Wednesday 30 March 2016

Complete

If you can complete something
 – merely complete it! - 
you're already miles ahead of the pack,
 right there.
 - Elizabeth Gilbert
 

Monday 28 March 2016

With

One is born either to go with
 or to go against.  
- Jean Rhys 

Friday 25 March 2016

Habits

We can use decision making to choose
 the habits we want to form, 
we can use will power to get the habit started; 
then – and this is the best part – we can
 allow the extraordinary power of habit to take over.
 We take our hands off the wheel of decision,
 our foot off the gas of willpower,
 and rely of the cruise control of habits. 
- Gretchen Rubin
 

Wednesday 23 March 2016

Time

You can't manage time. Time never changes.  
There will always and ever be 
168 hours in a week.  
What you can manage are the activities
 you choose to do in time.  
- Brigid Schulte 

Monday 21 March 2016

Your Own

It's your life, but only if you make it so. 
 The standards by which you live must be 
your own standards, your own values,
 your own convictions in regard to 
what is right and wrong, what is true and false, 
what is important and what is trivial.
 - Eleanor Roosevelt
 

Friday 18 March 2016

March 18, 2016 Chautauqua


Beth's Ponderings

   Do you trust yourself?  No...really, do you?

   Interestingly, until you fully and completely trust yourself, you will end up trusting the wrong people, and thus won’t be able to trust the right ones.  And your choices will end up creating more headaches  and hassle for you in the long run.

   I’m sure we can all think of a situation (or a dozen!) when we knew what we should have done, what choice we should have made, but we didn’t do it.  

   Now, we could, and probably did, come up with numerous reasons (aka justifications) for why we did what we knew in our hearts and minds was not the right choice.  Reasons such as:
  • I was told to do it this way.
  • This is how everyone else does it.
  • It only affects/hurts me and no one else.
  • I was scared I’d make a mistake.
  • I had no choice.
   Yet, while we justify our choices after the fact, we knew deep in our beings before we even made the choice what we should do, and we know immediately after making the choice whether we made a good one or not.  Rarely do we admit that we didn’t trust ourselves.

   Now if we only second-guessed ourselves once in a blue moon that would be fine.  Unfortunately, we seem to do it all too often, and many times a day.  It doesn't matter if the choice is a routine one, or a major life-altering one, each time you second-guess yourself, and don’t trust what you know to be true for you, you show the world and your heart that you don’t trust yourself.

   And you can say you trust yourself till your blue in the face, but the real test is by looking at your life and body.  How smooth is your life running?  How much drama is in your life?  How healthy are you?  How peaceful are you?   

   You only make mistakes and wrong choices when you don’t trust yourself fully and completely.

Beth 

Read the complete issue of The Chautauqua here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15OpCWoIHuNPUqkcoYctrqk2lUFc_q_QB/view?usp=sharing

Contact The Chautauqua via email: thechautauqua@gmail.com or via Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheChautauqua

Wednesday 16 March 2016

Must

There are two paths in life: should and must.  
We arrive at this crossroads over and over again.  
And every day, we get to choose...
Should is how other people want us to live our lives...
Must is who we are, what we believe, 
and what we do when we are alone 
with our truest, most authentic self...
It's our convictions, our passions, 
our deepest held urges and desires...
Unlike Should, Must doesn't accept compromises.  
Must is when we stop conforming to other
 people's ideals and start connecting to our own –
 and this allows us to cultivate 
our full potential as individuals...
Choosing Must is the greatest thing 
we can do with our lives.  
- Elle Luna 

Monday 14 March 2016

Honour

Honour that voice inside of you that 
says you have something special to give...
while there is no map for where you're going, 
many have traveled this road before...
unlearn everything you've ever been told
 you should do in order to learn what you must.
 - Elle Luna
 

Friday 11 March 2016

Blorft

“Blorft” is an adjective I just made up that means 
“Completely overwhelmed but proceeding as if everything is fine
and reacting to the stress with the torpor of a possum.” 
 I have been blorft every day for the past seven years. 
- Tina Fey, Bossypants 

Wednesday 9 March 2016

Inner Circle

Imagine you won $100 million in a lottery. 
 Think about the people who would
 fulfill these two criteria:
1. They will be truly happy for you.
2. They won't expect a dime.
These are the people who are 
members of your inner circle. 
They wish the best for you 
and have no selfish motives. 
- Amit Sood

Monday 7 March 2016

Character

Character is determined more
 by how you relate to the common and mundane 
and not particularly when the spotlight is on you.  
- Amit Sood 

Friday 4 March 2016

March 4, 2016 Chautauqua


Beth's Ponderings
 
   I tend to be an “out of sight, out of mind” gal.  If there is something I have to do, it has to be in plain sight - constantly - till I do it.  As soon as it’s done, it can be put away and forgotten.  As such, I tend to have a lot of to-do’s around my desk and room, in various states of progress.

   My computer will have umpteen files and websites open all at the same time so I can deal with what needs dealt with, and, not forget what I haven’t gotten to yet.

   If I have to remember to take something with me somewhere, it needs to be visible by the door or I walk out without it.

   A list doesn’t work for me as I have to be able to actually “see” the form, or the email, or the instructions, or the website, or the file, or the box, or the book, or whatever it is that I need to do something about.

   While it can seem overwhelming on occasion, as I can literally be completely surrounded by work, I am able to relax knowing that everything I need to deal with is in sight and won’t be overlooked.  I’m able to then see, at a glance, the most important tasks and get them done.

   So, try and imagine how I felt when I recently opened a box of cross-stitch projects, that were boxed up in 2004 when our house was getting painted, and discovered some important papers had been tossed on top before I closed the box.  As our painting situation ended up becoming quite an ordeal that wasn’t finished for many months, the box was untouched for years, as I dealt with other things. 

   The good news, my life didn’t fall apart because I failed to deal with the papers.  In fact, losing the papers had no effect on my life, and probably would have had none even if I’d dealt with them at the time.

   To often we race around, spending most of our time and energy, dealing with things that seem so urgent and important, only to find out later that they really weren’t important at all in the big picture of our lives.

   “The only way you can truly test whether something is wildly important is to not do it – and see what happens. If the sky falls, then clearly it was important. If it doesn't, Then it wasn't.” - Fergus O'Connell 

 Beth

 Read the complete issue of The Chautauqua here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18EPpHxpBJEze_1wl041fncdHQ4wuLGAl/view?usp=sharing

 Contact The Chautauqua via email: thechautauqua@gmail.com or via Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheChautauqua

Wednesday 2 March 2016

Embody

Teach less, embody more.
 - Amit Sood
 
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