Why Not Me?

Eleven years ago this month I had a good friend, Diana, die from cancer. She was 31 years old and left behind a husband, two little boys and a 7-month old baby girl. I don’t know why she came to my mind today. Maybe it was because I found myself for an instant, wondering, “why me?” I don’t like when people say that and I especially don’t let my self dwell on that question for more than an instant. I think that is because of Diana. When she first told me she had cancer she said she came across a lot of people who were asking, “Why me?” She told me, “Of all the people who get sick and get cancer, why not me?” Everyone has something hard to bear at different times in their lives. The next time something wonderful happens to me and goes especially well, it is then that I want to ask, “Why me!”

“Life lives, life dies. Life laughs, life cries. Life gives up and life tries. But life looks different through everyone's eyes.” – unknown.

Chance Meets Opportunity

“Chance favors the prepared mind.” ~ Louis Pasteur

In the pursuit of a fulfilled life there are moments that we feel as if it is going according to plan.  We are rowing our boats along the course and have done everything right, regardless we are still not reaching the final destitination.  If we gaze back too much at those moments in the past we will run ashore, if we stare too long at how others are doing we may run into them.  Instead we have to keep our eyes fixed on our destination with an understanding that we must be prepared.   Prepared for a bend in the river, a swift current or an idle current.  Life isn't according to our plan, instead it those that are prepared and open to new destintations that typically exceed their own expectations.  Keep an open mind, be prepared for every option and most of all, don't be so fixed on getting there that you don't enjoy the here and now.

An Education On Hope

According to Webster Dictionary the definition of HOPE is; 1. to wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment 2. To have confidence: TRUST, to expect to desire.

Examples of hope would be: I hope you do well on the test. I hope he/she likes me or asks me out. I hope you feel better soon. I hope we win the game.
Hope is the core everything we do. We awake and go about our day with hope. We hope to be on time, for no traffic, for a promotion, for understanding, for patience.

Where does hope come from? I believe we are all born with hope. As babies we saw something and tried. We tried to roll over, to crawl to walk and to talk. Then somewhere in life people begin to remove our hope. You will never make the team, if so-and-so didn't. You will never get into that school.  You will never fit in.

This week on the Ellen Show she called out for us to do something about bullies that have resulted in several teen suicide cases this month. We had one in our town. A 15-year-old decided to end it. Why? Because in his mind there was no hope.

What if our schools taught hope? There are countless individuals like Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield, Deepak Chopra to name a few that are centered on if you believe it, you can achieve it. There are countless true stories of the underdog team that wins. Why?Because they never lost hope. If we could teach our youth to have hope, to look for the potential, we would breathe a new life into them. In 2008, my brother-in-law took his life. He had a family, money, a career, and no life-threatening illness. Yet he had no hope, no purpose. Life is so large if we live it. There is no way we have time to experience all there is if we live to be 100, but definitely not if we end it at 15, 18 or anywhere under 100.

If you know someone that has lost their hope, help them light a flame of hope. Help them find something to move towards in their life to give them hope. Breathe hope into someone that has lost theirs. “Hope is to purpose as air is to life.” ~ Cheryl Nordyke

What Is A Dream Without Action

"Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in." ~ Andrew Jackson

What sets those that dream big dreams and those that accomplish big dreams apart is action.  At some point the dream propelled them to action.  Not every action created the result that they wanted so then they stepped back and considered the situation and took another action.  Action is the bridge from what we want to do to what actually gets done.  Individuals like Walt Disney, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford to name a few took several tries to reach the results they wanted.  However, they never stopped learning and taking action.  We all dream of what we can do, where we can live what we can accomplish.  Then we come up with reasons why that will never happen to us.  We are too old, don't have the right education, aren't experienced enough.  So we take a dream and cover it with doubt and then wonder how is it that our dreams can't come true.  At 60 years old Allen Moore became the oldest football player at Mississippi's Holmes Community College.  He had a dream to return to being kicker in football and decided to take action on his dream.  So the idea of we are too old has been removed.  In 1707, Henrietta Johnston begins to work as a portrait artist in Charles Town (now Charleston), South Carolina, making her the first known professional woman artist in America.  For every situation there is a first.  Fear of the first is only another reason to not take action.  Action even the smallest step begins to move us from what we dream of doing to what we do.  Is there a dream you have?  If so is there something small you could do to begin to move you in the direction of that dream?  If so why not do it. 

Find The Beauty

It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” ~ Joanne Kathleen Rowling

Today we seem to find more of what is wrong with the world then what is right. We turn on the news, sign on to a computer, open a browser on our phone, listen to the radio; it doesn’t matter what it is there is something that has happened coming at us 24/7. There was a time when after midnight all you had was white noise. When you could leave your home and not be subjected to what was wrong in the world unless you picked up a paper. While technology is an amazing tool that allows us to offer our products to everyone in the world from the comfort of our own homes, it is also the very thing that is impacting so many lives, and not always for the better. Each time we listen, read or see the news we decide how we are going to process that information. Are we going to let it consume us or are we going to decide to know what is going on in the world without feeling we have the burden of the world on us. News, information, knowledge are all positive things to be aware of, however like anything in life, too much is not a good thing. Especially if we allow it to bring us down. This evening on my drive home I was amazed at the beauty of the Harvest Moon. As I looked up at it I realized, the men and women protecting our country, the local authorities, the doctors and nurses that care for so many all have the same bright moon. Life is a flash of lightening in the sky that is here and gone before you know it. Surrounding us outside of all the negative information is a world of beauty and wonder. Take time to witness the beauty in the world. Make a choice to see your own beauty. Live this life you have been given be thankful for those that protect us, respect those that work insane hours to keep us alive and healthy and most of all respect and appreciate the beauty of your own life and the value it plays in so many lives you may not even know.

Release Your Doubt

“When you doubt your power, you give power to your doubt” ~ unknown


The most wonderful part of life is the beauty in the potential. When we stop growing and learning we cease to see the potential a new day can hold. We surrender to our doubts and assume that life is what it is today and that is all it is. Life is so much more than even we can imagine. There is so much potential to live a life that is on purpose where we do what we love instead of what pays the bills. The movie the Shift by Wayne Dyer focuses on that point in our life that we realize life is more than obtaining things. It is more about who we are with and what we do with our time, how we give back. Life has so much beauty and potential. If you ever have doubts take an hour. Watch the sunrise in the early morning as a new day approaches. Witness the sunset as a day comes to a close. Walk out into the night sky and lye on your back and watch the stars and the moon. Sit in a park and listen to the tress in the wind. Stand in the rain or open your window during a thunderstorm. Life is amazing and the key to living an amazing life is to never have doubt in how amazing our life and our experience here can be.

Realize That Life Is Meant To Be Lived

“The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.” ~ Mark Twain

Tonight my daughter had her senior corn roast and bonfire and then some friends came over after, let’s say more than 20 less than 35. As I am upstairs typing this blog my downstairs is full of teenagers laughing and having fun. It makes me smile and realize how time changes things. Just over 2 months ago she was broken hearted thinking the boy she had dated for over a year could hurt her so badly. She was confident she would never be okay. As I glace beside my bed at a photo of my daughter at 2 and my grandmother that raised me I remember how much it hurt to lose her. To not have her to talk to every day to lean on, I didn’t know how I would make it. Now I talk with her often, and know she is always with me in spirit. Time allows us to realize the loss we felt is due to the love we felt. The love was a gift and the end is just part of what happens in life. It is how we let those ends affect us that determine if we have a life of fun and happiness or a life a pain and heartache. See the gift life is, that each day is an opportunity to experience life to live. Live it.

Abundance of Potential

Don Williams, Jr said "What we aspire to be is more than what we are yet less than what we are capable of.”  There is so much potential that surrounds us.  Sometimes it is obvious and other times it is more suddle regardless there is potential all around us.  There are books, individuals, mentors to name a few of individuals that are able to empower us.  We have a limited potential only because we wish to believe we have a  limited potential.  However, when we open our minds to the possibilities of unlimited potential we allow ourselves to discover teachers that we wouldn't have otherwise discovered.  If we think in terms of abundance and potential we are allowing ourselves to move in that direction.  It is like being in a car, we couldn't drive or work and home at the same time.  We can't think limitations and attract abundance.

Abundance of Love

Carl Gustav Jung  said “The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely”  This however, is the key to having an abundance of love is to first love ourselves.  Our lives take us to many different places and around many different people.  The one thing we all share is that we are always with our self.  If I love myself and respect myself then what types of individuals am I going to surround myself with?  People that will love me also.  Love is something that only grows as we give it.  The more love we give the more love we have.  So if we give ourselves love, remembering there is an abundance of love to give then we will attract back to us more and more love.  When we put ourselves down or withhold love then we will draw in individuals that will do the same.  Life is a wonderful an amazing journey that can change at any moment it is up to us.  We can begin to love ourselves to find things in others to love. If we learn how to put our attention on the things in life we want to attract rather than the things we don't want to attract we can shift our lives.  There is an abundance of love in the world and within ourselves we just have to focus on that.  It all begins within ourselves.

Find Abudance In All You Do

"Not what we have But what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.” ~ Epicurus

Life for each and everyone of us brings different challenges as well as different joys.  When we take time to know ourselves to undestand what makes us feel fulfilled as a person we are better able to position our lives to include individuals that share some or our core values as well as joys.  When we are able to spend time doing what we enjoy we are able to live a life that is more fulfilled.  There are so many opportunities to have a life that is lived as wide as it is long.  The key is to know yourself.  To know how you can live an abudant life and then to do what it takes to make that happen.  Find joy in yourself and your life.  Live your life in abudance.

Hope Comes Full Circle

As May comes to a close we reflect on the value of hope in our lives. If there is anything we wish to accomplish in our lives we typically begin with hope. It is the core or all that we set out to do. In reflection of our first day of May our goal was to demonstrate how hope is to purpose as air is to life. Hope breaths air into our dreams and allows them to come to life.

Hope offers us the belief of possibilities in things that have yet to happen. It enables us to overcome our fears and face odds others thought impossible. Hope is the seed that is planted in our thoughts and allows us to pursue our hearts content.

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tunes without the words, and never stops at all. ~ Emily Dickinson

Hope...is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for who so hopes has within him the gift of miracles. ~ Samuel Smiles

Hope Found In A Fortune Cookie

Today was my mothers 65th birthday. For her birthday she went to the casino and played slots. While there she won over $3,000 which was at the perfect time considering she just had to have eye surgery that cost $5,000. This is always the way it works with my mom. If she gets a good fortune in a fortune cookie then it is going to come true. She creates her own good fortune. Whenever something happens that knocks her down she goes to the casino and for her she is able to turn $50 into $1000 or more.
The key to her success is she always goes there with a mind set that she will find her lucky machine and it is going to be her lucky night. Although she has her nights when luck isn’t on her side, there are more nights she wins then nights she doesn’t.

Our mind set helps us to create our opportunities to look for the yes instead of the no to seek possibilities and discover our potential. Sometimes the power of the fortune cookie isn’t so much the ability to create or predict the future as much as it is to empower us with hope. It opens our minds to the potential of what can be and for us to start looking for it that potential. That to me is the power of hope in a Fortune Cookie…

Hope Transforms

Just when the caterpiller thought the wold was over, it became a butterfly ~ Unknown

There are moments in life that it appears things aren’t going the way we had planned. If we look at history there are numerous examples of individuals that transformed from failure into success.


Henry Ford In 1899 the young mechanic and engineer started the Detroit Automobile Company with the backing of three prominent politicians. Ford hadn't quite mastered the innovation and production techniques that would eventually make him rich, though. Over the next two years, Ford proved to be too much of a perfectionist, and his plant only produced 20 cars as he painstakingly tinkered with designs.

The enterprise went bankrupt in 1901 and reorganized into the Henry Ford Company later that year. Ford eventually left that group and finally got things right in 1903, when he founded the Ford Motor Company.

Walt Disney His name may be a stalwart brand today, but early in his career, Disney was just a struggling filmmaker with too many bills. In 1922 he started his first film company with a partner in Kansas City, Kansas.

The two men bought a used camera and made short advertising films and cartoons under the studio name Laugh-O-Gram. Disney even signed a deal with a New York company to distribute the films he was producing. That arrangement didn't work out so well, though, as the distributor cheated Disney's studio.

Without the distributor's cash, Disney couldn't cover his overhead, and his studio went bankrupt in 1923. He then left Kansas City for Hollywood, and after a series of increasingly successful creations, Disney debuted a new character named Mickey Mouse in 1928.

Sometimes we have to be willing to keep trying to risk everything to discover success. As the butterfly leaves behind what is was in order to become a butterfly. We must sometimes let go of what we have to get what we want. Hope transforms.

Remembering Hope

History can teach us so much.  The one thing it can teach us the most is that hope has power.  Throughout our own history there are moments when life wasn't going according to plan. When we had doubt over how a situation would work out.  There are periods of time that we doubt we will ever be happy again.  That life will offer some ray of sunlight behind the emotion we are feeling at any given moment.  However, if we move forward and have hope it always does. 

If we move on to history we again see hope.  In almost every battle there are periods of doubt will we win?  Periods of time when the economy seems to be at its worst.  Then there is a shift and things swing back around to the positive.  Life teaches us if we have hope and move towards that hope there is almost always another path to take.  A new opportunity.  So in moments of doubt, reflect on your history.  Realize that things can always get better if you remain hopeful. 

Hope To Find Our Own Greatness

“How do we inspire ourselves to greatness? We must exceed our own expectations.” ~ Invictus

As children we are taught to believe. Believe that reindeers fly and elves build toys. Believe in the Easter Bunny, Fairy Tales and that someday we could be anything. It is possible to be a famous actor, the president or a major athlete. We aren’t given limitations; instead our dreams are encouraged through stories, movies and dreams.

Somewhere this all disappears. We are taught about limitations and are flooded with news about what is wrong in society. We begin to doubt what life has to offer and even worse we begin to doubt ourselves and our own potential.
“I am the master of my fate the captain of my soul.” ~ Henley, William Ernest

However, there is hope. Inside every successful person is a person that overcame their own doubt. They realized they were the master of their own destiny and the captain of their own soul. They focused on what was possible not impossible. They took action toward attaining their dreams and with each action a new opportunity was born.

Our success is within our own hands. It is up to us what we do with it, the choice to pursue our dreams with all our heart. To be open to the potential opportunities that arise or to find reasons we must settle. To find opportunities or to look for what is wrong instead of what can be. Hope inspires us and enables us to become the person we are meant to be.

Hope Illuminates

In every life there are moments of darkness and doubt. There are minutes, hours or days that we may be faced with fear. Like darkness that weights us down and keeps us from seeing. Every life, ever moment no matter how dark it may seem has the potential to touch a life. A flicker of hope can illuminate something larger than anyone could have ever imagined possible. Organizations like Make A Wish and Susan G Komen were born from someone finding hope in a moment of darkness. Today these organizations have illuminated millions of lives. Hope is that flicker when you wonder how I will do that says “you can do it’. Hope is that flicker that when you are scared says “you are not alone” Hope is that flicker that if given a chance grows into a flame. Hopes smallest flicker can illuminate and encourage others. Hope is that flicker that enables you to pursue a dream. Hope is that flicker that lights life’s path and upon reflection we see the power of hope to illuminate.

Silent Hope

Hope can be the sole purpose of an action that we aren’t even aware of; it can be completely silent. Recently I was listening to a high school senior explain her dream career. She had every detail planned out, from the college she would attend to her graduate degree in 5 years, to her intern positions and the first step she would make towards her dream career. Her inspiration was an individual that was a VP at 26 and she had researched his path, his degree program, intern positions, and promotions. He had supplied silent hope.

Have you ever heard about something on the news, in the newspaper, or in a conversation and thought, “I could do that?” It may have been a place to vacation, a promotion, or investment. Have you ever watched someone do something, enter a marathon, change careers, or start their own business and been inspired to considered it for yourself? Buying my first home was a risk I took after an acquaintance who was also a single mom purchased her first home.
People, their stories and life offer silent hope to other people they are not even aware are watching. Individuals witness events, or hear about them and are moved to try something they have only dreamed of and consider a change they may have never considered. Have you ever asked yourself what silent hope your life demonstrates to someone else? What dreams have you inspired? My daughter’s base line for marriage is our close friend’s parents. They embody her dream of what marriage after 50 years is. The love, respect and appreciation they have for each other after all these years instill a hope for a life she wants to have.
We may not be aware, however, our lives are an example of hope to our children, friends, family, and beyond. We buy a new car, redo a room, take a vacation, or get a promotion. These things are examples to others of what is possible. This is silent hope.

Hope ~ For Hope In Return

We often reach out to others to help. We offer to be there to assist people that we feel can use some help. Sometimes this is to a total stranger sometimes it is to close friends or family. We open ourselves up and give without any expectation except that we hope. We hope that if someday we need something they or someone else will be there. We hope that if someday we need a big hug someone will give us one. We hope that our willingness to be there for another person to care and put their needs on our list will enable us to matter to them. In essence we give hope in exchange for hope. Hope propells us to take risks, to put others first to care when otherwise we may not have. In the ends sometimes our hopes with those we give to so willingly are not fulfilled. My suggestion, hope that instead of passing that hope back to us they passed it on to someone else and keep hoping. Hope is like a big hug, it lifts the spirits of those that give and receive.