Why do we start paying so much attention to things like wrinkles and nose lengths and freckles and blemishes and all our perceived imperfections? Why do we look so closely at the so-called blemishes that we miss the beauty that surrounds the “blemish” entirely?

Have you ever wished you had done things differently? Or wished someone else hadn’t done what they did? Have you ever longed to go back and repeat something from your past so you could go a different way, choose a different path, change your mind, do over the thing you did or was done to you?

There is a startling power contained in the seed of Decision. When unleashed, it can be used to build an amazing life of purpose, passion and meaning, to realize a dream, end a bad habit, start a good one, influence people, improve relationships, develop a talent, learn a skill, add joy and happiness to the rush of living.

You are limited only by the limits you place on your imagination. But once you open the door to any possibility, you free yourself of self-imposed confines and restrictions.

The truth of the matter is that the mind records all it experiences. Add sharp emotion to the experience, and you have a recipe for an elephant-like memory of the nitty gritty. So can forgetting the acts of others against us truly be forgotten? Not likely. So what could the admonition to forgive and forget really mean then?

It’s my birthday today and was going to post another installment of “Things you don’t know about me” when I decided on a whim to share my personal happiness story with you instead. Here are 22 reasons I’m happy.

“Every moment is a fresh beginning.” ~T.S. Eliot Are you on a path that does Read More.

Failure is inevitable for anyone willing to chase bold and hairy dreams. It is the universe correcting our misuse of energy. It is one way we learn there is a better way to allocate our personal assets and resources.

Today is a blank canvas waiting for you to paint your personal masterpiece onto it. It is your unfinished Sistine Chapel, your David and Mona Lisa. This very day is waiting to be fashioned and formed into something beautiful, breathtaking and sublime.

Hope is the light that glimmers in the dark of the unknown. It is the flicker of possibility in the murky depths of the impossible. It is the reason we kneel in prayer and work to improve our lives and volunteer to help others. It is why we wake up and move forward and dream of better days.

Why do some people get crushed by difficulty, like so many boulders smashing the life and kindness right out of them? Why do they turn bitter and sour and hateful, while others rise to the occasion and come out better than before?

Instead of trying to cram the messy abundance of life into neat little packaged moments of perfection, learn to laugh at the unpredictable and smile at the inopportune.

I remember hearing a story of a pig who thought he was a man. The other barn animals laughed him to scorn, held up pictures and diagrams to demonstrate quite clearly, and beyond refute, that the pig was indeed just a pig. Then the pig walked out of the barn, shook his head in disbelief, and drove off in his red convertible.

People will disappoint you. Be happy anyway. Life will throw you off your plans. Be happy anyway. Others will lie and lead you astray. Be happy anyway.

Why do we wait for anniversaries to celebrate marriage? Why do we wait for birthdays to celebrate births? And why do we wait for funerals to celebrate life? Why wait for the day of the event or the end of a life to celebrate what we could be celebrating daily?

Has life been one unbearable trial after another? Have you been beaten up and chewed up and spit out by a history that has left you maimed, scarred and bloodied? Have you ever considered that the very pain of life has fertilized the soil of your heart to yield fruit it could have produced in no other way?

Life is a journey, a challenge to be mastered, but more importantly, to be learned from. But lessons, and the growth they promote, don’t come to us by taking the easy path. Downhill is still downhill. It takes you to the bottom. Paths of least resistance have always been attractive … until you get to where such paths take us.

We are all different, doing different things, living different lives, coming to this point in time, right now as you read these words from different trajectories with different backgrounds and circumstances. So why do we think we all need to do the same things, look the same way, act like everyone else and live the same lives? The obvious answer is that we don’t!

Today is a wholly new day unlike any previous set of 24 hours. This day will never reoccur. It will never return. It is unique unto itself. How are you going to live it?

For me, personal development is all about self-respect. It’s an expression of faith in one’s own potential. But it also reflects the sense of moral responsibility I feel to improve on the raw materials God and parents gave me. In a way, it’s an expression of the seriousness with which I believe in the inherent worth and value of humanity. In fact, personal development is to humanity what sharpening is to a knife.