Mikes Blog

Serious business
+++++++++++++++++++

Are you a little unclear about your priorities, about what matters most to you? Subject yourself to challenge, and you’ll quickly understand those priorities.

Challenge will focus you, inspire you, improve you. Challenge will connect you with your highest values and your deepest desires.

Challenge will force you to generate real, meaningful substance in your life. Challenge will get you out of bed in the morning, and keep you on track all day long.

Whether you choose a particular challenge or one is imposed on you, your most useful response is the same. Step up to the challenge and let it bring out your highest, most effective effort.

A serious challenge is serious business. Respond with serious commitment, and it will make you seriously better, more purposeful and effective.

Embrace the challenges. And know, with confidence, just how meaningful, valuable, and consequential your life, and your efforts, can be.

— Ralph Marston

Great new beginning
+++++++++++++++++++

Don’t be dismayed if you’ve been going the wrong direction. Turn around, now, and put yourself on a positive track.

Don’t let your lack of progress become an excuse to avoid effort. Embrace responsibility in this moment, and direct yourself into effective action.

Your shortcomings and mistakes are in the past. Keep them there.

Take the opportunity of this day, of this situation, to push forward. Set your intention firmly on a positive goal, then set about to make it happen.

You can do this. Yes you, yes now, yes from where you are, with what you have.

Grab hold of the fresh, new opportunity that’s right here, today. Your future begins now, so give all you have to make it a great new beginning.

— Ralph Marston

For a world hardened by life, joy appears. In a time dimmed by a million meaningless diversions, the light of truth emerges.

Where angst and cynicism have engulfed awareness, hope begins to rise. When the day is overwhelmed with despair, kindness steps in.

With grace, with humility, with eternal persistence, goodness endures, and grows. Subverting every challenge, goodness finds a place, however small, however unnoticed, to resonate in each heart.

In lives hardened by the world, a spark ignites new passion, renewed purpose. Words of truth transform chaos into order, despair into beauty.

Courage, strength, goodness are not always evident, not always engaged. Yet they persist, and never fail to come forth when needed most.

After a cold, clear night, sunlight warms the eastern sky. And new hope has been born.

— Ralph Marston

Love for life
+++++++++++++++++++

Imagine today that you can simply let go of the tensions, of the pretensions, and love your life. That you can love others without needing to control their actions or influence their thoughts.

You can give the best of yourself, and you can let that be enough. You can approach every encounter with a genuine desire to do what is right, what is good.

Instead of seeking to gain advantage, you can discover new joy, new beauty, in life as it is. You can magnify your effectiveness by minimizing the demands of your ego.

Imagine earning the respect of others without inviting their resentment. That happens when you live, and give, with authenticity, with understanding, with love.

An enjoyable position in life is of no use if you’re not able to enjoy it. Your genuine love for life, and for all who live it, enables that enjoyment and fulfillment.

Look at the world, and approach each moment, with a love for life. Let go of whatever engenders conflict, and make space for new goodness to flourish.

— Ralph Marston