Mikes Blog

As it all unfolds
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You’d like to find out how the story ends. But if you simply skip to the end, you miss the heart of that story.

It’s good to have matters resolved. Yet it takes time to happen, and you don’t want to ignore everything else in your life during that time.

When you’ve made a decision, or set a process in motion, give yourself time, give life time to let the results emerge. You’ll gain nothing by hovering uselessly around the oven while the cake is baking.

Do what you can, when you can, to move the process along. And when you’ve done all there is to do for the moment, point your focus elsewhere.

Your time, effort, and attention have great potential value. Invest them where that value can be realized.

With patience and understanding, welcome the time needed for situations to be resolved, questions to be answered, choices to play out. Continue living your life as it all unfolds.

— Ralph Marston

Struggle
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You struggle to understand. And that struggle gives you profound, indisputable ownership of whatever understanding you acquire.

Struggle is unpleasant. That does not mean it is futile.

Struggle is a difficult, draining experience, and from that experience can come great value. In times of struggle you discover and develop your strength by putting that strength to a meaningful test.

Struggle is unfair, uncomfortable, inconvenient, dangerous, painful, frustrating. Get yourself through the struggle and you have something real, something consequential, something that empowers every corner of your life.

You don’t always choose your struggles. Yet you always have the choice as to how you face them and what you do with them.

Within life’s greatest struggles are life’s greatest victories. Take them as they come, give your best, and seek to transform your struggles into a life of meaning, of purpose, of consequence.

— Ralph Marston

Experience adventure
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In countless ways you experience adventure. What adventure are you embarking upon today?

Is it the adventure of working yourself into top physical condition? Or perhaps it’s the adventure of supporting people as they heal and recover from trauma and injury.

Is your adventure in working to make a process or an organization more effective and productive? Maybe it’s leading a group to laughter and joy.

The opportunities for adventure are everywhere. Living with an adventurous spirit is essential to keeping life going and revealing its most profound purposes.

Adventure is so much more than just some faraway dream. Adventure is key to how you successfully deal with reality.

Life offers it to you and you owe it to life. Live the adventure every day.

— Ralph Marston

World of truth
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There is a world where plenty of people appreciate the good work you and others do. There is a world where excellence and responsibility are valued over greed and indolence.

There is a world where beauty is admired, achievement is respected, and freedom is cherished. There is a world where people are grateful for the opportunity to make a difference, and exercise that opportunity all the time.

Where is that world? It is all around you.

It is in the actual, day-to-day lives that regular people live in accordance with objective reality. It exists far away from the fantasy realm of celebrities, politicians, self-proclaimed experts, and professional scolds.

It is a world where hope, faith, and authenticity are essential parts of each day’s experience. It is a world with a bright and positive future, where goodness works to create more goodness, where kindness is a real and prominent thing.

Though certainly not perfect, it’s a world that’s grown increasingly fulfilling for a long time, and will continue to do so. It’s a world that insists on truth, no matter how difficult, and that makes it a very good place to live.

— Ralph Marston