Need Some Inspiration during Your Divorce
Bounty:If we could shrink the Earth’s population to a village of exactly 100 people, with the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following:
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere, north and south
8 Africans
52 females
48 males
70 would be non-white
30 would be Christian
6 people would have 59% of the entire wealth and all 6 would be from the US
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would have a college education
When one understands our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding, and education become apparent. Consider the following:
If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.
If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.
If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.
If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof over your head, and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of the people on the planet.
If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and some spare change in a dish some place, you are among the 8% most wealthy people in the world.
Though we all find ourselves contemplating the ways our lives could be better or more comfortable, there is little argument that we each live like kings and queens compared to billions of other people throughout the world. In spite of that, it’s easy for all of us to take what we have for granted, whether it be our material well-being, good health, or the love and companionship of family or dear friends.
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
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Greatness:
Nelson Mandela:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that must frighten us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talneted and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not in just some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
1994 Inaugural Speech
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Love:
Love is patient; love is kind
and envies no one.
Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude;
never selfish, not quick to take offense.
There is nothing love cannot face;
there is no limit to its faith,
its hope, and endurance.
In a word, there are three things
that last forever: faith, hope, and love;
but the greatest of them all is love.
The Bible
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Interconnectedness:
“A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe’; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest: a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely but striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.”
Albert Einstein
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“Reality is that you have to be infinite because you come from the Infinite, you are part of Infinity, and you are to merge in Infinity. You can’t be limited. You try to limit yourself because of insecurity, that’s why you are so tightly holding on to your space. When a person is tied down and can’t move, he gets fatigued. Expansion gives you the capacity of enjoyment.” Yogi Bhajan 7/2/92
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and more Love:
A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8
year-olds, “What does love mean?”
The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone
could have imagined. See what you think:
“When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over
and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all
the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.”
Rebecca- age 8
When someone loves you, the way they say your name is
different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.”
Billy - age 4
“Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on
shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.”
Karl - age 5
“Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of
your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.”
Chrissy -age 6
“Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.”
Terri - age 4
“Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she
takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.”
Danny - age 7
“Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired
of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy
and
Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss”
Emily - age 8
“Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop
opening presents and listen.”
Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)
“If you want to learn to love better, you should start with
a friend who you hate,”
Nikka - age 6 (we need a few million more Nikka’s on this planet)
“Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he
wears it everyday.”
Noelle - age 7
“Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are
still friends even after they know each other so well.”
Tommy - age 6
“During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared.
I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and
smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn’t scared anymore.”
Cindy - age 8
“My mommy loves me more than anybody . You don’t see anyone
else kissing me to sleep at night.”
Clare - age 6
“Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still
says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.”
Chris - age 7
“Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left
him alone all day.”
Mary Ann - age 4
“When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and
little stars come out of you.” (what an imagination)
Karen - age 7
“Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn’t
think it’s gross.”
Mark - age 6
“You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it.
But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.”
Jessica - age 8
And the final one — Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once
talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the
contest was to find the most caring child.
The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor
was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing
the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman’s yard,
climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked
what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, “Nothing, I just
helped him cry”