“Our greatest freedom…is the freedom to choose our attitude.”

Viktor Frankl from his book Man’s Search for Meaning

“We tried so hard to make things better for our kids that we made them worse. For my grandchildren, I’d like better.”

Paul Harvey, National Radio Host

“I’d like them to know about hand-me-down clothes, homemade ice cream, and leftover meatloaf sandwiches.

When you learn to use computers, I hope you also learn to do math in your head.

May you skin your knee climbing a mountain, burn your hand on a stove, and stick your tongue on a frozen flagpole.

I hope you make time to sit on a porch with your grandparents and go fishing with your uncle.

If you want a slingshot, I hope your dad teaches you how to make one instead of buying it.

When you want to see a movie and your little sibling wants to tag along, I hope you let them.

On rainy days, I hope you don’t ask to be dropped off two blocks away so you won’t be seen with your uncool mom.

I hope your friends tease you when you have your first crush, and that you learn what ivory soap tastes like when you talk back to your mother.

I don’t care if you try a beer once, but I hope you don’t like it. And if a friend offers you drugs, I hope you realize they’re not your friend.

May you feel sorrow at a funeral and joy during the holidays.

These are the things I wish for you: tough times and disappointment, hard work and happiness. To me, it’s the only way to appreciate life.”

Attributed to Paul Harvey

Who are you, to tell Me…

that you can’t accomplish something?

I’ve been helping people reach their dreams since time began.

I didn’t give you the dream so you could waste it!

God

“Life will continually present us with lessons…until we finally decide to learn from them.”

Paula Steurer, 2024

Adversity is the gift nobody asks for and nobody wants.

It often comes at the worst of times and it doesn’t pay dividends until much later.

We do our best to avoid it, struggle when we are in the midst of it, and are relieved when we get through it.

How we deal with adversity is one of the greatest lessons in life. We can use it to improve ourselves, as an excuse to stay where we are or worse, regress.

We have the power to decide.

Mark DeBellis, 2024

I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet
A pawn and a king
I’ve been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing
Each time I find myself
Flat on my face
I pick myself up and get
Back in the race

From a song made popular by Frank Sinatra

Songwriters: Kelly L. Gordon / Dean Kay

That’s Life lyrics © Universal Polygram Int. Publishing Inc.

The gifts derived from your difficulties.

Persistence and resilience only come from having been given the chance to work through difficult problems.

Gever Tulley

Trees grow stronger because of the wind.

Why, then, do you wonder that good men are shaken in order that they may grow strong?

No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely; the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley.

It is, therefore, to the advantage even of good men, to the end that they may be unafraid, to live constantly amidst alarms and to bear with patience the happenings which are ills to him only who ill supports them.

Seneca, Roman Philosopher (65 A.D.)

A negative mind will never give you a positive life.

Be careful the stories you’re telling yourself about your current circumstances; a head full of negative thoughts has no space for positive ones.

Do not let your negative thoughts have power over you because those thoughts will end up controlling your life.

No one can live a positive life with a negative mind.

We all have negative thoughts now and then, but we can choose not to dwell there and not to let them control us.

Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

“Pain is inevitable.

Suffering is optional.

Healing is possible.”

Mara Adams, Founder of HUGS for Life Healing Center