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Consider adopting the ongoing practice of zero-based gratitude.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Related topics: Inspirational Gratitude
Often, we get stuck on a question
for which we can't find an acceptable answer.
That is a good time to consider asking a different question.
Every question is based on some assumptions -
usually invisible assumptions that we don't see, unless we go looking.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
I renounce all assumptions and expectations.
I thoughtfully consider all possibilities,
and CHOOSE among them with consciousness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Consider being more acceptive of your partner's behaviors.
It is unlikely that they are intentionally aggravating you.
Almost always, they are just doing what they think they should do.
Try setting aside your own rules for how they should behave,
and adopt a live-and-let-live attitude.
Your relationship will become stronger and happier if you do.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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Honor your past, and all the consequences of that past.
Receive insight into relieving the pain
caused by past experiences and current attitudes toward life.
Observe life as it currently appears,
and then train yourself to observe life
from other perspectives that support a higher quality of living.
Re-consider your priorities.
Chart your Course.
Set Sail with Courage.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Consider a new beginning with your family -
choose to take them less seriously.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
When life seems overwhelming, just step back for a day.
Consider what is most important.
Focus on the crucial issues in your life.
Just let the rest of your upsets go.
You can't fix the whole world, but you can still make a difference.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Ask why this task is on your to-do list.
Consider discarding those items to which
you are not truly committed.
For the tasks which do speak
to the longings of your own heart,
begin now, today, this moment.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
When was the last time you took
a different route to work ... just because?
Consider shaking up your life a little (or a lot) ...
for no reason, except to do it.
Let your life be an adventure.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
I CHOOSE with Thoughtful Consideration:
I renounce all assumptions and expectations,
and declare that I will thoughtfully consider
all possibilities and CHOOSE among them with consciousness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Lighten up! Slow down the shopping.
Your greatest gift to your family and friends is yourself -
your relaxed, happy, and fully-present self.
Consider gifting hand-made cards with messages
of true appreciation in place of store-bought presents.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If your home is not a place where you can truly
kick-back and be yourself - both physically and emotionally -
consider making some changes in your way-of-life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
I CHOOSE with Open Mind and Open Heart -
I renounce all assumptions and expectations,
and I declare that I will thoughtfully consider all possibilities.
I will CHOOSE with courage, awareness,
consciousness, and compassion toward all.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Consider a parent who says,
"Look at the sacrifices I'm making so you can have a better life."
Contrast that with another parent who demonstrates
living a great life every day.
Self-sacrifice is not a virtue.
Living a great life and sharing that life with others
is the noble way to live.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
It is not our place to know the mind of God.
Spirit knows what is best in the long run -
best for each of us individually,
and best for humanity as a whole.
This is often very difficult to accept
when we see war and disease in the world
and experience physical and emotional suffering
in ourselves, our family, and our friends.
I consider this belief in God's infinite power
and ultimate wisdom to be the true test of faith.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Expectation (demand) is always a cause of suffering.
Rather than "expecting" to be repaid
when we "loan" something to someone,
consider the "loans" we make to be forward payments
for the "loans" we received from
our ancestors, nurturers and others.
Request that any "loan" that we make be repaid FORWARD,
when the recipient is able,
and then completely forget about the "loan."
It is no longer our business if, when, or how
the "loan" is repaid - or is not repaid.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
This physical world is to our imagination as ice is to water -
pure water forms pure ice - dirty water forms dirty ice.
Consider how much easier it is to purify water before it freezes
than it is to chip the impurities from the solid ice.
So also, it is much easier to purify your thoughts
before they manifest into physical reality,
than to try to cut the cancerous impurities from solid reality
after you have manifested your thoughts into physical form.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
A newborn does not have worry, or stress, or anger,
because they have not yet learned those things.
Consider what life would be like if you could
forget all the past resentments and perceived offenses
that color your thinking and your emotions.
Buddhists call that state "beginner mind" -
an opening to experience life
without the jaundiced filter of past disappointments.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Perspective:
Do you always look at life from the same point-of-view?
Consider viewing a situation as another might view it.
Look from behind, underneath, from the distant heavens.
View the situation as someone of a different religion,
race, or nationality might view it.
Pretend you are an alien from a distant galaxy -
that should be good for a laugh.
Troubles only appear troubling to those close to them.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The darkest night is often the bridge to the brightest tomorrow.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Today is your day to laugh at life,
laugh at what's funny - laugh at what's sad,
laugh loud - laugh often,
laugh at me - laugh at you - laugh at life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The best cure for our own self-inflicted suffering
is often service to others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Often, the greatest joy is to be found not in new things,
but in old things seen through new eyes.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Know that the darkest night is often
the bridge to the brightest tomorrow.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Success often grows best in the fertile soil of failure.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Laugh Loud - Laugh Often
Laugh At What's Funny - Laugh At What's Sad
Laugh At Me - Laugh At You - Laugh At Life
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The price of freedom for a nation is lives and money.
Often, the price of freedom for an individual
is challenging the closed minds of family and friend.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Understand the difference between "failing,"
which each of us does often,
and "being a failure,"
which is a state of mind no one should
ever allow themself to fall into.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Mostly, it is human to dislike surprises -
often with great intensity.
Be open to new ways;
sometimes newness just knocks on our door;
welcome it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our opportunity is to visualize a kinder world.
To sing glad songs of tomorrow -
imagining a world of love -
of the whole world filled with love.
To offer our hand... often.
To breathe deeply and honor ourselves.
To pause and contemplate... just because.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Today is my day to laugh loud - laugh often
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Friendship often leads to love,
but lust seldom leads to friendship.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our connection with Spirit is unbreakable, but often imperceptible.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Whenever you choose to carry resentment and hatred,
you are shouldering an immense burden that damages
your happiness, and often your health.
Does it matter that your resentment and hatred are "justified?"
Only you suffer - not the person you resent.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Today is my day to laugh at life.
Laugh loud - laugh often.
Laugh at what's funny - laugh at what's sad.
Laugh at me - laugh at you - laugh at life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Each of us is burdened by an unlimited number of
expectations (demands) that we hold for the actions of others.
We "know" that there is a right way to do things,
and are often outraged when our expectations are not met.
Usually, we are unaware that we merely
have a strong opinion and point-of-view,
and are sure that we know how everything is supposed to be.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Not everyone is always going to like what you do.
Your job application, your book proposal,
your offer of marriage is going to
get rejected sometimes - perhaps often.
Your boss, your spouse, even the person
behind you in the supermarket checkout line
is occasionally going to think that you are doing it all wrong.
Don't take it personally.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Anger is something that each one of us has experienced -
some of us only occasionally, some almost daily.
Can we eliminate all anger? Probably not.
We will always have expectations,
and those expectations will often be unmet.
Disappointment is the principle cause of anger.
When we are disappointed, we look for someone to blame.
Declaring someone to be at fault is the nature of anger.
Anger is always directed at someone -
possibly toward God or the non-specific "they,"
but at some animate entity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Quotations are slippery things, really.
A brief sentence or phrase, often repeated -
always completely out of its original context -
and sometimes not an accurate representation
of the author's original words, let alone his intentions.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
From the way most people live,
one would never guess that humans are beings of free will.
Repetition can be a choice, but often it isn't.
The athlete or pianist who practices the same routine
day after day, year after year, has their eye on a goal.
The unending repetition is a conscious choice
in the pursuit of a life dream.
But what about the sameness of most lives?
Observe the morning commute, the after-work drink,
the Sunday football game or religious service -
how many of those people are consciously following their dream,
training their mind, body, and spirit through that daily repetition?
And how many are mindlessly slogging through each day
out of habit and boredom?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
You are not your mind. You, a Spiritual BEing,
are neither your mind nor your body.
Mind and body are your tools - to use as you choose.
Sometimes your body appears to have a will of its own,
as when it twitches or pains.
Likewise, your mind often appears to have its own will.
That incessant chattering of regret, disappointment, guilt,
shame, foreboding, worry, and fear
is your Rattlesnake Mind striking off on its own.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Home is our sanctuary, where we:
relax into being ourselves,
play with our inner child,
paint the walls green and pink,
dig in the dirt,
grow something,
love somebody else,
love ourselves even more,
snuggle with a warm blanket on a Sunday afternoon,
hang "go away" on the door whenever we want,
clean and tidy often... or never,
launch from and return to,
are truly ourselves.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Many of us have been conditioned to trust others' opinions
more than our own, and I believe that sort of trust is excessive.
This is especially true with regard to authority figures -
doctors, lawyers, priests. I trust my doctor's intentions toward me,
but I don't blindly follow his suggestions
without checking other sources also.
He was trained to prescribe a pill for everything,
and does it with the best of intentions,
but I often choose to trust God's quiet voice inside me
rather than my doctor's medical advice.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The ending of a job or a relationship
may appear as the darkest night,
but it is merely the Winter season -
the time of renewal and rebirth
that precedes the new planting -
the beginning of the next great cycle.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Cheer for endings - whether goals have been met or not -
whether the ending is tidy or ragged.
Without endings, there would be neither the opportunity
nor the incentive to think new thoughts,
and to begin great new projects.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If you have been divorced, you know it hurts -
especially if your marriage had lasted many years.
Whatever the circumstances of your relationship,
and whatever the nature of its ending,
there is always grief and regret -
perhaps regret over the ending,
or perhaps regret over not ending the relationship sooner -
or perhaps both.
Nonetheless, move past the grief and regret.
No matter how painful, divorce, like all endings,
opens the door to new beginnings.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Do feuds ever end?
Only when both sides shake hands,
and agree that there is no winner, no loser,
only people who have wearied of fighting
and desire to live in peace.
For many years, Northern Ireland was locked
in a murderous and seemingly unending feud.
The key to ending the feud was a shared commitment
that peace was more important than vengeance.
That is always the choice to be made.
The organizers of an April 10, 2009
joint Protestant-Catholic commemoration
of the Northern Ireland dead,
comprised of members of the once-outlawed Sinn Fein
as well as their once-avowed enemies,
referred to, "the terrible, random nature
of death in war and civil conflict."
Some lessons have been learned, many more remain.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Remember that life is an ADVENTURE, and cheer Whee...
all the way down the slippery razor-blade of life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Ride the storm. Cheer wildly.
Gather strength from life's storms.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Indifferent to whether your mood is grumpy or cheerful,
Nature always sings her passionate song of joyful celebration.
You can never stop the happy song of life,
so join the celebration -
sing along, dance, make love,
smile your biggest smile, and cheer on God's music.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
I honor you, Hero, for you do not play to the crowd.
You play to your own soul.
An audience of one fills the house with its appreciation and applause.
Others follow you, and may attempt to emulate you,
but that is not why you are a hero.
Fame may smile upon you, or it may not.
The world may cheer your name, or you may be the unknown warrior
who rescued comrades in battle,
or taught a young girl how to shed tears of joy.
Whatever you did, you did not do for fame.
If you had, you would not be a Hero.
You are a Hero for your bold courageous inspired action.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
When you feel the need to hurry,
remember that everything in life is a CHOICE.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Life is a nurturing mother,
when you just remember to say "thank you."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Happiness comes when I remember that others' opinions of me
are just their opinions - nothing more.
I find happiness in moving toward my goals
regardless of the applause or the jeers of others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
One of the greatest cause of unhappiness -
perhaps even the only cause of unhappiness - is comparison.
I remember as a young child hearing my mother say,
"Comparisons are odious."
That is one of the oldest sayings in the English language,
and one of the most important.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Just remember, after they foreclose on your mortgage,
you get a lot more sunshine in your life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If you doubt the virtue in self-honor,
remember what the flight attendant says,
"Put your own oxygen mask on first."
You are of no use to anyone else
if you have not taken care of your own needs first -
this includes your own emotional,
as well as physical, well-being.
In addition, your greatest value to your children,
your family, your friends, and your community
is the example you set, leading a great life that inspires
those around you to emulate your being.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Cloud Animals: Be a Child Again.
I remember warm summer afternoons,
laying in the shade of a maple tree in the back yard
of my Connecticut home watching the clouds for hours.
As those clouds formed dragons and foxes, clowns and angels,
I traveled across space and time.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Remember that "concern" is about the time, energy, and emotion
that we direct toward worrying about something or someone -
not whether we are for that something or against it.
However, nothing that we do for fun is ever a "concern."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Through Qigong, one learns to quiet the mind
and allow communion with the One.
We call the One "Tao," but you may be more comfortable
with a term like "Holy Spirit," or "God,"
as long as you don't start visualizing
an old man on a throne floating in the sky.
The One is everything, and everything is the One.
Each of us is the One, and the One is inside each of us.
Just remember that it's an infinity thing -
the tiniest bit of infinity is still infinite.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Regrets and their cousins, resentments,
are a huge cause of self-inflicted suffering.
Sometimes it takes years of psychotherapy
to gain freedom from regrets about what you did or did not do,
and freedom from resentment over what others did or did not do.
Sometimes it takes a lifetime of self-talk to remember
to put the past in the past where it belongs.
However, sometimes a simple symbolic act can help immeasurably
to grant ourselves freedom from the past.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Life is as easy or as hard as you think it is.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
"Hurry up" ranks right up there with "you need to"
as a destroyer of our humanity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Trust your own inner guidance.
Have faith that your steps are
carrying you toward your dreams.
Keep your eyes on the heavens
and believe that your feet will carry you well.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Choose the World You See,
and See the World You Choose.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Do not blame the thistle that you see no beauty.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Stand Tall, Stand Proud.
Know that you are unique and magnificent.
You do not need the approval of others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
How do you want to be remembered?
Live life full out - Begin today.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Change what you see,
by changing how you see.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
You don't have the power to make life "fair,"
but you do have the power to make life joyful.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Whatever you do, do with kindness.
Whatever you say, say with kindness.
Wherever you go, radiate kindness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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Jonathan Lockwood Huie
"Philosopher of Happiness"
I am an author, trainer, personal coach, and speaker, creator of the Regaining Your Happiness in Seven Weeks 2.0 e-Training Program, creator of the popular Daily Inspiration - Daily Quote free email, author of 100 Secrets for Living a Life You Love.
All materials & writings are copyright © Jonathan Lockwood Huie, except for quotes and other specifically identified material which belong to their respective copyright holders if applicable.
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