“Without struggle there is no progress.”

Mike Tyson, six time heavyweight championship

Hundreds of young trees were planted along a street. Fifty years later they were removed. One stood out from the rest.

The highway had to be widened, which meant the beautiful trees lining the highway had to be removed.

In preparation, the supervisor walked the length of the project with his crew and pointed out how each of the trees were going to be trimmed, cut and then removed. He also discussed growth patterns and health issues with his team to educate them.

Many of the trees looked in very good shape. They stood tall with enviable stature, perfectly trimmed limbs and glistening leaves. It’s a shame that had to be removed.

They came upon one tree that was distinctly different from the others. “This one looks terrible,” said a worker. The rest agreed.

The supervisor spoke up, “Just like the other trees, this is a 50 year-old oak tree. It’s one of the mightiest trees in nature. As I look at this tree I can see the difference between this tree and the others, can you?”

“Of course, they are all the same age. But note the differences,” he said as he began to list them:

“The heavy lines you see about 18 inches apart on that one limb are from the tire swing that the kids hung on the tree. That family had 6 kids and then 8 grandchildren that used that swing over a 35 year period.”

“The pockmarking you see on the bark on the main trunk, is from the kids using the tree as a backstop for their neighborhood baseball games. They played here every weekend for years. The entire neighborhood joined in.”

“The broken limbs near the main trunk were a result of the owners removing the tree house that the family built for the neighborhood to enjoy. It finally came down after 20 years.”

“All those little wires you see up there are from the Christmas lights they hang up every year to signal that this house will be accepting Christmas donations for the needy families in the community.”

The crew was silent.

“When we cut all these trees down, you’ll notice that they all will have about the same number of rings in their trunks, meaning they are all about the same age. Once the wood is corded and cut to size you won’t notice much difference between what remains of any of the trees.”

“However, you CAN tell the quality of its life by looking at it from the outside and asking yourself, ‘How did it contribute to those in its immediate community and beyond?'”

“It’s pretty clear,” he said. “This tree was loved by everyone…because it loved them.”

Mark DeBellis 2024, Inspired by Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

Khalil Gibran

You can’t see the final result by looking at each ingredient separately.

What might life and baking a cake have in common?

Baking a cake requires many different ingredients: Flour, sugar, vanilla, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and butter/shortening. Some ingredients are sweet and some are bitter. Some ingredients we may even wonder why they are part of the recipe!

Every ingredient in the cake plays a role to deliver the end result – a baked cake worthy of sharing with your friends and family. If you were to separately taste each of the ingredients that go into creating a cake, you might never believe that the finished product would taste as good as it does. But once the ingredients are mixed together, in the proper quantities, something magical happens.

Life requires many different ingredients too: Family, friends, a job, where you live, your car, your hobbies, your faith, your mistakes, failures, successes, hopes and dreams. You get the idea.

Some of these ingredients are bitter. Some are sweet. Some are bittersweet. But they are all important to live a complete and well-rounded life.

If you have a life that is too sweet, you can become soft and lazy. If you get nothing sweet from your life now and then, you can become bitter and angry.

It helps to remember that when you are going through life, both the bitter periods and the sweet periods in just the right amounts, might be what you need to result in the most fulfilling and complete life.

And nothing could be sweeter.

Mark DeBellis, 2024

The wonderful life lessons from legendary coach John Wooden as told by Bill Walton:

Live by “two sets of three:”

• Don’t Lie
• Don’t Cheat
• Don’t Steal

And:

• Don’t Whine
• Don’t Complain
• Don’t Make Excuses

Wooden was a lover of the English language and many maxims were attributed to him, such as:

“Be Quick…But Don’t Hurry (To me that means to get to work doing what you are planning to do, but take your time so you do it right!)

“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail”

“Happiness begins when selfishness ends.”

“Never mistake activity for achievement.”

“When everyone thinks alike, nobody thinks.”

“It’s OK to disagree, just don’t be disagreeable”

And most importantly, “The worst thing we can do for the ones we love, is to do the things they should have done for themselves.

“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