Posts by Pat:
This old house…
A story is told about John Quincy Adams that strikes a special chord with me after my career in real estate and my ever-increasing age!
When a friend asked 80-year-old Adams how he was, he replied, “John is very well, thank you. But the house he lives in is sadly dilapidated. It is tottering on its foundations. The walls are badly shattered and the roof is worn.The building trembles with every wind, and I think John Quincy Adams will have to move out of it before too long. But he himself is very well, thank you.”
I am grateful for this reminder. Facing huge challenges in turbulent times Adams gave us a good example. He has left us a legacy worthy of imitation.
Not quite hidden in his somewaht humorous reply is great wisdom. Not only does he recognize and graciously accept his failing health, much more importantly, he recognized that he is not his body.
Do you too find a certain parallel with his health assessment? Does the cloudiness of your windows obscure your view? Are your steps uneven? I know my roof is well covered with snow!
Adams reminds us that we are more than our aging body and that we are doing well. We are surrounded by blessings-not the least of which is whatever abilities we still have. We should recognized that we have the obligation to use them as long as we are able.
And we can all remind each other:
- life is good and very good, and
- we are blessed to be, to be here, and to be here now!
Questions that haunt me…
If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, then doesn’t it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked, and dry cleaners depressed? Why, in winter, do we try to keep the house as warm as it was in summer when we complained about the heat? How can a […]
Paws with perspective…
Murphy the Dog shares some delightful thoughts in his monthly column Murphy’s Dogma in the Science of Mind Magazine. I think you will enjoy this one! (And maybe see a lesson in it to be learned?) I have had some long talks with birds. All of them seem glad to have wings and beaks, and […]
Choosing can be hard
One of the most confusing issues we face today is choice. We want choice, but choice can be more difficult than we think, because it works on a simple principle. And the principle runs like this: In order to choose something we have to eliminate everything else. This means that if we have 20 ice-cream […]
Have to or…get to?
Every day you “have to” wake up, maybe you have to get dressed, have to go to work, and have to do a bunch of other things. What if you did not “have to” do any of it? There is one word that can change the whole way you think, act and live your life! […]
It’s a noisy world…
We live in a crazy and noisy world. Every time we get in the car, we turn on the radio or CD. When we are home, we watch TV or get on the computer. The traffic going by on the street seems louder than ever. We live in a sensory overloaded world. When we are […]
Ben Franklin’s Wisdom
Benjamin Franklin was a pretty amazing guy, the quintessential Renaissance Man: scientist, inventor, author, musician, scholar, business man and politician. (Bifocals, anyone?) There’s one story from his life in particular that demonstrates his astute understand of human behavior. This story became so well-known it became known as The Benjamin Franklin Effect and was even cited […]
Like riding a bike..?
People talk about bike riding when they want to remind us that some things, once learned, are not forgotten. What they don’t mention is how we learned. No one learns to ride a bike from a book, or even a video. We learn it by doing it. Actually by not doing it. We learn by […]
Why do we worry?
The reason we worry so much is that we’ve got an amazing imagination. It’s capable of creating the most elaborate, detailed worlds that haven’t happened yet. It may just happen to be focused on the negative right now. What if today we stopped beating ourselves up for being so stressed out and instead admitted, “I […]
It’s all about you…
I saw a story online about Delta Air Lines and effective communication. This last month, Delta sent an email from its CEO, Ed Bastian, to millions of its most loyal passengers. It was an effective email and one of its secrets was the way it repeated a singe word, over and over. In the course […]