Daily Motivation 3-13-2012

Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Today's Gift

Victory is won not in miles but in inches. Win a little now, hold your ground, and later win a little more. —Louis L'Amour

How much fuller each day feels when we can be patient and accept the inches we have progressed. Yet, we are aware of large problems which require miles of progress. We may want others in our lives to change quickly, we may be impatient with a work situation, or we may feel angry about an addiction.

Perhaps the spiritual message to us is we need to surrender to time. The forces of progress are at work. Our growth now may come in learning patience and trusting this process. Looking back we might see a mile of progress. It was made an inch at a time.

Living one day at a time is a big project. Most of us have just enough faith, patience, and courage to last 24 hours. We all seem to be in need of a daily refueling.

Living in today helps keep our lives balanced and simple. At first, we may need to practice staying in the present. We may find that we need to keep bringing ourselves back to today from yesterday or tomorrow.

Today let me keep my feet firmly planted in the bedrock of the present, my only reality. I will accept my progress. There are many rewards already.

From Touchstones: A Book of Daily Meditations for Men©
&
Our Best Days by Nancy Hull-Mast ©

 

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Twenty-Four Hours a Day

 

Walk in Dry Places

Justice

 

Believing In Justice
"What goes around, comes around," is a popular saying. It's often used to suggest that certain arrogant, unprincipled people will eventually receive their comeuppance. It conveys the idea that there's a hidden justice at work in human affairs that assures all injustice will eventually be punished.
But if it works to punish, this hidden justice also rewards right actions.

 

If we act from good motives, we'll always find that our work is rewarded in some way. No person who performs a service in the world goes unrewarded. Quite often the reward is simply a personal sense of well-being and growth in character, but these may be more important than money or recognition.

Justice is one of the cardinal virtues--a Godlike attribute that human beings strive to understand. Believing in justice is believing in the Hidden Power that orders justice in all things.

 

Action for the Day: I'll view my world today as something that is controlled and ordered by a Just Power. Reward and retribution are built into the scheme of things, but I'll focus more on actions that bring the right kind of rewards.

 

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One Day At A Time

 

Thankfulness
A belief in the basic spirituality of life has grown and with it
belief in a supreme and guiding power for good. . .
As a result of this experience I am convinced that to seek is to find,
to ask is to be given.
The day never passes that I do not silently cry out in thankfulness,
not merely for my release from alcohol and/or drugs but even more for a change
that has given life new meaning, dignity, and beauty.
- Experience, Strength and Hope, p. 107

Thought to Ponder . . .
Get it - Give it - Grow in it.

AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
F A I T H = Finding Answers In The Heart.

 

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Daily Motivation

Go one better

Do circumstances demand that you get up an hour earlier? Then put yourself firmly in control, go one better, and get up two hours earlier.

As long as you’re making the effort, make it count. Rather than doing just the minimum required to merely get by, do the maximum of which you’re capable.

Don’t just break even by giving what you’re expected to give. Go one better, and exceed everyone’s expectations.

A little bit of extra effort will end the frustration of always playing catch-up. Instead of constantly being run over by the problems, you’ll be out in front, ready and waiting to transform them into opportunities.

Instead of resenting what you must do, rejoice at the opportunity to make a difference. Instead of casting yourself as a victim of low expectations, raise those expectations higher and higher through your commitment to excellence.

Life asks much of you, and with a little extra effort you can go one better. Go one better, and earn the ability to joyfully live life on your own best terms.

— Ralph Marston