Making Choices Is Your Greatest Power

"While your character is formed by your circumstances,
your desires can shape those circumstances.
The one thing over which you have absolute control is your own thoughts.
It is this that puts you in a position to control your own destiny.

Nature is constantly at work around you.
Character and destiny are her handiwork.
She gives you love and hate, jealousy and reverence.
You have the power to choose which impulse you follow.

At any time you can decide to alter the course of your life.
No one can ever take that away from you.
You can do what you want to do and be who you want to be.

Your greatest power is the power to choose."

 

- Anonymous

How Just Seven Dollars Changed My Mother's Life

 

As long as I can remember, my Mom always prayed for everyone, especially children.

In fact, whenever she'd see a child, she would take out her rosary beads and say a prayer, right there, at that moment, wherever she was, asking the accompanying parent if it was okay for her to bless their child.

"Of course," they'd say.

Then, every Monday-Friday, she attended the Senior Center in Irondequoit, New York; and that cost her about $6.00 a day - a price that included lunch and service for the van (that picked her up and took her home).

Thirty bucks a week for a senior's regular activities?

Not bad.

At this simple-treasured Center, she also played cards, went on picnics, and played bingo

She especially loved the bingo.

A whole lot.

I never realized how much really.

Until, one day, when I started giving her "extra" quarters with which to play the game. Not a lot of quarters. Just seven dollars.

Not ten.

Not nine.

But seven.

Every other day, I’d walk into her apartment, and interrupt her daily viewing of Seinfeld or The Golden Girls, walk over to her, kiss her, and ask her to open up her hand.

At that moment, I’d pour out the seven dollars in quarters, twenty-eigh in all.

As I did this, her reaction was one of astonishment.

She’d look at me as if she won the lottery or the mega-jackpot in Vegas.

"Oh, Herbie J," she'd say with so much joy, "...what a great son you are! I have to pay you back! I have to pay you back!!"

"Ma," I’d reply, "You just go have fun at the Center."

And she did, all the more...with that mere extra seven dollars.

Not a million.

Not a thousand.

Not even ten.

But seven.

Seven.

Blessing Babies

As some of you may know, my Mom died of dementia in May 2008.

One of her many endearments was that she used to bless everyone with her rosary, including me, especially after each visit to her home.  And she would do this before and after she was diagnosed with dementia.

I would walk outside to my car, I'd turn - and there'd she be, standing at her front window, with her rosary in hand, blessing me with the sign of the cross.

That said, the newspaper from my hometown of Rochester, New York publishes an annual baby announcement supplement with photos of all the infants born to the area in the previous year.

I remember walking into my Mom's apartment on the day the supplement was published, a few months before she went to Heaven. 

She was sitting on her sofa, with the supplement on her lap. Her left hand was holding steady the supplement; her right hand was holding her rosary, the crucifix from which she was using to tap the photo of each infant.

When I asked her what she was doing, she replied, "Blessing babies."

We should all have such dementia...or at least be graced enough to be "blessed" - at any age - by one who does.

 

The Truth About Whole Grains

"Whoever suggested avoiding grains for weight loss? I suggest avoiding grains to stop LIFE loss! Modern grains and the rubbish made with them along with the insidious inclusion of gluten in virtually all processed "foods" is rapidly killing us. Ever since the eat less fat eat more whole grains lie was foisted on us the world's health has declined. Be aware that gluten free substitutes are often no better and full of weird things to try to emulate what they are replacing. Just do without it and let your palate reeducate itself to propper food. Food that our great great grandmothers would recognize."

 

- Alan R. Low.

Crew-Necks Don't Do It For Me

I'm a pretty free-spirited guy.

I don't like any confinements.

And that includes the way I wear my hair and the clothes I wear.

I'm a medium, but I like to buy and live large.

And I ain't that crazy about crewcuts for my head or crewnecks for my neck.  But I totally gel in my hair and v-neck sweaters, casual shirts or just plain tee-shirts.

V-necks, to me, represent my carefree spirit...and they help loosen, if figuratively, the ties that bind.  And I definitely don't mean the ties that go along with button-down dress-linnen shirts.

I'm referring to the metaphorical ties that bind...

Anything that is binding, whether it's a crewneck tee-shirt or a suffocating relationship - none of it is healthy.

For the mind, the body or the soul.

So, let go of those ties that bind, even the kind that do in fact come with those button-down dress-linnen shirts.

"Love IS All Around"

Remember the theme song for The Mary Tyler Moore Show?

Well, “Love IS all around,” when you least expect it, or think it isn’t, even in the midst of the most challenging of situations - in what may sometimes be viewed as a broken world.

But fear not – because Love can fix things - a lot of things.

Years ago, when I was in high-school, like many of us, I dealt with the daily struggles of being a teen; the various peer-pressures, making the grades, etc.

I was a popular kid, but bullied by the less popular.  I was cute and talented; I could sing and dance and act, while my most of my classmates played sports.  I was always athletic but, for whatever reasons, lacked confidence in that field.  I had the ability to play soccer; I was an excellent swimmer, I enjoyed tennis, and at one point, I could have easily trained as a boxer (my high-school was one of the few that presented boxing as a competitive sport).  But I never pursued any of it.

So, from the get-go, my adolescence was a tough road.

Fortunately, on the home front, there was also a lot of Love to help buffer it all.  I’d leave school and  be greeted at home by my beautiful Mom and Dad, or my Aunt Mary who lived with us; my Aunt Elva and Uncle, who lived next door – or at the homes of the many members of my extended family.  In each case, Love was waiting for me at all times, in a circumference of a 2-mile radius of my house.

Today, it’s a different path.  The elder members of my family are gone, and my cousins are spread around the country.  So, Love is not that easily observable, except for from a few close friends. 

I had dedicated my prime years to caring for my parents, and establishing my career.  It took me a little longer than most to attain financial security, mostly due to my creative pursuits.  I've met and dated many wonderful women over the years, and it's just never been the right time. But I’m now ready to take my life to the next level; to find romantic love, and start a family…even at this stage in the game (I‘m 52; my Dad was 50 when I was born). 

I knew that in caring for my parents, Love, in any of its forms, from Heaven or on Earth, would not abandon me.  And it hasn’t.

A very good friend recently helped me to understand it all:

When I was young, as when we are all young, we are given a model of Love.  It takes the form of our parents or close relatives, or any of those who are closest to us in our formative years.

And when we become the adults…we become the models of Love that others look up to and emulate.  We are not only embraced by Love, but we become fullly aware that we have always been Love itself.

“Love IS" not only "all around,” but it's inside us - and it always has been – and it always will be.

Each time we feel it, share it and give it away.

"I Choose" - by Anonymous

"I Choose...
to live by choice, not by chance;
to make changes, not excuses;
to be motivated; not manipulated;
to be useful, not used;
to excel; not compete.
I choose self-esteem, not self-pity.
I choose to listen to my inner voice,
not the random opinions of others."

- Anonymous