Ysiad

Wisdom for 2015

Get outside yourself and take action. Focus on the solution. Be at peace.

-       Sioux Saying

If one is courageous, keeps his head high, believes, hopes, and perseveres, things will eventually come out alright.

-       William Saroyan

Perfection is ideal, but it’s not necessary.

-       My friend Joyce, consoling me on holding myself to crazy high standards

Worry is a prayer for what you don’t want.

-       A greeting card in Hong Kong

By believing passionately in something that does not exist we create it.

The nonexistent is what we have not sufficiently desired.

-       Nikos Kazantzakis

Bring virtue to whatever you are doing. Let whatever you are doing become your meditation.

-       Buddha

Love said to me, there is nothing that is not me. Be silent.

-       Hz. Mevlana (Rumi)

There are many people who are scared. They haven’t found the courage. But I decided to stand where the truth is.

-       Halide, an elderly Armenian woman from Elazig, Turkey

Our own evil qualities are killing us. They are the enemies that must be conquered.

-       Bawa Muhaiyaddeen

Aniccha = a Balinese term for “impermanence,” a reminder that all conditions and situations in life are temporary

Ziji = the Tibetan word for the innate, sparkling confidence possessed by all beings

Chuhdesutiun = a single Armenian word that encapsulates how we tend to think that the “grass is greener” everywhere else

Aham shi an-niyyeh // The most important thing is your intention

-       Arabic/Islamic saying, also connotes “If the result is modest please remember that the intention was greater”

The wise person does not allow his ego to create obstacles for his growth.

-       The Bhagavad Gita

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

-       Mahatma Gandhi

Success implores you to economize your energy and remain focused.

-       Rabbi Shoni Labowitz

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must first do with diligence.

-       Samuel Johnson

If you can just let go of the attachment to an outcome, paradoxically, the outcome is better, because you focus on doing your very best work, right in the moment.

-       Michael Dearing

In the end you have to ask: Are we happy living in the world we’ve built?

-       Robert Sutton

If fear knocks, open the door, see it for what it is, decide how long you will visit with it. The quicker you admit your fears the sooner they will leave.

-       A massage therapist in Bali

I take “no” for vitamins…you have to punch through the ‘no’s’ to get to the ‘yeses.’ There’s nothing more important than becoming reasonably comfortable in your own skin. That’s how you get comfortable with the “no.” It’s inside out.

-       My friend John Hope Bryant, coaching me on how to handle and move past rejection, in sales and life

Walk cheerfully over the earth, seeing [or answering] that of God in everyone.

-       Quaker proverb

With malice towards none, with charity towards all.

-       Abraham Lincoln

Be really whole and all things will come to you.

-       Lao Tzu

You have not done enough, you have never done enough, as long as it is still possible that you have something of value to contribute.

This is the answer when you are groaning under what you consider a burden and an uncertainty prolonged ad infinitum.

-       Dag Hammarskjold

Humanity I love you because you

Are perpetually putting the secret of

Life in your pants and forgetting

It’s there and sitting down

On it.

-       E.E. Cummings

Stir up the gift. Fan the flame.

-       2 Timothy 1:16