Mikes Blog

Now life happens
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Now life happens. Now the enticing music plays and the dance begins.

Now fulfillment springs forth from your choices and actions. Now you make your way through reality, love, abundance, challenge, beauty, joy.

Now sounds resonate, lights sparkle, you walk along the ever-unfolding path of existence. You gather experience, wisdom, insight, adding strength and substance to a life well lived.

Now you stride forth in the direction you’ve always wanted to go. You find satisfaction in creating value that endures.

Now you utilize your skills, energy and resources to the benefit of your world and those with whom you share it. Now you listen, you learn, you care, you develop and implement strategies for moving forward.

The limitless opportunity of now has arrived. Live it with all you have, now.

— Ralph Marston

The best choice
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The wind blows were it will, and you have no influence over its direction or intensity. Yet you do have control over your own direction, your own intensity.

Sometimes the wind will be in your favor, and other times it will rage against you. Make progress as you can toward a constant purpose, whether that progress comes easy or not.

The obstacles you encounter care nothing about you and your intentions. Rather than cursing them, despising them, or fighting them, just deal with them, work your way beyond them.

If you waste your time and energy on resentment you’ll create even more cause to be resentful. Invest yourself instead in the worthy pursuits that create value.

Though countless factors affect you, only a few of them respond to your actions. Those are the ones to focus on, for doing so will make all the difference in your life.

Obsessing and complaining about what you can’t control gets you nothing, while attending to what you do control can change everything. The best choice is obvious, and it’s a choice that’s always yours.

— Ralph Marston

Make it your responsibility
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Are you looking for someone to blame for a less than optimal experience? One useful place to look is in the mirror.

Have you found that some aspect of life is not all it’s cracked up to be? That’s a good time to honestly examine your own role in the disappointment.

Yes, there are plenty of other people and systems and institutions that can let you down. Yet many of them require your cooperation to do so.

That’s actually a good thing. Because what you’re responsible for, you can control, you can improve, you can optimize.

Maybe your disappointment is largely on you. And that means there’s plenty you can do to transform that disappointment into satisfaction and fulfillment.

Even when it’s not your fault, you can choose to make it your responsibility. Do so, and you’ll empower yourself to leave disappointment far behind.

— Ralph Marston

Life’s real adventure
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How many more memes do you need to look at? How many more feeds do you need to scroll through?

How many more pundits do you need to hear saying exactly what you expect them to say? How many more incidents of sensational, shocking behavior do you need to read about?

Imagine something completely different than all that. Imagine the unparalleled satisfaction of focusing your thoughts upon a single, engaging subject for a couple of hours, or months.

Rather than being pushed along through someone else’s narrative, consider forging your own trail toward truth and original insight. Instead of listening endlessly to what is chosen by a distant algorithm, listen at length to what resonates with your spirit.

There has never been more adventure available to anyone than the adventure available to you right now. Do the work to envision and to follow life’s real adventure, and savor the deep fulfillment it brings.

Life’s real adventure cannot be prepackaged in a warehouse or stitched together at a data center. It comes when you commit yourself to truth, purpose, value, and effort, and it’s a magnificent thing to experience.

— Ralph Marston