10 Inspiring Hump Day Quotes

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I don’t know how your week is going, but I am feeling some pressure while being out of town. When my stress goes up, quotes tend to recenter and refocus me. I love when wisdom is powerfully dispelled in smallish chunks that I can remember and ruminate on. Here are some quotes that spoke to my soul tonight!

  1. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. ~Maya Angelou
  2. Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence. ~Vince Lombardi
  3. Do or do not. There is no try. ~Yoda
  4. I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. ~Michael Jordan
  5. Change your thoughts and you change your world. ~Norman Vincent Peale
  6. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. ~ Dalai Lama
  7. I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear. ~Rosa Parks
  8. If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. ~Booker T. Washington
  9. “Always be a first-rate version of yourself instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.” ~Judy Garland
  10.  Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. ~Jesus

My Tuesday Tweets

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Tuesday is my day to refocus, recharge, and realign. That focus tends to open up a window in my soul. Today these were the thoughts knocking about in my heart:

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A generous spirit doesn’t keep score on who deserves generosity.

 

Freedom happens when your desire for connectedness becomes greater than your desire for correctness.

 

Critics will always be there…focus on the creator not the critic and you’ll find your life.

 

The best destinations have the hardest route…go anyway! #itsworththeeffort

 

 

 

Generating Good

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Generosity is a brilliant word and a powerful concept. Kahlil Gibran states , “Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.” That is worthy of pondering for a bit.

From this word we understand other things better, like, generate, generator, generative.

Generosity generates something…
It creates something…
From nothing, generosity breathes life and regenerates something beautiful.

However, generosity is not simply about money and wealth. It is a lifestyle that is always humming with creative goodness that brings light to dark places, food to starving spaces and beauty to desolate places.

Steve Goodier sums up the scope well:

“Money is not the only commodity that is fun to give. We can give time, we can give our expertise, we can give our love or simply give a smile. What does that cost? The point is, none of us can ever run out of something worthwhile to give.”

Generosity also has the power to free us from a myopic life of self-everthing. Self-service, selfishness, self-reliance, self-worship. The worship of self has run across the borders of narcissism in our culture, and generosity has the ability to heal us of this most pernicious disease. The Buddha noted:

“Conquer the angry one by not getting angry; conquer the wicked by goodness; conquer the stingy by generosity, and the liar by speaking the truth.”

The following video is a commercial from Thailand…it reveals the power that a little generosity has to make the lives of others better, and when you do that you cannot escape the personal benefit generosity re-infuses into your own life.

That video causes an unsolicited smile to form on my lips…

Being generous feels good and the scientific stats reveal that generous people are healthier, happy and live longer lives that are worth living.

The Bible has scads of passages about generosity, here are a few to help you pray and invite a spirit of generosity into your life:

A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.
Proverbs 11:25

Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.  2 Corinthians 9:7

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.  Luke 6:38 

Good will come to those who are generous and lend freely, who conduct their affairs with justice. Psalm 112:5

For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.  2 Corinthians 8:12

Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.  Luke 6:30

May you realize just how rich you really are and find yourself coming alive as you become a generous soul that gives especially when there is no chance of repayment.