This last thought of the year is in the nature of a New Year’s resolution- Strive for a Balanced Life.

Financial /Work. The only hope for financial security is work. Lucky I love it. Key is save money annually. Take advantage of  tax laws; place maximum amount in retirement account. Eliminate  debt.

Family / Social. Spend time with family. On deathbed will not think “damn I wish I had spent more time at office.”  Social life too. Have own time. Golf with guys.

Health/Physical. Practice zen habits. Eat right, breakfast everyday, dinner before seven, no junk (or not much). Regular work out: nordic-trac, weights, yoga, tai-chi, biking, walk and carry golf bag.

Spiritual/Mental. To each his own, but there is something beyond, not old angry man in sky. Get to level of relating with universal force. Live in present, appreciate life, life and death become one, leave world a better place.

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It is true that so far as material wealth gives time for ideal ends and exercise to ideal energies, wealth is fine. But material wealth does this only in some cases. Often the desire to gain wealth and the fear of losing it are chief breeders of cowardice and propagators of corruption. There are all to many cases where the wealthy person must be a slave, while the person who strives not for material wealth is a free person.

Think of the strength which personal indifference to material things gives a person who is devoted to unpopular causes. He need no longer hold his tongue or fear to support an unpopular cause. His stock might fall, his hope of promotion vanish, his salary stagnate, his club door close, but he is free to be true to his spirit, and his example ultimately makes the world a better place.

Wealth when put in perspective and not sought as a goal in itself is fine so long as our real feelings and beliefs, rooted in our own nature, and in what we know is right, are matched with our actions without inhibition.

William James and Constantin Stanislavski

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Pessimism is often wrong because people assume a world where there is no change or innovation.

They simply extrapolate from what is going on today.

They fail to recognize the new developments and insights that will alter current trends.

Bill Gates

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Thinks just happen in the right way, at the right time. At least they do when you let them, when you work with circumstances instead of saying, “This isn’t supposed to be happening this way,” and trying hard to make it happen some other way. If you’re in tune with The Way Thinks Work, then they work the way they need to, no matter what you may think about it at the time. Later on you can look back and say, “Oh now I understand. That had to happen … for this to happen….” Then you realize that even if you’d tried to make it all turn out perfectly, you couldn’t have done better, and if you’d really tried, you would have made a mess of the whole thing.

Benjamin Hoff, The Tao Of Pooh

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My thought of the week is a Thanksgiving thought taking its inception from Phoneix where I recently visited.

Myth. In Egyptian, Greek, and Roman mythology there is a bird called “Phoneix” that lives for 500 hundred years, goes down in flames and is reborn from its ashes.

City. The Pueblo Indians built an ancient city where Phoneix is located but lack of water lead to its demise. In 1867 Jack Swilling saw the beauty and promise of this great land and through irrigation built a new settlement.  On the name, Darrell Duppa said “[a] new city will spring  phoneix-like upon the ruins of a former civilization.”

Thanksgiving. While I could say I am thankful for the great winter golf in the Phoneix area, on deeper thought I am thankful for the ebb and flow of life, for the yin and yang, for the hard times and the good times. This may sound strange saying I am thankful for the hard, difficult and tough but I am.

The hard, difficult and tough make us strong. It is from defeat that we learn. It is the hard, difficult and tough that allow us to appreciate success and good times. All successful people have experienced failure. Like the phoneix bird they rise from the ashes to become stronger and better. Like the City of Phoneix they build again on their foundation to live at a higher level.

Like the phoneix bird I am thankful for the opportunity to learn from failure. I am thankful for the opportuniry to rise again. I am thankful for the growth that comes through this process, I am thankful for life.

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Accept who you are, trust the gifts you have, and relax your body and mind.

Be prepared to accept defeat or failure. Forget anxiety, pride and ego.

Empty yourself, trust yourself, and allow your natural ability to flow.

Then and then only without fear of failure you will be able to succeed.

Master Cheng Man-Ch’ing

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No one who is unwilling to try non-resistance can tell whether it will succeed.

When non-resistance does succeed it is far more powerful than force.

Force destroys enemies.

But non-resistance, when successful, turns enemies into friends.

William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, (edited by PAT)

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Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be,

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud,

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

(William Ernest Henley 1849-1903)(written from hospital bed after amputation of leg)

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The reason most people  never reach their goals is that they don’t define them,

Or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable.

Winners can tell you where they are going,

What they plan to do along the way,

And who will be sharing the adventure with them.

Dennis Watley

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