Tag Archives: Positive Affirmation

The 01/14/13 Joy Jar

13 Jan

Sunshine can mean the warm from the sun or the warmth from the glow of a person or personality. Dictionary.com defines ‘sunshine’ as:

sun·shine

noun

1. the shining of the sun; direct light of the sun.

2. brightness or radiance; cheerfulness or happiness.

3. a source of cheer or happiness.

4. the effect of the sun in lighting and heating a place.

5. a place where the direct rays of the sun fall.

The Urban Dictionary defines ‘sunshine’ as:

Sunshine is a special someone who gives light and warmth in your life. Someone who you want to wake up with just like sunshine and know that that is what gives you life. Someone who is really hot and brightens your day and your life.Good morning sunshine!

However one defines ‘sunshine,’ it makes you feel warm, even on a cold day. Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ is sunshine.

“Some people are so much sunshine to the square inch.”

Walt Whitman

“The sun,–the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man–burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray.”

Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

“As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness — just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder, Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder – Volume One: On Wisdom and Virtues

Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.

James M. Barrie

“Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the shadows.”

Helen Keller

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The 01/13/13 Joy Jar

12 Jan

According to the American Library Association (ALA) “There are an estimated 121,785 libraries of all kinds in the United States today. No single annual survey provides statistics on all types of libraries.” Moi goes to the Seattle Public Library’s central library several times a week. One of the joys of moi’s life is that Seattle has an excellent public library system. It really is a temple of knowledge. Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ is the public library.

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
Jorge Luis Borges

“Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.”
Maya Angelou

“The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man”
T.S. Eliot

“The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.”
Albert Einstein

“Few pleasures, for the true reader, rival the pleasure of browsing unhurriedly among books: old books, new books, library books, other people’s books, one’s own books – it does not matter whose or where. Simply to be among books, glancing at one here, reading a page from one over there, enjoying them all as objects to be touched, looked at, even smelt, is a deep satisfaction. And often, very often, while browsing haphazardly, looking for nothing in particular, you pick up a volume that suddenly excites you, and you know that this one of all the others you must read. Those are great moments – and the books we come across like that are often the most memorable.”
Aidan Chambers

“The love of libraries, like most loves, must be learned. ”
Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night

“The public library is where place and possibility meet.”
Stuart Dybek

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The 01/12/13 Joy Jar

11 Jan

Moi is a ‘bus chick’ and rides the bus all over Seattle. Walking around the urban environment is a cacophony of sights and smells. Sometimes, riding certain bus routes, one can get a whiff and it is not the smell or roses. The Mayo Clinic defines Loss of smell (anosmia):

Loss of smell — anosmia (an-OHZ-me-uh) — can be partial or complete, although a complete loss of smell is fairly rare. Loss of smell can also be temporary or permanent, depending on the cause.

Although loss of smell can sometimes be a symptom of a serious condition, it isn’t necessarily serious itself. Still, an intact sense of smell is necessary to fully taste foods. Loss of smell could cause you to lose interest in eating, which could lead to weight loss, malnutrition or even depression. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/loss-of-smell/MY00408

Still, one would be lost without the sense of smell. Does one really want to give up the smell of warm bread and baking cookies? Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ is the sense of smell.

 

“Each day has a color, a smell.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, The Mistress of Spices

 

“I hope that while so many people are out smelling the flowers, someone is taking the time to plant some.”
Herbert Rappaport

 

Observe, record, tabulate, communicate. Use your five senses. Learn to see, learn to hear, learn to feel, learn to smell, and know that by practice alone you can become expert.
William Osler

Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.
Helen Keller

Keep it simple. Tell the truth. People can smell the truth.
Steve Wynn

 

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The 01/11/13 Joy Jar

10 Jan

Moi walks all over Seattle and she realizes that shouldn’t couldn’t walk all over without her feet. Like many, moi loves shoes and really, what good are shoes if you didn’t have feet to put your shoes on. Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ is that moi is thankful that she has feet.

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.
Theodore Roosevelt

“Yes no yes no yes no?
Red blue?
Yes red, no blue?
No red, yes no?
In out, up down?
Do don’t, can can’t?
Choices sit on the shelf life
New shoes in a shoe shop.
If the in crowd are squeezing into a must-have shoe
And the one pair left are too tiny for you
Don’t feel compelled into choosing them
If you’re really a size 9, buy that size.
While everyone else
Hobbles round with sore feet
Your choices should feel comfortable
Or they aren’t your choices at all.
Why limp when you can sprint?”
David Baird, Fiesta of Happiness: Be True to Yourself

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.
Dr. Seuss

Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
Abraham Lincoln

Your feet will take you to where your heart is.”
Irish Proverb

Authenticity is the alignment of head, mouth, heart, and feet – thinking, saying, feeling, and doing the same thing – consistently. This builds trust, and followers love leaders they can trust.
Lance Secretan

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The 01/10/13 Joy Jar

9 Jan

Have you been in a line at the supermarket and watched the person ahead take forever to get out their wallet or been stuck in traffic with no movement or movement at a glacial rate? What about sitting in a cold doctor’s waiting room, waiting for the doctor to get to you or waiting for a friend to finally show up for coffee? You are always early, they are always late, but still you just want to relish that tinge of superiority because you follow the ‘rules,’ even if those rules are only in your head. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is patience.

“He that can have patience can have what he will.”
Benjamin Franklin

“Patience is power.
Patience is not an absence of action;
rather it is “timing”
it waits on the right time to act,
for the right principles
and in the right way.”
Fulton J. Sheen

“It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself,
than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all
connected with you.”
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”
Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

“Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow – that is patience. The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”
Leo Tolstoy

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”
Aristotle

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The 01/09/13 Joy Jar

8 Jan

Is a sunset art? What about a rainbow? Can a sea shell be art? Dictionary.com attempts to capture the meaning of the term ‘art’ with the following definition:

art

noun

1. the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.

2. the class of objects subject to aesthetic criteria; works of art collectively, as paintings, sculptures, or drawings: a museum of art; an artcollection.  See fine art, commercial art.

3. a field, genre, or category of art: Dance is an art.

4. the fine arts collectively, often excluding architecture: art and architecture.

5. any field using the skills or techniques of art: advertising art; industrial art.

Art, is whatever provokes the soul to a response in awareness of its presence. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is art.

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”
Pablo Picasso

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious – the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.”
Albert Einstein, Albert Einstein

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”
Edgar Degas

“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.”
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn’t matter. I’m not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for.”
Alice Walker

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”
Aristotle

“All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up.”
James Baldwin

“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G.K. Chesterton

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The 01/08/13 Joy Jar

7 Jan

The are sides and parts of each person’s personalty. Each person has a soul and a spirit. Music can affect not only the personalty by bringing out different emotions like calm, relaxation or excitement. Music can touch a soul or collectively, souls. Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ is music.

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent”

Victor Hugo

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.”
Leo Tolstoy, Family Happiness

“The devil, the originator of sorrowful anxieties and restless troubles, flees before the sound of music almost as much as before the Word of God….Music is a gift and grace of God, not an invention of men. Thus it drives out the devil and makes people cheerful. Then one forgets all wrath, impurity, and other devices.”
Martin Luther

“Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul.”
Johann Sebastian Bach

“I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning”
Plato

“Words make you think. Music makes you feel. A song makes you feel a thought.”
Yip Harburg

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The 01/07/13 Joy Jar

6 Jan

Most people want to be on the receiving end of acts of generosity, although a tiny minority may curse the giver. Dictionary.com defines generosity:

gen·er·os·i·ty

noun, plural gen·er·os·i·ties.

1. readiness or liberality in giving.

2. freedom from meanness or smallness of mind or character.

3. a generous act: We thankedhim for his many generosities.

4. largeness or fullness; amplitude.

Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ is generosity.

“Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need. ”
Khalil Gibran

“Give a bowl of rice to a man and you will feed him for a day. Teach him how to grow his own rice and you will save his life.”
Confucius

“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”
John Bunyan

“Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“That’s what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.”
Simone de Beauvoir

“Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.”
G.K. Chesterton

“The wise man does not lay up his own treasures.
The more he gives to others,
the more he has for his own.”
Lao Tzu

New Living Translation (©2007)
Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it!
Hebrews 13:2

“True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the “rejects of life,” to extend their trembling hands. True generosity lies in striving so that these hands–whether of individuals or entire peoples–need be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which work and, working, transform the world.”
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding.”
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

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The 01/06/13 Joy Jar

5 Jan

Like colors, ambition has shades. Dictionary.com defines ambition:

am·bi·tion

noun

1. an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment: Too much ambition caused him to be disliked by his colleagues.

2. the object, state, or result desired or sought after: The crown was his ambition.

3. desire for work or activity; energy: I awoke feeling tired and utterly lacking in ambition.

verb (used with object)

4. to seek after earnestly; aspire to.

Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ is positive ambition.

“The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.”
Maya Angelou

“Too many people out there tell us what we can and cannot do but…they don’t know who we are, what’s put in us.”
Alex Rogers, I’m Only Human After All

“As long as I am breathing, in my eyes, I am just beginning.”
Criss Jami

“The credit belongs to those who are actually in the arena, who strive valiantly; who know the great enthusiasums, the great devotions, and spend themselves in a worthy cause; who at best know the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, if they fail, fail while daring greatly, so that their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt

“There was no more dangerous kind of madman than one who devoted a good brain and a courageous heart to unhealthy ambitions.”
Michael Moorcock, The City In The Autumn Stars: Being A Continuation Of The Story Of The Von Bek Family And Its Association With Lucifer, Prince Of Darkness, And The Cure For The World’s Pain

“Yes the truth is that men’s ambition and their desire to make money are among the most frequent causes of deliberate acts of injustice.”
Aristotle, Politics

“Prayer, faith, and vision, plus real effort too.
Blend them together for one potent brew;
The magical spell to your dreams coming true.  ”
Richelle E. Goodrich

“Find a purpose to serve, not a lifestyle to live.”
Criss Jami, Venus in Arms

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The 01/05/13 Joy Jar

4 Jan

The universe has rhythms and cycles. One of the most famous acknowledgments of the cyclical nature of time is Ecclesiastes 3:1:

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven

Just as each year has distinct seasons, each life also has distinct seasons. Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ deals with the rhythm and flow of life called seasons.

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
Albert Camus

The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success.
Paramahansa Yogananda

A human life has seasons much as the earth has seasons, each time with its own particular beauty and power.  And gift.  By focusing on springtime and summer, we have turned the natural process of life into a process of loss rather than a process of celebration and appreciation.  Life is neither linear nor stagnant.  It is movement from mystery to mystery.  Just as a year includes autumn and winter, life includes death, not as an opposite but as an integral part of the way life is made.                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Rachel Naomi Remen                                                                                                                            

You may not win the Super Bowl. Your kids may not go on to be doctors and lawyers and everything may not go perfectly. That doesn’t mean it was a bad plan or the wrong thing. It’s just like a football season. Everything’s not going to go perfect.
Tony Dungy

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”

Anne Bradstreet (British poet, 1612-1672)

Expect to have hope rekindled.  Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons in life do not last.  The spring rains will come again.

Sarah Ban Breathnach


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