No One Is You

No one is you and that is your power.

—  Dave Grohl

Count your joys instead of your woes. Count your friends instead of your foes. ~Irish Proverb

Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still. ~Chinese Proverb

A speaker of truth has no friends. ~African proverb

When A Child Is Punished

When a child is punished for their honesty, they begin to lie.

Sometimes Blood Isn’t Thicker

Sometimes blood isn’t thicker than water. Family isn’t about being blood, family is about people who are there for through thick and thin. People who got your back no matter what. That’s family.

A Story From My Mother That Changed How I Look At Life

My mom hasn't always been the the role model but its not like she's the worst person ever. She called me downstairs to talk with me about my future and tells me to start looking into colleges, which isn't anything out of the ordinary so I brush it off non-nonchalantly. 

But then she says something I wasn't expecting. "When you make it somewhere in life, make sure to try and give back to people in need." It came out of nowhere and didn't really get why she said that. Then she told me the story behind why she said that.

I have a god-mother who is always been close to the family, and her cousin(who we are also close to) came by to visit our family with this at about midnight last night. She has a daughter and I'm pretty sure is a single mother. Anyways, she found out that she has lupus after collapsing on the ground and going into a coma for a few days. She was put into a local hospital and treated for a week. While in there, her costs went over $5,000 and would end up totaling over $43,000 in all. Due to other circumstances, she isn't able to get help from the government either. And out of nowhere, a man came in one day, said he would pay it off. He paid off a total of $43,000 dollars and will be paying for the rest of her treatment until she gets better, then will be hosting a party in her honor. After getting out of the hospital, she met the man and found out he is one of the highest paid and most known players on our local NFL team. If a man like this can change a persons whole life with just a swipe of a card, then I want to at least be able to repay the favor in some way or another. It may not be for him, but one day I want to go out and help someone like this in hopes others pass it along the same way that I did. He is an inspiration to me now and I hope this story reaches headlines about how there really is good left in humanity.

Good Things Come

Good things come to those who work hard, while others are whining.

Be Determined.

So long as the man with ambition is a failure, the world will tell him to let go of his ideal; but when his ambition is realized, the world will praise him for the persistence and the determination that he manifested during his dark hours, and everybody will point to his life as an example for coming generations. This is invariably the rule. Therefore pay no attention to what the world says when you are down. Be determined to get up, to reach the highest goal you have in view, and you will.

~Christian D. Larson

Defeat is for the brave!

I won't tell you that defeat is a part of life. I won't tell you that there are people who have never been defeated.They are the ones who never fought. They managed to avoid scars. I will tell you this: Defeat is for the brave! The one who falls and gets up is so much stronger than the one who never fell.

by Mr. Never give up

Worry about your character, not your reputation.

Worry about your character, not your reputation. Your character is who you are. Your reputation is who people think you are. ~John Wooden

Just be Strong.

Whatever life gives you, even if it hurts, just be strong and act like you're okay. Strong walls shake, but never collapse. ~unknown

Don't get upset with people and situations, they are powerless without your reaction.

I knew I matured when I realized every situation doesn't need a reaction.

#Negativity

An entire sea of water can't sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship. Similarly, the negativity of the world can't put you down unless you allow it to get inside you. ~unknown

Try not to feel jealous about things, or people or places. It's toxic. Just keep living. You will find your happiness.

Take a leap of faith and jump in to your passion.

If you’re doing what you love, everything in the universe will gravitate towards you. This is how the world works. Don’t waste time impressing others or doing something that doesn’t feed your soul. Take a leap of faith and jump in to your passion. ~unknown

You don’t have to be pretty like her. You can be pretty like you.

I always think of you.

I have to be honest with you. I think about you a lot. All the time, actually. In the morning, at night, in the middle of my day. It’s you. It’s just always you.

We only get one life, and right here, right now, I choose to live it with you.

Someone will fall in love with you.

Someone will fall in love with you, all of you, from your flaws to your scars someone will and they will love you and know how you look when you’re tired, happy, sad and angry. They’ll know what you like, what you coffee order is, your favourite sweet, your favourite drink. They will fall in love with you as a whole and maybe you haven’t met them yet but they are out there wondering what you’re like and you’ll meet them, I promise. 

Author  : unknown

I really love you

Have you ever just looked at someone and thought, “I really love you”. They’re just talking or humming or watching a movie or reading a book or laughing or something, and there’s something about them in that moment—their body is alive, there’s a light in their eyes, something—that makes you think, “I just really love you.”

~Unknown 

I fell in love with him.

I fell in love with him. But I don’t just stay with him by default as if there’s no one else available to me. I stay with him because I choose to, every day that I wake up, every day that we fight or lie to each other or disappoint each other. I choose him over and over again, and he chooses me. ~Veronica Roth ( Allegiant)

Only One Who Has Known

Only one who has known how troubled life can be, has a real appreciation of it when it is good.

—  Ludwig Bemelmans

"When You Say Nothing At All" by Ronan Keating

It's amazing how you can speak right to my heart
Without saying a word, you can light up the dark
Try as I may I could never explain
What I hear when you don't say a thing

The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes saying you'll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me whenever I fall
You say it best.. when you say nothing at all

All day long I can hear people talking out loud
But when you hold me near, you drown out the crowd (the crowd)
Try as they may they can never define
What's been said between your heart and mine

The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes saying you'll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me whenever I fall
You say it best.. when you say nothing at all

The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes saying you'll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me whenever I fall
You say it best.. when you say nothing at all

(You say it best when you say nothing at all
You say it best when you say nothing at all..)

The smile on your face
The truth in your eyes
The touch of your hand
Let's me know that you need me..

Do Not Awaken

Do not awaken galaxies inside of someone if you are not even fond of stars.

—  Lucy Quin

Because The Fact Is

Because the fact is that saying and doing are two completely different things. You said you cared but I showed it.

It Is Not A Lack Of Love

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

—  Friedrich Nietzsche

Don’t Be Afraid

Here we are, afraid of losing what we have all the time, holding on to it so tight that not a soul can touch it. We think by hiding it from the world, it’s hidden and it’s ours. Nothing is. Nothing ever will be. For, nothing ever was.

If you think there is anything that you have, that’s yours, be it money, a house, a job, or a girlfriend… it’s nothing but an illusion. It’ll all disappear… in one blow. One blow, my man.

Here we are, so insecure that we are afraid of re-starting our lives, so we just carry on trying to sort out the current mess. The thought that we should give it all up and just start all over – with nothing – might cross our minds some time, sure, but we get scared and we push away anything that scares us.

There is nothing I can ever achieve or gain that I cannot lose, in a matter of seconds. You have never gained enough to not be able to lose it all, in just a few minutes. What you think is yours, was never yours and will never be yours. Whatever you make here, you leave here. You came naked and you’re going to go back naked.

So what are you afraid of?

Let all be lost. Let them take away everything. As long as you have your heart beating strong, as long as you have your nostrils working fine, as long as the blood flows in your veins, you will live, you will breathe and you can get it all back… again and again. For, if you can do it once, you can damn well do it again. It’s just a game we play – Life.

By Rohit Wadhwaney

But If There Is Someone

But if there is someone in this world that will miss you when you go then you’re doing something good.

—  House Of Hippies

Don’t Throw Away

Don’t throw away a whole life just because it’s banged up a little.

—  Dir. Gary Ross

The Smell of Rain

A cold March wind danced around the dead of night in Dallas as the Doctor walked into the small hospital room of Diana Blessing. Still groggy from surgery, her husband David held her hand as they braced themselves for the latest news. 

That afternoon of March 10,1991, complications had forced Diana, only 24 weeks pregnant, to Danae Lu Blessing.

At 12 inches long and weighing only one pound and nine ounces, they already knew she was perilously premature. Still, the doctor’s soft words dropped like bombs. I don’t think she’s going to make it, he said, as kindly as he could. “There’s only a 10 percent chance she will live through the night, and even then, if by some slim chance she does make it, her future could be a very cruel one.” Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the doctor described the devastating problems Danae would likely face if she survived. She would never walk, she would never talk, she would probably be blind, and she would certainly be prone to other catastrophic conditions from cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation, and on and on. “No! No!” was all Diana could say. She and David, with their 5-year-old son Dustin, had long dreamed of the day they would have a daughter to become a family of four. Now, within a matter of hours, that dream was slipping away.

Through the dark hours of morning as Danae held onto life by the thinnest thread, Diana slipped in and out of sleep, growing more and more determined that their tiny daughter would live, and live to be a healthy, happy young girl. But David, fully awake and listening to additional dire details of their daughter’s chances of ever leaving the hospital alive, much less healthy, knew he must confront his wife with the inevitable. David walked in and said that we needed to talk about making funeral arrangements. Diana remembers, ‘I felt so bad for him because he was doing everything, trying to include me in what was going on, but I just wouldn’t listen, I couldn’t listen. I said, “No, that is not going to happen, no way! I don’t care what the doctors say; Danae is not going to die! One day she will be just fine, and she will be coming home with us!”

As if willed to live by Diana’s determination, Danae clung to life hour after hour, with the help of every medical machine and marvel her miniature body could endure. But as those first days passed, a new agony set in for David and Diana. Because Danae’s under-developed nervous system was essentially raw, the lightest kiss or caress only intensified her discomfort, so they couldn’t even cradle their tiny baby girl against their chests to offer the strength of their love. All they could do, as Danae struggled alone beneath the ultraviolet light in the tangle of tubes and wires, was to pray that God would stay close to their precious little girl. There was never a moment when Danae suddenly grew stronger.

But as the weeks went by, she did slowly gain an ounce of weight here and an ounce of strength there. At last, when Danae turned two months old, her parents were able to hold her in their arms for the very first time. And two months later-though doctors continued to gently but grimly warn that her chances of surviving, much less living any kind of normal life, were next to zero. Danae went home from the hospital, just as her mother had predicted.

Today, five years later, Danae is a petite but feisty young girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for life. She shows no signs, what so ever, of any mental or physical impairment. Simply, she is everything a little girl can be and more-but that happy ending is far from the end of her story.

One blistering afternoon in the summer of 1996 near her home in Irving, Texas, Danae was sitting in her mother’s lap in the bleachers of a local ballpark where her brother Dustin’s baseball team was practicing. As always, Danae was chattering non-stop with her mother and several other adults sitting nearby when she suddenly fell silent. Hugging her arms across her chest, Danae asked, “Do you smell that?” Smelling the air and detecting the approach of a thunderstorm, Diana replied, “Yes, it smells like rain.” Danae closed her eyes and again asked, “Do you smell that?” Once again, her mother replied, “Yes, I think we’re about to get wet, it smells like rain. Still caught in the moment, Danae shook her head, patted her thin shoulders with her small hands and loudly announced, “No, it smells like Him. It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest.” Tears blurred Diana’s eyes as Danae then happily hopped down to play with the other children.

Before the rains came, her daughter’s words confirmed what Diana and all the members of the extended Blessing family had known, at least in their hearts, all along. During those long days and nights of her first two months of her life, when her nerves were too sensitive for them to touch her, God was holding Danae on His chest and it is His loving scent that she remembers so well.

This is a real story.

The Person Who Tries

The person who tries to keep everyone happy often ends up feeling the loneliest..

Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.

Go outside and get some sunshine.

If you have time to whine and complain about something then you have the time to do something about it.

A Thousand Marbles

The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it's the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. 

Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable. A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the kitchen with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as atypical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time.

Let me tell you about it. I turned the volume up on my radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning talk show. I heard an older sounding chap with a golden voice. You know the kind, he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business himself. He was talking about "a thousand marbles" to someone named "Tom". I was intrigued and sat down to listen to what he had to say.

"Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure they pay you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. Too bad you missed your daughter's dance recital." He continued, "Let me tell you something Tom, something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities." And that's when he began to explain his theory of a "thousand marbles."

"You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years."

"Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900 which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. Now stick with me Tom, I'm getting to the important part." "It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail", he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy." "So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round-up 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside of a large, clear plastic container right here in my workshop next to the radio. Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away." "I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight."

"Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time."

"It was nice to talk to you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your loved ones, and I hope to meet you again someday. Have a good morning!" You could have heard a pin drop when he finished. Even the show's moderator didn't have anything to say for a few moments. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to do some work that morning, then go to the gym. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss.

"C'mon honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast." "What brought this on?" she asked with a smile. "Oh, nothing special, it's just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. Hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles."

-- Author Unknown

Fall In Love With Someone

Fall in love with someone who’s comfortable with your silence. Find someone who doesn’t need your words to know it’s time to kiss you.

—  Clairabelle Ann

Never take for granted.

Never forget where you've been. Never lose sight of where you're going. And never take for granted the people who travel the journey with you. ~Susan Gale

The best kind of relationship

The best kind of relationship in the world is the one in which a sorry and a smile can make everything back to normal again. ~unknown

Family isn't always blood.

Family isn't always blood. It's the people in your life who want you in theirs. The one's who accept you for who you are. The one's who would do anything to just see you smile and who love you no matter what. ~unknown

Missing you is my hobby, caring for you is my job, making you happy is my duty and loving you is my life.

Dear Self

Dear Self: It’s a shame how hard you are on yourself. You treat others with more love than you treat you. You deserve to be celebrated too.

—  Reyna Biddy

It's you who tells people what your worth is.

If you aren't being treated with love and respect, check your price tag. Maybe you've marked yourself down. It's you who tells people what your worth is. Get off of the clearance rack and get behind the glass where they keep the valuables. ~unknown

Life is about trusting yourself.

Life is about trusting yourself and your feelings. Not being afraid to take chances. It’s about losing and finding special people and learning to value all the memories you have, good or bad. Learning from the mistakes you make and accepting that certain people in your life will change. ~unknown

You can’t really begin to appreciate life until it has knocked you down a few times.

You can’t really begin to appreciate life until it has knocked you down a few times. You can’t really begin to appreciate love until your heart has been broken. And you can’t really begin to appreciate happiness until you’ve known sadness. Once you’ve walked through these valleys, the view from the mountaintop is breathtaking. ~Susan Gale

Stop breaking your own heart.

Stop trying to change someone who doesn’t want to change. Stop giving chances to someone who abuses your forgiveness. Stop walking back to the place where your heart ran from. Stop trusting their words and ignoring their actions. Stop breaking your own heart. ~Unknown

If someone is stupid enough to walk away from you, be smart enough to let them go.

A day spent with friends is always a day well spent.