeting. It was a poem that has inspired her most of her life. Her father shared it with her when she was a young girl. The words thoughtfully crafted by poet Edgar Albert Guest were her father’s favorite and upon which he relied time and again for courage and inspiration. Kyra would find herself looking to them as well when working through tough times, and still does to this day.

Kyra’s father, Harold Solomon, Jr., was from New York, although he attended college in Ohio at Wilberforce University and Central State University, both HBCUs. During his lifetime, he was a member of the Pershing Rifles, National Honorary Military Society and Omega Psi Phi, where he learned the poem. Mr. Solomon was Athletic Director for Borough of Manhattan Community College at his passing in 1993.

When I asked Kyra if I could share this personal story, this is what she had to say: “These times are challenging and if someone can be comforted, reaffirmed and reassured by the poem Courage, I say scream it from the rafters.” So, here’s hoping that – as did Kyra and her father – you find the comfort, reaffirmation and reassurance you need, especially during this uniquely difficult time, in the words penned by Edgar Albert Guest in his poem Courage, Courage, Courage!, and if so inspired you’ll pass it on to others!

Courage, Courage Courage!
by Edgar Albert Guest

When the burden grows heavy, and rough is the way,
When you falter and slip, and it isn’t your day,
And your best doesn’t measure to what is required,
When you know in your heart that you’re fast growing tired,
With the odds all against you, there’s one thing to do:
That is, call on your courage and see the thing through.

Who battles for victory ventures defeat.
Misfortune is something we all have to meet ;
Take the loss with the grace you would take in the gain.
When things go against you, don’t whine or complain;
Just call on your courage and grin if you can.
Though you fail to succeed, do not fail as a man.

There are dark days and stormy, which come to us all,
When about us in ruin our hopes seem to fall.
But stand to whatever you happen to meet—
We must all drink the bitter as well as the sweet.
And the test of your courage is: What do you do
In the hour when reverses are coming to you.

Never changed is the battle by curse or regret,
Though you whimper and whine, still the end must be met
And who fights a good fight, though he struggle in vain,
Shall have many a vict’ry to pay for his pain.
So take your reverses as part of the plan
Which God has devised for creating a man.

Source:
Kyra Solomon
PoemHunter.com

And, remember . . . feed your good dog so your good dog always wins!

Monday Motivational Quotes

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Not One More“Keep your eye on the ball.” ~Ford Frick

This quote is the first rule in former National League President Ford Frick’s “Ten Commandments of Umpiring”. It came immediately to mind when I heard young Emma Gonzalez respond to a question about what she thought of Trump’s tweets. She said “The best thing for us to do is ignore him and continue fighting our fight.”

Emma’s wise beyond her years comment also made me think “Out of the mouth of babes comes truth and wisdom.” Modified interpretation of Psalm 8:2, Kings James Bible.

Monday Motivational Quote

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CJ Stewart, Founder and CEO L.E.A.D., Inc.
CJ Stewart, Co-Founder and CEO of L.E.A.D.

The following quote popped up on my Facebook memories from 2010! I’ve had many conversations with CJ and seen him in action over the years. I know he lives and breathes this! The beneficiaries … L.E.A.D. Ambassadors and Atlanta!

“I don’t want to “fit in” I want to stand out. I want the world to know I was here. That I made a difference.”

~CJ Stewart

Concisely Put Philosophy of Life

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Life Flow of the Chatthoochee RiverHave you ever come across a quote and thought it was so good that you couldn’t wait to share it? I came across such a quote – about life – and decided to share it with you here. Following is a little background on how I came to hear it, the actual quote, and what it means to me. I hope you find this simple saying as intriguing as I do. Enjoy!

Our daughter, Gillian, was home this past weekend, and shared a few video interviews of herself and colleagues who make up the 2015-2016 Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health‘s MPH cohort. The video interviews are the brainchild and creative effort of Quyên Lê, one her classmates, who thought it would be a great idea to have these videos to look back on, as well as a resource for someone who may be thinking of going into Public Health.

So I watched the video interviews with Gillian and felt that I was being treated to something very special – a view into a world that I would not otherwise have if it weren’t for her forward thinking classmate. Not only was I fortunate to have this opportunity, I learned a few things too. These future Public Health leaders are passionate realists about their chosen profession. They are also extremely smart and funny.

The quote I heard and share here communicates age-old thought about the ever changing nature of life. The statement was made by Ricardo Millàn, MPH cohort co-leader, during his interview and it stood out to me. It was memorable, I think, because Ricardo said it in such a way that I understood for him it was “a given” … something he just knew – didn’t have to think about – and accepted about life. I believe that some of us need reminders from time to time that the only thing constant about life is change, so it resonated with me. So simply and concisely put, Ricardo said:

Life is a flux.

The origin of this statement appears to be Osho in Zarathustra: The Laughing Prophet (On Friedrich Nietzsch’s Thus Spake Zarathustra), in which he tells us that:

“Zarathustra was a contemporary of Heraclitus and Gautam Buddha. It is a strange coincidence that all these three great teachers have basically given a single approach to life: life is a flux, everything is constantly changing, and that which does not change is dead. Change is the very spirit of life; permanency is part of death.”

I am struck by the simplicity, yet depth, of this statement. It’s easy enough to adopt as a mantra, a necessary reminder, that life is in a constant state of change. The depth of this simple declaration rests with the word “flux”; the origin of which lies in the Latin words “fluxus” – flow and “fluere” – to flow. Inherent in flow, whether as an object or action, is change. Literally, in a word, “flux” sums up, and characterizes, the ever changing nature of life and its flow.

In Zarathustra: The Laughing Prophet (On Friedrich Nietzsch’s Thus Spake Zarathustra), Osho tells us that:

Zarathustra was a contemporary of Heraclitus and Gautam Buddha. It is a strange coincidence that all these three great teachers have basically given a single approach to life: life is a flux, everything is constantly changing, and that which does not change is dead. Change is the very spirit of life; permanency is part of death.

So . . . concisely put . . . life is a flux. It is never the same from one moment to the next because of its continuous flow, which can itself vary in nature. It can be calm and peaceful, or chaotic and turbulent. However life is, is due to its flow. The question is – Will we go with the flow and be joyful in anticipation of what it will bring, or hunker down and ignore it or try to stop it, and experience the difficulties in doing so? The choice is ours.

And, remember . . . Feed Your Good Dog so your good dog always wins!