A group of alumni, all highly established in their respective careers, got together for a visit with their old university professor. The conversation soon turned to complaints about the endless stress of work and life in general...
Offering his guests coffee, the professor went into the kitchen and soon returned with a large pot of coffee and an eclectic assortment of cups: porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal - some plain, some expensive, some quite exquisite. Quietly he told them to help themselves to some fresh coffee..
When each of his former students had a cup of coffee in hand, the old professor quietly cleared his throat and began to patiently address the small gathering... ''You may have noticed that all of the nicer looking cups were taken up first, leaving behind the plainer and cheaper ones. While it is only natural for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is actually the source of much of your stress-related problems."
He continued...''Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In fact, the cup merely disguises or dresses up what we drink. What each of you really wanted was coffee, not a cup, but you instinctively went for the best cups... Then you began eyeing each other's cups....''
''Now consider this: Life is coffee. Jobs, money, and position in society are merely cups. They are just tools to shape and contain Life, and the type of cup we have does not truly define nor change the quality of the Life we live. Often, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee that God has provided us... God brews the coffee, but he does not supply the cups. Enjoy your coffee!''
The happiest people don't have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything they have... So please remember: Live simply. Love generously. Care Deeply. Speak Kindly. Leave the Rest to God.
And remember - the richest person is not the one who has the most, but the one who needs the least.
Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the one's who don't. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would be worth it.
Their marriage was good, their dreams focused. Their best friends lived barely a wave away. I can see them now, Dad in trousers, tee shirt and a hat and Mom in a housedress, lawn mower in one hand, and dish-towel in the other. It was the time for fixing things. A curtain rod, the kitchen radio, screen door, the oven door, the hem in a dress. Things we keep.
It was a way of life, and sometimes it made me crazy. All that re-fixing, eating, renewing, I wanted just once to be wasteful. Waste meant affluence. Throwing things away meant you knew there'd always be more.
But then my mother died, and on that clear summer's night, in the warmth of the hospital room, I was struck with the pain of learning that sometimes there isn't any more.
Sometimes, what we care about most gets all used up and goes away...never to return. So... While we have it... it's best we love it... And care for it.... And fix it when it's broken..... And heal it when it's sick.
This is true... For marriage.... And old cars.... And children with bad report cards..... Dogs and cats with bad hips.... And aging parents.... And grandparents. We keep them because they are worth it, because we are worth it. Some things we keep. Like a best friend that moved away or a classmate we grew up with.
There are just some things that make life important, like people we know who are special.... And so, we keep them close!
Good leaders choose own goals, help others attain theirs
Dr. Lloyd Thomas PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Lloyd J. Thomas, Ph.D. is a certified life coach and licensed psychologist, specializing in life coaching and behavioral medicine. Contact him: 3421 Polk Circle West, Wellington, CO. 80549. Email: DrLloyd@CreatingLeaders. com, or LJTDAT@aol.com.
Whether or not you like it, the fact is you are the leader of your life. No one else is in charge of how you respond to the events in your life. No one else can lead you where you don’t want to go. No one else is responsible for the consequences of your choices. Because each one of us is the CEO of our lives as well as a leader in one or more additional domains, we might as well learn some valuable principles of effective, positive leadership. When Willliam J. Bryon received a leadership award given by Georgetown University, he spoke the following: “The good leader takes his or her place at the center of a circle, not the top of a pyramid. The good leader is a visionary, able to project out into the future a goal and then serve as enabler, facilitator and encourager on the way to achieving that goal.” You are the center of your personal circle of life. How many contacts (spokes) lead from your center to those around you? Do you visualize (dream) of the nature and quality of those relationships to which you contribute? Do you have a written list of the many goals you have as you lead yourself down that path of goal attainment? Do you encourage/support others as a means of achieving your own personal goals? OPEN TO FEEDBACK Just as the cells of your body receive feedback to function appropriately, so do leaders function more effectively when open and receptive to feedback. Are you sensitive to, aware of and open to receive feedback from others about your behavior? Do you listen to the feedback your body is always sending? Are you aware of the ongoing energetic dynamics of your environment? How often do you elicit feedback from those you lead? How would you describe your response to negative feedback? How does the feedback you receive influence your behavior? The best leaders continually learn from their mistakes, failures and successes. They focus not on the attainment of a certain goal. Rather, they pay attention to the actions, choices, character qualities and behaviors that led to their mistakes and failures, as well as their successes. It is after all, those behaviors over which they have any control at all. What have you learned from your failures? From your mistakes? From your successes? The speed and frequency of changes in our lives is sometimes overwhelming. An effective leader is flexible, open to change, maintains an open mind and incorporates positive change into his or her life. How well do you adjust to positive change? Do you respond out of old habit? Do you risk practicing new ways of responding to change? Are you always learning from the changes going on around you. Do you explore and promote beneficial changes within? HELPING OTHERS Truly effective leaders know that the more they assist others to attain what they want in life, the more they attain what they want. Do you lead a lifestyle of service to others? Do you consider the needs of those leading lives less fulfilled than yours? How much alignment is there between the values you hold and those of the people you lead? Do others’ successes bring you joy? As the leader of your life, you owe it to yourself to become the best leader you possibly can. Take charge of your leadership skills. Develop new ones. Invest yourself in learning what values work best for you and others and for the betterment of the society in which you live. If you practice effective, positive leadership skills, you will most likely create a fulfilled and happy life.
"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation.
Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.
I got to thinking one day about all those women on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back. From then on, I've tried to be a little more flexible.
How many women out there will eat at home because their husband didn't suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed? Does the word 'refrigeration' mean nothing to you?
How often have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in=2 0silence while you watched 'Jeopardy' on television?
I cannot count the times I called my sister and said, 'How about going to lunch in a half hour?' She would gas up and stammer, 'I can't. I have clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a late breakfast, It looks like rain.' And my personal favorite: 'It's Monday.' She died a few years ago We never did have lunch together.
Because people cram so much into their lives, we tend to schedule our headaches. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect!
We'll go back and visit the grandparents when we get Steve toilet-trained. We'll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet... We'll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college.
Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter, and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer. One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of 'I'm going to,' 'I plan on,' and 'Someday, when things are settled down a bit.'
When anyone calls my 'seize the moment' friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas. Her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and you're ready to trade your bad feet for a pair ofRoller blades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord..
My lips have not touched ice cream in 10 years. I love ice cream. It's just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a spatula and eliminate the digestive process The other day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-Decker. If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home, I would have died happy.
Now...go on and have a nice day. Do something you WANT to......not something on your SHOULD DO list. If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?
Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry go round or listened to the rain lapping on the ground? Ever followed a butter fly's erratic flight or gazed at the sun into the fading night? Do you run through each da y on the fly? When you ask ' How are you?' Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through your head? Ever told your child, 'We'll do it tomorrow.' And in your haste, not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch? Let a good friendship die? Just call to say 'Hi?
When you worry and hurry through your day, it is like an unopened gift....Thrown away...... Life is not a race Take it slower. Hear the music before the song is over.
'Life may not be the party we hoped for... But while we are here we might as well dance!
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