Happyness with a "Y"

"Many people have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose." --Helen Keller

Freedom "Rider" or Freedom "Supporter"?

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it." -- Thomas Paine

Time Broke?

"It often happens that men pull in a certain political, social, or familiar harness simply because they never have the time to ask themselves whether the position they stand in and the work they accomplish are right; whether their occupations really suit their inner desires and capacities and give them the satisfaction which every one has the right to expect from his work. Active men are especially liable to find themselves in such position. Every day brings with it a fresh batch of work, and a man throws himself into his bed late at night without having completed what he expected to do; then in the morning he hurries to the unfinished task of the previous day. Life goes on and there in no time left to think, no time to consider the direction one's life is taking. So it is with me." -- Peter Kropotkin

Reading... a Sin???

"Reading is nothing more than a substitute for thought of one's own ... A man should read only when his own thoughts stagnate at their source, which will happen often enough even with the best of minds. On the other hand, to take up a book for the purpose of scaring away one's own original thoughts is sin against the Holy Spirit. It is like running away from Nature to look at a musuem of dried plants or gaze at a landscape in copper plate. --Arthur Schopenhauer, The Art of Literature

Talent vs. Genius

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genuis hits a target no one else can see." --Arthur Schopenhauer

Enthusiasm is the Source

"Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion, you must set yourself on fire first." --Reggie Leach

Each One, Teach One...to Teach One... to Teach One....

"Nothing in education needs more explaining than this, that a teacher may be neither a professor, nor an educator, that a professor may mature to the age of retirement without teaching or educating, and that an educator, without loss of reputation may profess nothing, and never face a class.
A teacher is one who shows his fellow man how to do something, who imparts an active skill, and who kindles the desire to acquire this skill and to use it. In all creatures, there is a natural ambition to live, which necessarily includes an ambition to learn, but even a natural ambition will need encouragement. The cow teaches the newborn calf to walk, the mother bird teaches her young to fly,
though neither cow nor bird, so far as we know, has a teacher's diploma, or the equivalent, from a normal school. If the calf is reluctant to stand up, the cow gets behind and under, and gives a boost. If the fledgling recoils from the unsolid air, the mother bird pushes it overboard. That is teaching, of no mean sort." --John Erskine, My Life as a Teacher

Change Is Constant

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." --Charles Darwin

"Tomorrow! It is a period nowhere to be found in all the hoary registers of time, unless per chance in the fool's calendar. Wisdom disclaims the word, nor holds society with those that own it. 'Tis fancy's child and folly is its father; wrought on such stuff as dreams are; and baseless as the fantastic visions of the evening." Visions of Verse, Nathaniel Cotton

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." --Martin Luther King, Jr.

Do You!

“My mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general. If you become a monk, you’ll end up as the Pope.' Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.” -- Pablo Picasso

Oft times in life, our experiences lend more evidence to who we are not versus who we truly are. The Picasso quote above may raise a brow to the you-can-be-whatever-you-want-to-be-mantra, but the truth of the matter is, in being our natural selves -- you can only be you, I can only be me, we can only be us. There may be traits, labels, titles and roles that we embrace in the process of becoming, but we may find consolation in knowing that we are not our experiences. So, in all that you do, pour in a splash of you and inevitably, the truth of you will shine through and through.


success is a Journey.... choose yours!

Pump Your Gas!

"I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them." -- George Bernard Shaw

Business behavior is changing. Remember full-service gas stations? Actually they were called Service Stations because service was all they were about. You (or for many of you reading this, your parents, perhaps) pull into the gas station and before the familiar 'ding ding' signals your arrival, outta nowhere appears a young man wearing a green starched shirt with a red star over the pocket. You roll down your window and instruct him to, "Fill 'er up." He pops your hood to check the oil and fluid levels, whips a tire gauge out of his front pocket to check tire pressure, and before pulling off, your front windshield is cleaned to a squeak (unlike today's 'to a streak'). As gas prices jumped, some stations began offering "self-service" pumps to save on costs or cut overhead and the self-serve gas was priced lower as an enticement for customers. As full-service pumps became more scarce, people made the shift to self-service. Consider the fact that today, many of us never see an attendant at the gas station. Pull up, swipe the card, fill-up and drive off.

What you may not know is that, as a result of the service-station shift, a legal uproar ensued. Lawsuits were filed and legal bans were introduced to save jobs from being cut. As a matter of fact, even today, self-service stations are prohibited in New Jersey and Oregon.

We are halfway through the first month of the ninth year of the first decade of the twenty-first century. Time is flying! And business is changing! The social and economic frontiers before us today present a plethora of unknowns, dark and vast. The question is, "How have you positioned yourself and your families on this Superhighway of Change?" Are you clutching the steering wheel of 'security' with clenched, blood-drained fists cruising at a safe 55 mph? Or maybe you've pulled off the road to allow this convoy of uncertainty to pass until the "good 'ole days" return. Though dark and dreary to some, others see the forthcoming vistas bursting with meadows of opportunity. Is the glass half-empty or half-full? The next time you stop to fuel up, take a long hard look at yourself in the mirror. Look at your loved one in the passenger seats. Look into the eyes of your child in the backseat. And ask yourself, "Why am I waiting, and what am I waiting for?". Whatever your answer, you have to take action. Either by choice... or by default. Because unless we're in New Jersey or Oregon, we gotta get out of our car.... and pump our own gas.



Success is a journey... choose yours!

Welcome to ChoiceJourneys 101!!!

Finally, the next phase in the evolution of ChoiceJourneys. Welcome to ChoiceJourneys 101 , where the roots, cores, and seeds of living life are boiled, mashed and sauteed in a gumbo of essentials to nourish and nurture. We invite each of you to leverage the leadership and wealth of resources blooming in this blog and encourage your personal, professional, and spiritual participation. Let us commune in this journey by sharing posts and submissions for our daily motiquotes (motivational quotes) and embrace the accountability that knowledge commands upon us. Share, care and bear with us on this embarkment and forget not to smile along the way.... (no promises are made that any future blogs will be as eloquent as this one)



Success is a Journey.... Choose yours!