Motivation
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Strength and temptation
“Strength is the capacity to break a Hershey bar into four pieces with your bare hands — and then eat just one of the pieces.” ~Judith Viorst, author In any endeavor, success depends on discipline — otherwise defined as inner strength, as today’s quote suggests. If you want to build muscle, you must stick with your daily exercise plan. If you want to get published, you have to keep writing and submitting your work. If you want to kick a bad habit, you must be diligent about changing your routine. Personal discipline is hard. Temptation is everywhere. Oh, how easy it is to give up or get lazy — to…
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Who are your heroes?
“One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are.” ~Steve Jobs, Cofounder of Apple, Inc. In the sixth grade, I was deeply moved and inspired by the courage of diarist Anne Frank, who earned literary fame after her death with the 1947 publication of The Diary of a Young Girl. Anne started her diary after she turned 13, recording the details of her life in hiding (from 1942 to 1944) during the German occupation of the Netherlands. After reading it for the first time, I sobbed for days at the thought of how a young girl — not much older than I was then —…
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Revisiting Walden
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Back in the flow
“It can be tempting to prolong certain agonies. There’s the sympathy vote to start with, and if you haven’t felt well or you’ve been through a difficult period, you certainly can’t be expected to work full days or do your own laundry. But bouncing back as soon as you’re able means getting back into the stream of life. This is where the opportunity is.” ~Victoria Moran We all have different ways of coping. During periods of grief or illness, I tend to nurse my deepest wounds by myself. When I’m really down, I decline activities or events that usually spark joy for me — because I hate to dump my…
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Time management
“Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time’ is like saying ‘I don’t want to do it.'” ~Cheryl Richardson There are many things I don’t do because I don’t have time for them. For instance, I’ve put off scheduling certain medical tests and reading all those epic novels that appear on lists of great books that I “should” read. But when I slow down and get honest with myself, I often realize that it’s not a matter of lacking time. I’m usually avoiding something (or putting it off) out of fear, laziness, or sheer disinterest. Truth is, most of us find the time for what we truly…
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When you’re feeling stuck
“You will either step forward into growth, or you will step backward into safety.” ~Abraham Maslow If you’re feeling “stuck,” it could be that you’re a little too cozy in your comfort zone. You don’t have to look hard to find examples of being stuck. For starters, you’re stuck if you never speak out when something is wrong — because you’d rather appear “nice” and avoid conflict. Staying stuck is when you remain in a career you don’t like because you fear the uncertainty of something new. And on it goes. Psychologist Abraham Maslow, who famously explored and named the concept of self-actualization, reminds us in today’s quote that we…
