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On empathy and kindness (Quotes to live by)

Maya Angelou lived a challenging life. What is so inspiring about her work and words is that she did not lose hope and she believed in the inherent goodness of people (despite how many of them had treated her).

She believed that no matter how we have been treated, we can choose not to pass on the pain to others:

I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one. Maya Angelou

Her words encourage kindness, love and connection. Here are my some of my favourites:

At the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.
Maya Angelou

Each one of us has lived through some devastation, some loneliness, some weather superstorm or spiritual superstorm, when we look at each other we must say, I understand. I understand how you feel because I have been there myself. We must support each other and empathize with each other because each of us is more alike than we are unalike.
Maya Angelou

If you have only one smile in you, give it...

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The good news and bad news about time (Quotes to live by)

How often do we put off things that are important but not urgent? We seem to be waiting for some undetermined future in which we will have "more time" to do things that matter.

I love this quote from the Buddha on the uncertainty of life and the fragility of time:

The trouble is, you think you have time
The Buddha

And this one about the passage of time:

The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot.
Michael Althsuler

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The stuff of life (Quotes to live by)

Continuing with our series on Quotes to Live By, let us explore some quotes on the passage of time.

Does't thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
Benjamin Franklin

How often do we say that "we don't have time" to do the things that really matter?

Here is a quote to reflect on our excuses:

Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.
H. Jackson Brown Junior

Ever wonder about how the busy-ness of daily tasks did not distract them from their life's work?

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Whose business are you in? (Quotes to live by)

Byron Katie, developer of a method of self-inquiry called The Work, teaches that our time can be occupied worrying about one of three businesses: someone else's business, God's business or OUR business.

To minimize suffering and maximize effectiveness, we want to stay out of other people's business and we want to stay out of God's business and focus exclusively on our own business – things that we have control over, that is only our own thoughts and behaviours.

This reminds me of The Serenity Prayer which is today's "quote to live by":

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

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Leave the harbor but adjust your sails (Quotes to live by)

In Daily Wisdom, we talk quite a bit about taking action within the sphere on our circle of control and influence. Here are a couple of favourite quotes on the same subject using images of water and boats.

A ship in harbour Is safe, But that Is not what ships are built for
Attributed to John A. Shedd and also Murray/Grace Hopper

Is your ship safely docked in harbor or is it exploring the seas as it was meant to do?

And here is another quote on taking action within your circle of control:

I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.

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The way of love (Quotes to live by)

And another favourite from Rumi today:

The way of love

The way of love is not
a subtle argument.

The door there
is devastation.

Birds make great sky-circles
of their freedom.
How do they learn it?

They fall, and falling,
they're given wings.

Isn't that beautiful? How do you understand these verses?

Here is one interpretation (there are many more of course – the beauty of Rumi is that he can speak about Divine love and earthly love using the same words)

True love is a demanding thing...and it is an argument...with yourself and your lover...an argument because you are desiring love and afraid of love in the same breath...an argument because you and your lover are different and are trying to become more like one within each other...

"the door there is devastation"...the entry way to love is passed through by holding yourself open to great risk...risk of vulnerability, of rejection, of being hurt, of being out of control, of "falling"...

For Divine love, and for earthly love to...

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The freedom of speaking the truth (Quotes to live by)

If you tell the truth, it becomes a part of your past but if you tell a lie, it becomes part of your future.

Imam Ali (as)

Much later, Mark Twain said something very similar:
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

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The secret to beauty (Quotes to live by)

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

From Roald Dahl's The Twits.

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The human tool box (Quotes to live by)

Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.
Stephen Covey

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Do you really want to ruin your relationship?

Over the past few weeks we have been sharing ways you can unknowingly ruin your relationship. Some of the posts were difficult to read and I really appreciate you hanging in there and continuing despite the discomfort you may have felt. The fact that you are still reading is a sign of your commitment not to ruin your relationship.

As you read the various posts, what did you notice?

I really hope that you sometimes caught yourself in the act of doing things that would ruin your relationship. (And we all do some of these things some of the time, by the way) I hope that you became more aware of your attitudes and behaviours that could damage your marriage if left unchecked. I pray that you paused for a moment at times, and asked yourself: Do I really want to ruin a perfectly good relationship?

If, on the other hand, while reading the emails you only reconfirmed how your spouse is ruining the relationship – you get absolutely no points for that! You actually did not need these...

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