Mikes Blog

Unexpected
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Relax into the challenge. Find comfort in the unexpected.

Discover for yourself how life can be so much more than what you assume it will be. Understand the deeper perfection in an imperfect world.

Let the wind sting your face and the sun warm your skin, both at the same time. Find serenity in the noise and astonishment in the ordinary.

Experience the similarities of fire and ice. Realize how satisfying a question can be when no clear answer is possible.

Improve your resilience by upsetting your balance. Deepen your wisdom by recognizing what you do not know.

Don’t expect life to work the way you expect life to work. Live the wonder as it goes far beyond anything you could ever imagine.

— Ralph Marston

Something beautiful
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Do something beautiful today. Create a little bit of beauty just for its own sake.

Give your life an added measure of richness. Remind yourself how good it can be to be you, to be alive, to be aware, to be curious and thankful.

Imagine what you could do to add new beauty to a place, an idea, a person, an experience. Then bring that particular beauty to life, and let it bring out the best in you.

Beauty has no need for a reason. Yet as you undertake to create beauty, the reason emerges.

Beauty resonates with your purpose. Beauty connects you to others on a deep and enduring level.

Beauty leaves you with no doubt that you are real, that life has great value, that each experience is precious and unique. Give a little of yourself to beauty, and get much in return for your world.

— Ralph Marston

Directing your attention
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Consider all the paid advertisements and elaborate marketing schemes that populate your awareness. People are willing to pay real money to get your attention.

Are you valuing your attention at least as much as those who compete to claim it from you? Or do you waste much of that attention or, even worse, deploy it in destructive directions?

The quality of what you pay attention to has a major influence on the quality of your life. Might you be able to improve that quality?

You can decide to stop giving your attention away to matters that don’t deserve it. You can choose to focus attention on what’s valuable, meaningful, and beneficial.

Yes, it takes some effort to avoid all the junk that’s vying to grab your attention. Yet that effort can have an enormous positive impact on your effectiveness, your peace of mind, and the quality of your choices.

What you pay attention to contributes significantly to who you are. Know who you want to be, and pay attention accordingly.

— Ralph Marston

What you do now
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It doesn’t matter when or where or how you strayed from the path. What matters is what you do now.

The mistakes and disappointments were yesterday. The possibilities are today, along with the opportunity to choose and to live the best of them.

What you do now can transform your past weakness into ongoing strength. What you do now can redeem your life, your hope, your dreams, your future.

Where value has been tarnished or ignored, or never existed in the first place, your efforts are able to bring it to life. It all depends on what you do now.

Now you are smarter, more experienced, with a deeper understanding of what’s truly important to your life and your world. Now is when you make good use of that.

What you do now connects whatever you’ve been to whatever you choose to be. Take this opportunity and create the very best with what you do now.

— Ralph Marston