Monday, December 16, 2013

Daily Motivation 12-16-2013

Monday, December 16, 2013
Today's Gift

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart
And try to love the questions themselves. —Rainer Maria Rilke


Patience with ourselves may be the first step toward patience with others. In getting to know ourselves, we don't find what we have expected. If we did, we would only be proving what we already knew. Sometimes growth comes in surprising ways. It may be in acceptance and learning to love what is unsettled or unclear within. Some of us people want to rush through our learning and push our growth too fast. Others of us want to have a strong sense of confidence in our relationships with others but always feel vulnerable. Some wonder why their fears suddenly rise without warning. Another longs to know why certain things happened to them in their youth. Our growth is not our invention. When answers come, they are gifts, and we do not control them.

In part, self-acceptance is to say, "Yes, I am a person with this question, this unsettled feeling. Being alive is to be actively engaged in knowing and loving my questions even when I find no answer."

Higher Power, grant me the peace that comes with loving the unfinished part of me.


From Touchstones: A Book of Daily Meditations for Men ©



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Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Keep It Simple

Because you're not what I would have you be, I blind myself to who, in truth, you are. —Madeleine L'Engle

Sometimes we expect far too much of the people around us, and because no one can ever live up to those expectations, we are almost always disappointed. But wouldn't it be better if we just let go, and let people be who they are? Then we'd be able to see them as they are - with all their beauty and goodness in which we take joy, and with all their faults, which we can also see in ourselves.

When we have put someone up on a pedestal, sculpturing them to fit our needs and desires by smoothing out the rough edges and creating new curves here and there, we cannot see the real person underneath our work. All we see is the illusion we have created. That is denying the person's real identity and is disrespectful. It's much better for our friends and for ourselves if we drop our expectations and illusions, and accept them all just the way they are.


Action for the Day: Today I will drop our expectations and illusions, and accept them all just the way they are.

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One Day At A Time


Humility
On his desk, Dr. Bob had a plaque defining humility:
"Perpetual quietness of heart. It is to have no trouble.
It is never to be fretted or vexed, irritable or sore;
to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me.
It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised,
it is to have a blessed home in myself where I can go in and shut the door
and kneel to my Father in secret and be at peace, as in a deep sea of calmness,
when all around and about is seeming trouble."
- Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, p. 222

Thought to Ponder . . .
Humility is not a station we arrive at; it's a way of traveling.

AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
A A = A
lways Aware.


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Daily Motivation

Better than ever

If you’re in a pattern that’s taking you nowhere, it’s time to create a new pattern. That’s not nearly as difficult as it might initially sound.

You are the person who is keeping yourself stuck in an unproductive pattern. You are the person who can move quickly, decisively and permanently to something much better.

Stop and take an honest, objective look at what you’re doing. If you had a good friend who was doing the same kinds of things, think of the advice you would give that friend.

One big reason you keep doing what doesn’t work is because it feels comfortable. So remind yourself that continuing in a negative, unproductive and unfulfilling pattern will make you extremely uncomfortable in the long run.

Comfort feels nice, and yet fulfillment and meaningful achievement feel thousands of times better. Your life is meant to be filled with the richness of new experiences, not just the comfort of familiar routines.

Get yourself out of that same old pattern and get yourself on a path that will resonate with your passion. You owe it to yourself, and to all of life, to continue becoming better than ever.

— Ralph Marston


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