It lies with you.

If you take responsibility for yourself you will develop a hunger to accomplish your dreams. - Les Brown

Expanding on the thoughts of a previous post, I found this quote incredibly appealing. I've already expressed that you are responsible for your own happiness. Now, take that a step further, and what do you have?

When you realize that you are in your current situation based on your own decisions, and ending any blame that you may be placing on others' heads, you will find this opening up possibilities before your very eyes.

If you got yourself into desperate situations, you can move yourself out of them and into that which is good. Maybe you can even accomplish the things you've only dreamed of. It starts with a decision. Your decision.

What are you capable of? Do you even know?

If there were no limits to what you could do, which path would you take?

The truth of all of your possibilities lies in you. You hold your dreams in your hands. Do not rely on others to tell you what you should be, to decide what your life will be. Has someone ever told you that you can't do something, or go somewhere, or be someone? Did they also tell you they were lying to you. When someone is saying these things to you, it has to do more with the fact that they are dissatisfied with their own circumstances because they listened to someone else who told them the exact same thing. But the truth is that they are only a voice, and whether that voice carries weight is up to you entirely. It only matters if you listen to them and repeat that to yourself.

Stop saying those words, "I can't", and you find your abilities widening, the world becoming more accessible, your dreams within reach.

Joy in living!

Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough. - Emily Dickinson

On this day in 1830, Emily Dickinson was born. In honor of that, I thought we should reflect on one of her quotes.

Though not an avid bible reader myself, I love Psalms 118:24 - This is the day that the Lord hath made; we should rejoice and be glad in it.

When you wake in the morning, are you excited to rise and greet the day? Do you anticipate your schedule, who you will see, what you will do?

No matter your attitude about how life came to be on this small rotating sphere making its way through the heavens, you have to admit what an amazing thing it is to live.

Consider a baby: One day, it didn't exist. Maybe it wasn't even a thought in his or her parents' minds. And the next day, there it is. And roughly nine to ten months later, it appears to the world as something brand new. Isn't that truly astounding? How can something seem to come from nothing?

Life is remarkable. Remarkable! And for that we should feel a sense of excitement. It seems Miss Dickinson had it right.

Unfamiliar in the familiar

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. ~Nelson Mandela

I've lived in a few places, so I can tell you how strange it is to return. There will be some things that have changed, necessities of time. But there will be aspects of your former home that will remain the same. The strangest part about that is that you'll find that how you feel about the unaltered is much different than before. Maybe it's the sense of familiarity that has faded. Maybe it's that you simply feel that yourself has become unfamiliar to that place. You are different. This place is the same.

Perhaps the greatest change is that you realize that memories often expand the importance, the sense of home, even the scale of certain things about what was once home. The memory improved upon the circumstances, making them more worthwhile in the remembering. And you return to find that, while still worth remembering, perhaps it wasn't as you exactly remembered it to begin with.

Consider that, perhaps, you find yourself more self-realized, more complex, different than you once were. And this could only have occurred if you were willing to leave. Maybe it's in the returning that you realize your own difference from who and what you once were.

What we all long for...

Acceptance. It is the true thing everyone longs for. The one thing everyone craves. To walk in a room and to be greeted by everyone with hugs and smiles. And in that small passing moment, you truly know you're loved, needed, and accepted. - Rena Harmon

Last night, I had the great fortune to catch the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, Front of the Class. If you missed it, once on DVD, you might want to check it out.

The true story follows the life of Bradley Cohen, a young man who, plagued from childhood with Tourette's Syndrome, overcame odds to become a second grade teacher. Despite encountering ignorance of the disability many, many times, he finally found the right school (and administration) to accept him and his condition. They also grew to know him as a fantastic educator.

And all it took for him to reach great heights was for others to accept him as he was.

Just think how every hardship, every ambition, every dream, despite all difficulties, would make our most sought after goals more possible.

It seems we all want this same thing: acceptance. It is one of our many commonalities as human beings. To be who we are, and loved anyway; that is one of the greatest things one could ever hope for.

Ah, the blessings of friendship...

A good friend can tell you what is the matter with you in a minute. He may not seem such a good friend after telling. - Arthur Brisbane

As you weave your way down your life's path, numerous people will accompany you. If you are lucky, you will have the sturdy, steady friendship necessary during difficult times.

Today, I have chosen a quote on friendship that didn't reflect the opinion of so many that friendships are proven during these tough times. I think we all know that is true. But, rather, a comment on the qualities of the person's whose voice and hand are at the ready when needed.

When I was younger, I took the criticism of friends badly. Who was anyone to say anything to tarnish my own self-image? With the years came the realization that I was blessed to have anyone close enough to me who cared enough to want me to be improved, to want my life to be better than it was.

Yes, true friendship is proven when the niceties of life flitter away, whether due to circumstance or personal decisions. But those who would tell you the truth, even when, especially when, you don't want to hear it, to reveal the possibilities of the future for you, are those most worthy of being kept.

I am so blessed for my friendships. May they last as long as life.

The change lies with you...

You must be the change you wish to see in the world. - Mahatma Gandhi

It all starts with you. One of the things I remember when I feel myself or circumstances stagnating is this: Nothing changes if nothing changes.

When you make a decision to do something different, to be something different, to take a different attitude, and to create change, then that is exactly what happens.

We live in a world that is faltering on many a front. People are losing jobs, losing homes, losing livelihoods. If you are in the position to do something, do it. It's not the time to look the other way and hope that the economy will change, that someone else will help. Change starts with you. Even in small ways. Even if it means placing change in a Salvation Army kettle.

The world is imperfect, yes. But that does not mean it must continue to worsen before it gets better. In times of discontent, it was the small acts by people, acts that moved us forward, that made all the real difference. When people decide to put aside their differences and come together to find real solutions to problems that change was created.

It starts with one voice. It starts with you.

Baby, baby!

This post is in honor of my niece, Lily Rae, who will soon be ten months old, has already been weened from the boob, gotten a tooth, and learned to walk. Oh, and apparently she knows all she needs to to get along in the world. Perhaps she went right from nine months to nineteen years old. They grow up so fast these days!

On the wall of her nursery, my brother-in-law painted the quotation (that I suggested, by the way):

Babies are bits of stardust, blown from the hand of God. - Barretto

What a wonderful thought! We start from somewhere (and thing) divine enough to think we deserve to be born in such a remarkable way. Like the potter, the glass-blower, the painter.

But as children often do, Lily reminded me of some of my favorite quotes that remind us of the wonder and imagination of childhood.

I hope you enjoy!

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt." "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?" "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." - Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

"If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day, so I never have to live without you." - A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh