Taking
the time to be thoughtful about our responses to the situations we
encounter offers us the freedom to make choices that are right for us.
Impulsive behavior can be a thing of our past, if we so choose.
It seldom was the best response for our
well-being.
Decision-making is morale boosting. It
offers us a chance to exercise our personal powers, an exercise that is
mandatory for the healthy development of our egos.
We need to make careful, thoughtful
choices because they will further define our characters.
Each action we take clearly indicates
the persons we are becoming.
When we have consciously and
deliberately chosen that action because of its rightness for us, we are
fully in command of becoming the persons we choose to be.
Our actions reveal who we are, to
ourselves and others. We need never convey an inaccurate picture of
ourselves. We need only take the time and risk the courage necessary to
behave exactly as we choose.
We will know a new freedom when we are
in control.
For
this is wisdom; to live, to take what fate, or the Gods, may give.
--
Laurence Hope
We
can’t control the events of our lives, but we do have mastery over our
attitudes. The chances will be many, today, to react negatively or
positively to circumstances we find ourselves in.
We can consider that each circumstance
has something special in it for us.
Positive expectations regarding the
planned as well as spontaneous activities of the day will influence the
activity’s flow, our involvement with it, and our interactions with the
other people involved.
A positive attitude seems to breed
positive experiences.
In other words, we attract into our
lives that which we expect.
How often do we get up angry, feeling
behind when the day has only begun, short-tempered with our children,
“ready” for a tough one at work? And we generally find it.
The Serenity Prayer offers us all the
knowledge, all the wisdom we’ll ever need.
We can accept what has to be, change
what we can, and not get confused between the two.
We can inventory our attitude. Are we
taking charge of it? Our attitude is something we can change.
Beginnings are apt to be shadowy.
-- Rachel Carson
When
we embark on a new career, open an unfamiliar door, begin a loving
relationship, we can seldom see nor can we even anticipate where the
experience may take us.
At best we can see only what this day
brings.
We can trust with certainty that we will
be safely led through the “shadows.”
To make gains in this life we must venture forth
to new places, contact new people, chance new experiences.
Even though we may be fearful of the new, we must
go forward.
It’s comforting to remember that we never take
any step alone.
It is our destiny to experience many new
beginnings.
And a dimension of the growth process is to
develop trust that each of these experiences will in time comfort us
and offer us the knowledge our inner self awaits.
Without the new beginnings we are unable to
fulfill the purpose for which we’ve been created.
No new beginning is more than we can handle.
Every new beginning is needed by our developing
selves, and we are ready for whatever comes.
