Aging wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.

Finish what you start; don't quit when the going gets tough. 

Many people in today's world are willing to throw in the towel when they face even the slightest opposition. 
Quitting because you face adversity weakens the soul and plants self-doubt in your mind. Never quit because someone opposes what you are doing or because it is tougher than you first thought it would be.
This doesn't mean that every time you start something, you have to stick with it no matter what. There are times when quitting something is in your best interest. 
If we always had to continue on a path, simply because we decided to explore that path, we would shy away from ever trying anything new.
It is okay to change your mind about something, once you find out that it is not for you, or that it no longer in your best interest. 
That is not the same thing as quitting because you don't have the fortitude or determination to see it through.
So what determines whether you are quitting because things are too tough or because the path you are on no longer furthers your objective? 
You do. 
You know in your heart why you are making the decision to change paths. 

Make sure your decision is based on your overall objectives, not on taking the easiest way out.

Superior Mental Attitude = Superior State of Mind

Your attitude and your thoughts will determine your state of mind. If you constantly maintain a superior mental attitude, 
through continuous thought control, you will find that you will live with a superior state of mind. It all starts with your thoughts, 
which lead to your attitude, and which ultimately control your overall state of mind.

If you don't believe this, there is an easy way to prove it to yourself. 
Think of someone close to you that has died. 
Think about how much you miss that person and how much you would love to just be able to spend one more day with him or her. 
Now, how do you feel? 
My guess is that you feel sadder than you did before you had these thoughts. Your thoughts have just changed your feelings. 
And, if you constantly dwell on these sad thoughts, your state of mind would be greatly affected.

If you can change your mood and your feelings just with a couple of thoughts, think about how you could change your life if you constantly control what thoughts you allow yourself to dwell on daily. 

A superior state of mind starts with your thoughts and your attitude. 

If you want to change your life and start living a life of excellence, start by controlling your thoughts and your attitude. 

Anyone can be in control, say the right things, and seem to have it all together when everything is going perfectly. 

The challenge comes when things are not going your way and everyone seems to be against you. That is when you truly find out what you are made of in this world.

There is an old saying that, anyone can sail the ship when the water is calm; the true test of a sailor is when he is in the midst of the storm. 

The same is true for life in general. It is how you handle yourself during challenging times that reveals who you truly are. 

That is when your fears, faults, and flaws all come to the surface.

Make sure that you are prepared to not only handle the calm waters of everyday life, but that you are prepared, mental, physically, and spiritually, to handle yourself well during the storms of life. 

Prepare during the good times for the bad times. When it comes time for your mettle to be tested, make sure that you are able to measure up!

note to AOH
ps/smoh

Victory is not gained through idleness....

Respond; >>>>>>

Oh, the comforts of home!

Today, the majority of people, especially in this country have a pretty comfortable home life. Comfortable beds, nice, plush furniture to sit on, recliners, cable television, computers, stereos, the list could go on and on.
There are so many things that tempt us to sit idly by and entertain our minds instead of making the effort to get up and exercise our bodies.
It takes very little effort to surf the web, where it takes some discipline to get up and work on your what ever you wish.

You can waste hours before you know it surfing the web or sitting in front of a television set, but as this German proverb states, that is not going to help you when you are confronted by a violent thug the next time you are away from home.
It is also not going to make you any younger, healthy, or stronger.

Although there is a time for relaxing in front of the television and a time for surfing the net to increase your knowledge, you have to make sure that you maintain a balance between activity and inactivity.

Balance is the key.

You have to balance your workouts, your sport's training, meditation, stretching, and strength training, with relaxing, reading, and studying.
Too much of anything is not good, whether it is working out or sleeping. 

The lifestyle one needs is balancing every part of your life – spiritually, mentally, physically, and emotionally. 
If any of these areas falls out of balance, all the other areas suffer as well, and complete idleness will throw them all out of balance. 

Employ discipline to achieve balance.

ps/smoh


"Sometimes the information is too confrontational and people are afraid the world may be ripped from under their feet and their world may turn upside down. Oftentimes people do not want to know because they cannot handle the truth."

Avoidance is an epidemic on planet.

Respond;

The inner monsters we distract from are not nearly as dangerous as the monsters we create to avoid them. 
As painful as early life traumas can be to confront, they are seldom as difficult to transform as the behaviors and addictions that we develop to bypass them. 

As children, our defenses and distraction techniques saved us, but, as adults, they become a self-fulfilling prophecy, concretize and locking us in with our early pain, blinding us to the fact that we are now better equipped to work through our memories than we were as children. 

It may have seemed insurmountable back then, but it no longer is. If we can turn around and face them now, if we can resist the tendency to cover them over with layer upon layer of distortion, we can re-claim our trauma and work it through to resolution.

There is no way to run from wound-body memory. 
It is always there, waiting for its moment of integration. 
Better to turn around and embrace it. 
Once a monster, now an opportunity for transformation.

Its a long road back from early madness. 
It just is. 
Unfortunately, the new cage and shadow-jumping movements prey on trauma survivors, somehow convincing them that there are easy solutions, most of them self-avoidance techniques masquerading as something heightened. 
And then, when the truth hits the fan, it becomes very difficult to manage reality, because we have been floating high above it. 

Better we remain down on earth and do the real work to transform our challenges into the gold at their heart. 
Detaching from the pain serves a purpose, but, at some point, we have to come back down into the body temple and work our stuff through one learning at a time.

ps/smoh

Breaking someone's trust is like crumpling up a perfect piece of paper. You can smooth it out, but it will never be the same again.

If you have a friend who trust you enough to confide in you, you are honor bound to keep the information that your friend confided in you secret. 

That person has deemed you honorable and trustworthy enough to be trusted with personal information. 

If you break that trust and share your friend's personal information, it is an dishonorable act.

Be honorable. 

Be trustworthy. 

If your friend thinks enough of you to confide in you, be man or woman enough to keep it to yourself. 

Doing otherwise reflects on your character, or rather lack of character. 

Never break someone's trust.

No one respects someone who is not trustworthy. You have to earn respect, and when someone confides in you, it is sort of a test of whether or not you are trustworthy. 

Breaking that trust is failing the test, and most of the time, this is a one-time test - there aren't many second chances. 

And, even if you are given a second chance, that person will never completely trust you again. 

"Words to live by in a perfect world, but people push the envelope when it comes to true friendship." said some but to me.....

"TRUE friends don't do that, acquaintances and false friends do."

ps/smoh

"Sorry" works when a mistake is made, but not when trust is broken. So in life, make mistakes, but never break trust. Because forgiving is easy, but forgetting and trusting again is sometimes impossible.

What is illegal, immoral, and improper, are three very different things. They sometimes coexist, but they are not, and will not ever be the same things.

Does legality establish morality? 
Slavery was legal; apartheid was legal; the Nazi’s Nuremberg Laws were legal; the Stalinist and Maoist purges were legal.
The fact of legality does not justify these crimes.
Legality alone cannot be the guide for moral people.

Laws are made by men, and many of them by men with different agendas than what is best for the population or what is right. 

Just because something is legal, 

that does not mean that it is moral or 

that does not mean that it is immoral or 

not right. 

The vast majority of people around the world have very little respect for politicians, but when these very same politicians make something into a law, people see it as almost sacred.

We have to look at what is right, not always what is legal. 

Legality does not establish morality. 

Laws are simply rules, and as the old saying goes, any fool can make a rule, and any fool will follow it. 

When you continually focus on what is right, you find that laws are not the guide for truly moral people. 

We have our own conscience we need to understand our path, we do not need laws in order for us to do what is right, and immoral laws do not give us license to do wrong. 

Look at things in terms of right and wrong, not legal and illegal. Live by your principles, not the rules of others.

ps/smoh

Persistence and patience.

The thing we often forget when thinking about our own changes and other’s changes is that real transformation takes real time. 

No matter how eager we are to see things shift and grow, it will seldom happen rapidly. 

This is particularly true with respect to emotional maturation. It is often a many years long journey to empty these crowded vessels. 

Developmental stages are often like biological structures. To move from one stage of maturation to another, we have to go through a broad range of experiences, integrate their meaning, and try a new way of being on for size. 

It is about becoming a truly different being on many interconnected levels. I spent a lot of years in hurry-up offense with my own transformation and those around me. 

It was a waste of time. 

Sustainable change is built on a foundation of patience. 

It takes strength perseverance --- TIME.

There is no definitive set timeline nor should there be. We all grieve differently and we all filter and process to heal in our own manners and ways. 

That being said, respect that we are all individual and validate whatever " SEASON" you are in and know it's ok and find your inner strength to move on as best as you know how and as healthy as you can. Listen to your own self and thy will be FINE! 

Patience and time

ps/smoh

"Sometimes though fast changes can actually happen because one looks back over the past and realizes all those lessons learned are worth keeping. The best changes occur this way. Once you looked within the change was dramatic. Riding the fence was good for a while but sometimes one has to touch the ground."

You never knew you had so much courage....

The courage to wake each morning.
To take each new breath.
To feel each new surge of joy, doubt, frustration, anger, pain, ecstasy, moment by moment, broadcast in real time, on the screen of life.
To walk each new step, cross each unexpected threshold, never knowing where it all will lead.
To cry when you cry, laugh when you laugh, fall as you fall, rise when you rise.

Not necessarily to be unafraid, but to be even unafraid of being afraid.

To begin again, now.
To meet each instant with curiosity, fascination, and a little tenderness.
To never settle for less than life, less than what it's worth, because it's worth everything, everything that's worth giving.

To greet the day as it plays itself out.
To kneel before the dawn.
Prostrate yourself before the afternoon, and the sparrow singing in your garden. Bow before the evening glow.
And then to sink into the embrace of night, and its sleep, and its good death.

And to have the courage to rise again.
And breathe again.
And dress again.
And meet the new day - alive, curious, willing, even though you are raw 

You never knew you had so much courage.

And you are awake now.

ps/smoh