The Optimist

There is a story of identical twins. One was a hope-filled optimist. “Everything is coming up roses!” The other was a said and hopeless pessimist. He thought that Murphy, as in Murphy’s Law, was an optimist. The worried parents of the boys brought them to the local psychologist.

He suggested to the parents a plan to balance the twins’ personalities. “On their next birthday, put them in separate rooms to open their gifts. Give the pessimist the best toys you can afford, and give the optimist a box of manure”. The parents followed these instructions and carefully observed the results.

When they peeked in on the pessimist, they heard him audibly complaining, “I don’t like the color of this computer…I’ll bet this calculator will break…I don’t like this game…I know someone who’s got a bigger toy car than this…”

Tiptoeing across the corridor, the parents peeked in and saw their little optimist gleefully throwing the manure up in the air. He was giggling. “You can’t fool me! Where there’s this much manure, there’s gotta be a pony!”

- Author Unknown

“So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.”

Hebrews 10:35-36 NIV

Words Of Great Wisdom



1. Rise with the sun to pray. Pray alone. Pray often. The Great Spirit will listen, if you only speak.

2. Be tolerant of those who are lost on their path. Ignorance, conceit, anger, jealousy and greed stem from a lost soul. Pray that they will find guidance.

3. Search for yourself, by yourself. Do not allow others to make your path for you. It is your road, and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.

4. Treat the guests in your home with much consideration. Serve them the best food, give them the best bed and treat them with respect and honor.

5. Do not take what is not yours whether from a person, a community, the wilderness or from a culture. If it was not earned or given, it is not yours.

6. Respect all things that are placed upon this earth - whether it be people or plant.

7. Honor other people's thoughts, wishes and words. Never interrupt another or mock or rudely mimic them. Allow each person the right to personal expression.

8. Never speak of others in a bad way. The negative energy that you put out into the universe will multiply when it returns to you.

9. All persons make mistakes. And all mistakes can be forgiven.

10. Bad thoughts cause illness of the mind, body and spirit. Practice optimism.

11. Nature is not FOR us, it is a PART of us. They are part of your worldly family.

12. Children are the seeds of our future. Plant love in their hearts and water them with wisdom and life's lessons. When they are grown, give them space to grow.

13. Avoid hurting the hearts of others. The poison of your pain will return to you.

14. Be truthful at all times. Honesty is the test of ones will within this universe.

15. Keep yourself balanced. Your Mental self, Spiritual self, Emotional self, and Physical self - all need to be strong, pure and healthy. Work out the body to strengthen the mind. Grow rich in spirit to cure emotional ails.

16. Make conscious decisions as to who you will be and how you will react. Be responsible for your own actions.

17. Respect the privacy and personal space of others. Do not touch the personal property of others - especially sacred and religious objects. This is forbidden.

18. Be true to yourself first. You cannot nurture and help others if you cannot nurture and help yourself first.

19. Respect others religious beliefs. Do not force your belief on others.

20. Share your good fortune with others. Participate in charity.

The Native American Code Of Ethics

Aging

The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.
-- Madeleine L'Engle

OK.  Now it's not just my son that tells me I'm old.  When I told the kids in my youth group the other night my age, they didn't say it with words, but their faces said it all,  "My gosh, she's ancient!"  One of them said, "I would never have guessed that you were....." are you ready..."THAT old!"  I'm fifty- three years old.  Alright, soon to be fifty-four.  I remember being their ages and thinking that fifty-anything was almost dead.  Yes, my mind is still functioning fairly normally, even at my advanced age!

What I didn't know then, was how much smarter I would be when I got to be "THAT old!"  I've learned so many valuable lessons, such as:

• The time to begin most things is ten years ago.  The author of this quote is anonymous but I thank him or her because this is so true.  Why do we wait?  We always think there will be a better time:  when the kids are grown, when the house is paid off, when ...whatever.  At this point in my life I've seen too many people who put off their dreams and desires until too late and they never even got to start working on them.  The dream was placed in your heart for a reason, so just start.  Don't wait for any reason.  Just begin...NOW!
• The older you get, the more you tell it like it used to be. Another author unknown.  Why is it that we tend to remember things differently than they felt at the time?  Could it be that with a little hindsight, with a little maturity and experience, we come to understand that what we thought was so very difficult at the time, was really a great lesson in disguise?  Even in the absolute worst of experiences, there is always some little glimmer of light.  With age, we see those little lights and value them because we know they are so few and far between.
• There's always a lot to be thankful for if you take time to look for it. For example, I am sitting here thinking how nice it is that wrinkles don't hurt.-- Author Unknown  In this age of Botox and face lifts and tummy tucks and all the other tucks, I'm kind of proud of my wrinkles.  I don't have many, just a few crow's feet so far.  And I kind of like those.  I think they're the evidence that I smile and laugh a lot.  That's a good thing.  I've earned these wrinkles and I think they reflect the good life I've had.  A lot of people would tell you that my life has been hard and I've certainly had my share of ups and downs, but I choose to see it all as good life lessons and instead of frown lines, I've got crow's feet from my squinty smile (that's what a photographer told me I had one time).  YEA!!!  I've got crow's feet from my squinty smile!
• Time wounds all heels. -- Dorothy Parker  Thank you, Dorothy!  You are right!  I used to worry so much about how unfair life was.  It seemed that people who worked so hard for things always ended up with the short stick, but what I've come to understand now that I'm "old" is that everything evens out in the end.  I don't have to worry about those folks who take the short cuts, or those that walk on others to get where they want.  Call it karma, call it fate, call it whatever you want, but in the end, everyone will get what they deserve, good or bad.
• You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred. -- Woody Allen  Now, don't get me wrong.  I eat healthy foods, I take long walks, I try to live a healthy, balanced life, but I also remember that this is the only life I'm going to have so there has to be some enjoyment too.  If I feel like eating cookie dough, I do!  If I feel like skipping my walk today or even a couple of days, I do!  I just don't make it a regular habit to do all the unhealthy things, especially at one time. 
• You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you're down there.-- George Burns  This one made me laugh out loud, because I do this!  Now, don't deny it!  All you people my age and older, you know that you do it too!  You bend down to put your shoe on and you see some lint on the floor, or you find something you lost, or.....   You know you do this!
• At twenty we worry about what others think of us; at forty we don't care about what others think of us; at sixty we discover they haven't been thinking about us at all.  Author Unknown  You know, it really is true, if all our friends were jumping off a bridge, we would have jumped too.  Our peers were that important to us.  We spent all our time worrying about what they all thought.  Then we reached the ripe old age of forty, or thereabouts, and we just decided that we didn't care anymore.  Let them think what they want!  It's only when we reach this age that we realize just how self-centered we've been.  While we hope that we have been, and continue to be, important to a few people in our lives and that they think of us once in a while, we now understand that we're just not that important to most people.  And that's OK.
• Middle age is when you choose cereal for the fiber, not the toy.-- Author Unknown  I don't know, I still like the toy, myself!  I get both!
• Do not resent growing old. Many are denied the privilege.--Author Unknown  Too many of my friends never made it to this age.  I try to remember that when  life seems so hard. It really is a choice to find the good in each and every day.  It's there.  Sometimes it's kind of hard to find, but it's there.  Keep looking!
• Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.-- Soren Kierkegaard  I've come to understand that we're not supposed to understand all of this until we reach this point in our lives.  Now we've lived enough, we've experienced enough, to understand.  There is still time left to reap the benefit of the lessons and know that...
  Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.
  -- Eleanor Roosevelt