One Weed with Enough Time will Destroy Every Garden

Do not allow weeds to settle in your garden.

“Be careful what you water your dreams with, water them with worry and fear and you will create weeds that will choke the life out of your dreams.” ~Lao Tzu

Your mind and a garden have more in common than you may think; if you consider weeds as negative thoughts, it begins to make sense. A weed with enough time will take over every garden in which it is allowed to flourish.

The same can be said of negative thoughts, if all you ever think about is negativity, it grows and grows until there’s no room for any positive thoughts to shine through. This doesn’t mean your mind is full of dark thoughts because, if you look at any garden that’s full of weeds, they flower into an array of beautiful colours and can be very pleasing to the eye.

This is the very reason why negative thoughts are so dangerous, you don’t recognise the danger you’re in until your mind is swamped with unwanted thoughts from which you will find it very difficult to clear.

The following quotes are accurate and if you think about them every time worry or fear enter your thoughts, your life will be better for it.

• “Worrying works, ninety percent of the things I worry about never happen.” ~Anon
• “Worrying is using your imagination to create images you don’t want to see.” ~Anon
• “The day you turn your back on fear, it disappears.” ~Anon
• “Fear is only as powerful as the power you give it.” Anon

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Not Everybody is Looking for Signs but Most People Are

If you’re not looking for a sign from God, you’re more than likely looking at star signs, good luck charms, lucky numbers, lucky colours or any of the myriad of ways you can determine without looking at what you’ve got to determine if you’re going to have a good day.

Black cats and magpies are some people’s favourites as they have special qualities that can make the difference between a good day and a bad day. Of course, these creatures have no idea of the importance of their role; I wonder do the cat or magpie look at humans and think, “It must be my lucky day I’ve just seen a human wearing red.” I doubt it but who knows.

Not everybody is looking for signs because they are too busy living their lives to worry about what numbers are important or what colour jumper to wear; they are the people who understand the only sign they need to look out for is; they have a roof over their head, they are able to wake up in the morning without pain. The have the ability to get out of bed unaided. They have clothes to put on. They know they have enough food and money to last the day. They have people in their lives who make them feel needed. They know their day is going to be taken up with useful tasks that will enable them to do the same thing tomorrow and for that they are happy.

A lot of people take those things for granted until they don’t have them anymore and then they realise how important they were. “Some day most people will realise the little things in life are really the big things.”

Being grateful for what you have today is important because if you spend all your time thinking about what tomorrow will bring, it will bring you nothing but more thoughts. The following quote sums it up nicely.

“Gratitude is the most important sign you need to feel today.”

What You Imagine is Not Always Based on Reality

“The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence,” is a sentence a lot of people believe is true until they jump the fence and find out it’s been fertilized by their imaginations. They thought other people were living a better life because they were looking from the outside; when they got to experience that life up close and personal, they were disappointed because their expectations and reality were so different.

Being tempted to jump the fence is not a bad thing unless you jump without reflecting why you need to move from your current location. When you identify the cause behind your discontent, you are in a position to fix the real reason why you’re unhappy.

If you jump without finding out the real reason, the circle will just begin again. The following quotes are worth noting;

• “The person who is unhappy in a small house will be equally unhappy in a big house.”
• “A person who his happy with themselves will bring happiness with them everywhere they go.”
• “The Devil doesn’t come dressed in a red cape and pointy horns. He comes as everything you’ve ever wished for.” ~Tucker Max

The last couple are true for most people.

• “Lead me not into temptation. I can find the way myself.” ~Jane Seabrook.
• “Let ye who have not been tempted cast the first remark.”
• “Logic will take you from A to B. Your imagination will take you everywhere.” ~Albert Einstein.

 

 

Common Sense is Not Always Easy To Follow

Common sense often over simplifies incredibly complicated situations but when you look back at how you solved the problems you were experiencing, you often resorted to common sense ideas. The following are just a few common sense ideas I’ve gathered over the years.

• “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
• “It can take years to realise the only place short cuts work is on a keyboard.”
• “The most important lesson to learn from any mistake is to not make that mistake again.”
• “People with common sense are hard to find.”
• “If you don’t look where you’re going, you’ll end up going where you’re looking.” ~Crash
• “Give somebody enough rope and they will surely hang themselves.”
• “You can force a lot of things but you can’t force life.”
• “Experience can lead to common sense but not everybody learns from experience.”
• “Forgive your past; pay attention to the present because it’s a gift denied to many.”
• “A door mat will clean everybody’s shoes but even that wears out eventually; that’s the equivalent of trying to please everybody all the time, you become a door mat.”
• “Don’t start anything unless you intend to finish it.”
• “Actions speak louder than words.”
• “Overcome your insecurities; If you don’t know how, ask somebody else.”
• “A Positive attitude attracts positive results.”
• “Stop trying to impress people who don’t know you exist.”
• “When you cross a bridge, decide whether is needs to be burned or not, and be prepared to die with that decision.” ~ No regrets.
• “You will face enough real problems in your life, don’t invent problems by over thinking.”
• “Understanding what’s within your power to control is vital for your sanity.” ~“Let it go.”
• “Respect yourself.”
• “Successful people do not get to be successful by wishing for success, they get there by working for it.” ~ “I became an overnight success after 25 years.”
• “I don’t know but I will find out.” Is a good answer.
• “The only thing you can change in an instant is your attitude, everything else takes time.”
• “I know what you’re thinking,” is guesswork at best, and foolishness at worst.
• “People will spread lies far quicker than they will share the truth.” ~C’est la vie.
• “If plan A doesn’t work, don’t worry there is another 25 letters in the English alphabet.”
• “It’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” ~Mark Twain
• “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.”
• “Take a deep breath and release it slowly.”
• “There is 8760 hours in a year, don’t allow what happens is 24 hours spoil the other 8736.”
• “Failure is not the end, it’s merely the beginning of a new journey.”
• Have a life motto. “I have complete control over my thoughts, emotions, actions and words.”
• “What you believe is often more real than the truth.”
• “You cannot live a positive life with a negative attitude.”
• “The most important person you need to know is yourself.”
• “Everything will work out for you in the end, otherwise it’s not the end it’s merely the end of another chapter in your autobiography.”

Please leave your own favorites in the comments section below.

Gratitude Begins with the free stuff

I bet it’s FREE

Gratitude begins with appreciating all the stuff you get for nothing because, if you don’t appreciate those things, you will not appreciate all the stuff you have to pay for.

Let’s look at some of the things we get for nothing but often take for granted.

Oxygen: It’s all around us, and we get as much as we need for nothing. Some people take it for granted, but others treasure it as a way to relax; when they feel under pressure for any reason, they go outside and breathe deeply, after a couple of minutes everything is under control again. It truly is a wonderful substance.

Light: The Sun brightens everybody’s mood, it’s a lot easier to smile on those days; it also provides us with the light we need, it helps us by providing the means to create vitamin D, and yes, it’s free. Without the sun our planet would not exist at all. Mind you, too much Sun is not good for you, but that’s a story for another day.

Life: There is no turnstile on the way in to this world, no passports or tickets need to be bought. There might be times in your life when you wish it was otherwise but in reality those events are few; we normally spend a lot more time thinking about sad times than experiencing them.

Health: The majority of people are healthy but they rarely appreciate that good health until it is taken away, then all you hear is, why didn’t I look after myself when the choice was mine.

Water: The most plentiful substance on the planet, approx 75% of the Earth’s surface is covered in the stuff, and if you live in a place called Ireland, you will find it falling out of the clouds most days.

The ability to learn: Everybody, regardless of their station in life has the ability to learn; we learn to communicate with our mothers first, then we learn how to get around, first it’s a swim backwards across the floor before we master the art of moving forward, this it’s followed by gaining control of our hands and knees to get where we’re going a little bit faster, we then find something solid to stand beside and take our first tentative steps, more than likely this will be along the couch, then it’s that first step to independence which is followed by a pirouette and a rough landing on the floor; the first of many; after a while we learn to waddle, walk and run.

You get the idea; we are remarkable creatures, capable of learning anything and everything.

Nature: We are surrounded by plants and animals; yes, even the weeds flower in wonderful colours for us to enjoy if we choose to see them as flowers instead of something that needs to be killed.

In life, there is a great deal to be grateful for, but like anything you get for nothing; nothing can be what is thought of it.

• “If you think for a while about all the stuff you get for nothing, it will brighten up your day; if you think about it every day; it will brighten up your life.” ~Positive Mental Attitude.

Share Images Your Friends will Love to Share

Social media platforms will only work for you, and your business if you provide content that your friends and customers want to see and share with their friends. The following sentence is the most important message for business owners.

• Your customers will only share information that reflects and enhances their public persona.

Time is also an issue that business owners need to take into consideration, people are pressing the like button on more Facebook business pages every day, so that means it will be increasingly difficult to get their attention because of the increased number of posts flowing through their Facebook timelines.

• So how are business owners overcoming this dilemma, one answer is to pay Facebook to promote their posts or they can pay Facebook. Once upon a time you could share images that would create positive engagement but the algorithm used these days have eliminated that option.

The following is a collection of the pictures I have posted on my own Facebook page that created the most engagement without paying Facebook.

There is no I in team.

Laughter is universal

Spreading happiness is always good for business

Worrying works.

Every image you share on any social media platform enhances your business’s brand, when you associate happiness, positiveness, motivation, humour and open mindedness with your brand, you are well on your way to creating a successful online community.

• Keep it simple to make it memorable.

More images can be found on my Facebook page.

Everything that Appears to be Positive is Not Necessarily Positive.

How many times have you read, “positive people do not do this,” well it’s at the start of every article that’s basically negative, it will have 300/400 words containing information that is focused on negativity.

I’m inclined to avoid telling people how they appear negative, because generally people know what negativity looks like, all they have to do is watch the news on television or read the news either online or in print. The old adage, “good news does not sell,” is clearly evident because there’s very few positive stories on any news platform.

I believe positive posts should concentrate on examples of the behaviour that lead to positive behaviour. First you need to define what it means to be a positive person.

A positive person has a positive mindset who sees the world as a place of wonderful potential. They are focused on finding things which will make their life better.

If something is not constructive, practical, useful, helpful, beneficial, effective or worthwhile, positive people will generally not notice it at all or, they will accept that information is meant for somebody else.

How do you develop a positive mindset?

Acceptance through meditation, exercise, reading positive material and observing positive people in action is how I’m developing mine.

What are you using to developing your positive mindset?

Positive People Know Who They Can Control

Positive people do not concern themselves with things they have no control over, they understand that’s a futile mission best suited to other people.

 

Positive people know there is a lot of negativity in the world, they’re not blind to the suffering that’s evident on every news and social media platform, they just choose not to concentrate on the things they cannot change.

1. Positive people understand their world revolves around their beliefs, and the beliefs they project onto the people they interact with.
2. When you try to see good in the world, only good will be shown to you.
3. The power of being positive cannot be underrated.

 

 

Who Do You Believe You Can Be

You were given this life for a reason; Believe in the person you are meant to be, not the person you are today because if you believe in you and believe in your future, the doors you’ve been knocking at will be opened up for you.

Everybody needs somebody to believe in, it’s best if that somebody is you.

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” ~Mark Twain.

People Can Teach You Who You Aren’t

Other people will never be able to tell you who you are, that’s your job, however, they can teach you who you aren’t.

Who you are: You know your every thought, word, action and life-experience; they are the foundation of who you are. Nobody else has that information so they are not in a position to judge who you are. Everything they share with you tells you about their insecurities, not yours.

Self-control is your strength. You have mastered the ability to remain calm and not allow your mood to be affected by other people’s insignificant words. You are consciously controlling the direction your life is taking, not allowing it to be directed by irrational reactions.

Who you aren’t is somebody who’s prepared to let other people’s ignorance affect your inner peace; your intelligence is in control, not your emotions.

“The day you control your mindset is the day you control your life.” ~Anon

Giving Up Smoking is Not Easy for Everybody

If people were meant to smoke they would be born with chimneys instead of lungs which are not designed to deal with nicotine or tar. This is a lesson I learned slowly. I smoked cigarettes for about 18 years before I managed to quit the habit for the last time nearly eighteen years ago. At that time I was smoking between 20 and 30 a day, and it was a habit, not something I enjoyed. That was the main reason why giving them up was so easy.

I didn’t wake up one morning and decide that’s it, I’m not a smoker anymore. I had tried that method a few times before and quickly realized giving up habits which are highly addictive in that manner is torture.

How I stopped smoking.

I decided to give up smoking months before I actually gave them up, I didn’t know the exact date I was going to kick the habit, I just knew my smoking career was coming to an end. That was the first step on my journey.

The second step was to create locations where not smoking was the norm, I chose my car. I drove to and from work every day and generally had at least two cigarettes on each journey. I change my car that year and decided I really didn’t want it to smell like an ashtray. Within a few weeks the car became an area where I didn’t consider smoking.

The third step was to increase the number of places where I felt comfortable not smoking. The next location I chose was the sitting room. Every time I felt like smoking a cigarette I had to get up off the comfortable couch and leave the room. Over time I extended this to the rest of the house.

During this time I didn’t cut down on my smoking habit, I just smoked more often in the areas I had designated as smoking areas. This had two effects; as most of you smokers realise, regardless of how much you like smoking, if you smoke too many close together they will make you feel awful. This created the second effect of hating cigarettes even more.

At  the time I eventually decided to quit I was working the night shift. I bought a pack of cigarettes on the way to work and said, “as soon as I had smoked them I was never going to smoke again.” That was a Tuesday night, the next morning after getting out of my car, I smoked the one remaining cigarette before going in to my house to get some sleep.

I woke up that Wednesday and had no desire to waste any more money on cigarettes. The following two days went the same way. Then it was the weekend, the big test, could I go out and have a few beers and not smoke? At the time you could smoke inside in all public bars. I passed the test, I woke up the following afternoon and I just knew I would never smoke again especially after I smelled my clothes and realized I’d spent years smelling like an ashtray too.

As I mention earlier that was eighteen years ago, to this day not smoking is easy, however, I will never take that for granted because I know how difficult it is to quit for most people. If it was easy to quit nobody would smoke.

• “If you love to smoke, you will always be a smoker.”
• “Learn to dislike the things which are not good for you.”
• “The day you change your mindset is the day you change your life.”

 

 

Everybody Needs Somebody in Their Life Who’s Worth Impressing.

“You’ll find people who are impressed by their deeds will impress everybody else in the process.”

If you’re not impressed by your deeds, nobody else’s approval will make you feel any better about being you.

“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” ~Anon

Knowing Somebody Else is Beyond our Abilities

Only people who can identify their own strengths and weaknesses are in a position to see the strengths and weaknesses in other people, however, if the quote by Shakespeare, “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players;” is to be believed, it would indicate people change their behaviour depending on the situation and characters that surround them at any given time. This means we will never truly know anybody else, we will only know the character they are playing when we meet them; after all, the loving mother and hated celebrity can be and often are, the same person.

At the end of the day the only person we can ever hope to know is ourselves but maybe that’s enough because:

“Knowing yourself eliminates the need to know somebody else.”

 

I’ve got a Real Good Feeling

You can’t see your future, you have to feel it because that’s how you create visions. You have to feel it in your bones, you have to know that everything to want to accomplish is possible and achievable.

Once you have the feeling in place, everything else you need will show up as and when you need it.

Have faith in your future, have faith in you.

Self-Belief is the Key to Every Door Worth Opening

Self-belief is the foundation of every story with a happy ending because, you cannot believe in anything until you believe in yourself.

“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” ~Norman Vincent Peale.

“Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.” ~Anon..

“What if I fall? Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?” ~Erin Hanson

If you do not doubt your abilities, do not adopt other people’s doubt; they are not helping you improve.

“Believe in love. Believe in magic. Hell, believe in Santa Clause. Believe in others. Believe in yourself. Believe in your dreams. If you don’t, who will?” ~Jon Bon Jovi.

Money is Not The Solution

The desire for money has brought this world to where it is today, and the world has benefited greatly from the advances it has brought. Of course, not everybody has felt those benefits, there are parts of this planet I wouldn’t care to live and that’s only from what I’ve read in the papers or seen on television. Wars are fought over natural resources; economies are thrown into turmoil; animals are slaughtered for their ivory are just some examples of which I’m sure there are hundreds. Everyday examples of money being abused can be summed up using the following quote.

“People are driven to spend the money they’ve earned, to buy things they don’t need, to impress people who don’t know they exist.” ~Will Rogers.

The question has to be asked, is money the solution to the problems facing the world or is it the cause?