The Curtain Is Up

Enjoy …your performance today!

Life is not a dress rehearsal. The curtain is up and you are on, so get out there and give it your best shot.

graphic credit: “This Girl Means Business” Magazine

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Living, Giving, Running, and Loving

As we head into the weekend, many of us will be off in search of adventure as we abandon the rigors of Monday through Friday. For the social among us it may be family gatherings, picnics, or pub crawls. For the sofisticats it might be going to a museum, or the opera, or a summer stock performance. For those of us who disdain being assigned to boxes it might mean a little of everything. And then there are the athletes, for them it could be swimming, golf, tennis, softball, or running …or plodding as it applies to me.

Below is a link to a powerful and inspiring story that recently appeared in a local newspaper about runners, but it’s not a story about running. It’s a story about living and giving, two of my favorite topics here at GYA. And it’s about LOVE, lots of love, on many levels.

The people in the story are pictured above, including the author, Mary Kenney. Thanks Mary, for your GYA attitude, and for connecting with me on LinkedIn.  🙂

Thanks to the local newspaper, the Times Union in Albany, New York.

And thanks to the Hoyt’s, Dick and Rick, for their long time inspiration and model for living.

Here’s the LINK to the story. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. And, I hope your adventure this weekend is absolutely awesome.

Enjoy …and give something today!

We’re Never Too Old …Or Young

Here’s the link to the interesting story.

Enjoy!

photo credit: Jeff Forman/News-Herald

Bright Horizons

Enjoy!

BRIGHT HORIZONS
We should be glad for distant things,
for beauty ‘round the bend;
For highways that lead on and on,
With never any end.
Be glad for goals just out of reach,
The challenge of a star,
The glory of a distant light
That beacons from afar.
For hopes and dreams are built on
That enchanted distant mile,
And far-off bright horizons
Make the road today worthwhile.
—Helen Lowrie Marshall

photo credit: unknown

The Power of Love

NOTE: The finger paint artist, Alexandra, is a beautiful 12-year-old child from Sandpoint, Idaho, USA and lives everyday with Rett syndrome. Please take a moment to visit her web HERE.  It is beautiful and inspiring.

You will also enjoy a visit to her mother Catherine’s web HERE.

You can learn more about Diane Loomas, the poem’s author HERE.

And you can learn about the International Rett Syndrome Foundation HERE.

Enjoy!

 

If I had my child to raise all over again,
I’d build self-esteem first, and the house later.
I’d finger paint more, and point the finger less.
I would do less correcting and more connecting.
I’d take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes.
I would care to know less and know to care more.
I’d take more hikes and fly more kites.
I’d stop playing serious, and seriously play.
I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars,
I’d do more hugging and less tugging.
I’d see the oak tree in the acorn more often,
I would be firm less often, and affirm much more.
I’d model less about the love of power,
And more about the power of love.
                                        —Diane Loomans

Risk

Enjoy!

 

                    RISK
To laugh is to risk appearing a fool,
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental,
To reach out to another is to risk involvement,
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self,
To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss,
To love is to risk not being loved in return,
To hope is to risk despair,
To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow,
But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live.
Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.
                                                                —William Arthur Ward

To-morrow

Enjoy!

I have hoped, I have planned, I have striven,
To the will I have added the deed;
The best that was in me I’ve given,
I have prayed, but the Gods would not heed.
I have dared and reached only disaster,
I have battled and broken my lance;
I am bruised by a pitiless master
That the weak and the timid call chance.
I am old, I am bent, I am cheated
Of all that youth urged me to win;
But name me not with the defeated,
To-morrow again, I begin.
 
                         —S E Kiserg

photo credit: unknown

Hill of Life

Enjoy!

I sat with the stars on the hill of life
And looked at the world below.
I ran with the winds where winds begin
And followed them where they blow.
I lay by the sea on the beaten rock
And rode on the farthest wave,
I watched by a child on its night of birth
And followed it to its grave.
And love in the still of the star flecked night,
When earth was all strewn with gold,
Has lifted my heart like the chords of a song
Oft sung in the worlds of old.
And although I have not understood all this,
Made up of a laugh and a wail,
I think that the God of the world knows all,
And some day will tell the tale.
                                       —Max Ehrmann

photo credit: Royce Bair

Failing Forward

Enjoy!

Failure doesn’t mean you’re a failure, it does mean you haven’t succeeded yet.
Failure doesn’t mean you haven’t accomplished something, it does mean you have learned something.
Failure doesn’t mean you’ve been a fool, it does mean you have a lot of faith.
Failure doesn’t mean you’ve been disgraced, it does mean you were willing to try.
Failure doesn’t mean you don’t have it, it does mean you have to do something in a different way.
Failure doesn’t mean you’re inferior, it does mean you’re not perfect.
Failure doesn’t mean you’ve wasted your time, it does mean you have a reason to start fresh.
Failure doesn’t mean you should give up, it does mean you should try harder.
Failure doesn’t mean you’ll never make it, it does mean it will take a little longer.
Failure doesn’t mean God has abandoned you, it does mean he has a better way.
                                                                                         —Rehana Moammadi

Life Is A Gift

Enjoy!

                                                              LIFE
Life is a gift to be used every day, not to be smothered and hidden away. It isn’t a thing to be stored in the chest where you gather your keepsakes and treasure your best. It isn’t a joy to be sipped now and then, and promptly put back in a dark place again. Life is a gift that the humblest may boast of, and one that the humblest may well make the most of. Get out and live it each hour of the day, wear it and use it as much as you may. Don’t keep it in niches and corners and grooves, you’ll find that in service its beauty improves.   —Edgar Guest