Monday, July 27, 2009

Careful Not to Get Your Pluck Stuck in the Muck




I'm a magnetic personality. So are you.
Maybe we don't always remember how powerful these magnets are. Devil's advocate: let's pretend just for a moment that I don't believe thoughts are magnetic things that draw matching experiences. We'll just say that I have these negative beliefs about the world that don't actually draw to me confirmation of the same. Even so, why carry them around and let them squash my joy? How is this helping me?


If you read me at all, you know I don't choose to believe it's that random. But on the other side of a two week doldrum, I actually had the nerve to be surprised that my negative belief brought someone into my life to confirm that belief exactly! Magnets work. I'd love to be specific in a very *pointed* way, but I can't share the details... in the same way that you can't really blame a person whose life is surrounded and reinforced by what they believe. That person has all the proof they need that the world is flat. They're just repeating exactly what they hear day after day. We all do that at varying times in our lives. Gandhi reminds me: "You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."







Oh what I wouldn't give for an Auntie Mame to waltz into my life (she would always waltz into my life) when I needed it most, and grab me affectionately by the bootstraps (must always remember to wear bootstraps so she has something to grab) and lift me up high above the muck and mire (of accepted conformacy) so I have an unobstructed view. She'd also bring me pink & turquoise cupcakes and have a cat named Zanzibar, and she'd smell like cocoa-vanilla-orange-surprise and wear hats and use words like "hoopla" and "poppycock."


I don't have an Auntie Mame. But what I do have is a set of personal guidelines (those things I tend to go on and on about on this blog) that usually lift me up out of the doldrums.



"Those who really want a thing, work at it until they get it. Pluck makes luck."




"We all see what we want to see. Coffey looks and he sees Russians. He sees hate and fear. You have to look with better eyes than that." ~ from the movie The Abyss




"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself." ~Harvey Fierstein




"Whatever you want in life, other people are going to want it too. Believe in yourself enough to accept the idea that you have an equal right to it." ~ Diane Sawyer




"You have to pick up the mantle. Whatever your mantle is in life, whatever you've been dealt, you have to pick it up and wear it well. Be your authentic self; that's the toughest thing to do." ~Jim Carrey



"The foolish person seeks happiness in the distance, the wise person grows it under his feet." --James Oppenheim


And if all else fails, how about....


"What if we just acted like everything was easy?"
~Mary Anne Radmacher


I bought a magnet that said that this week. So, I'm going with that for now. That and the margarita I plan to drink tonight.


~Shephard :)

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posted by Shephard @
4:53 PM |

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