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It is a fact that some people, your friends included, need to be reprimanded from time to time. But, you can do it right without ruffling their features and being overly offensive. Let me take it a step further and say that you owe it to your friends to be straight with them if you truly care about them and your friendship.

The trick is to be diplomatic while pointing out what you see as a flaw in them while remaining cognizant of your own imperfections. But true friends will need to be blunt with each other from time to time. All too often we remain silent when we should speak because we may be afraid of losing our friendship or creating friction.

Please don’t take what I say here a license to be ruthless. Before you try to fix your friend’s life, be sure that this is not just your pride talking. A bit of introspection about your motivation may be in order. Remember the bible verse warning about removing the beam from your own eye before attempting to remove a splinter for another’s? That’s worth thinking about here to keep things in balance. If your motivation is less than pure, your friend is likely to perceive your misplaced help as being biased and selfish—and that will not benefit anyone.

So, what do you do? Well, there are a few ways to get the job done:

Timing: The first thing is to consider your timing. That is to say that you need to wait for just the right moment to broach a delicate subject. You also need to be sensitive to what is going on in your friend’s life and give him or her space when they need it.

Location: The other thing you need to consider besides timing is location. What I mean by this is that you must talk to your friend in private, not in public and in front of others. Doing this publically will only make your friend resentful. In private you can be straightforward.

Method: Finally you need to consider your method or manner of delivery. Remember you are try to help, right. Well then you need to be tactful and not aggressive. Aggression will only aggravate the situation. In addition it’s likely to make your friend defensive instead of helping them see the problem.

Now go ahead and beat up your friends (verbally that is). If you do it right, they will thank you.

Possibility Guy

Related articles

• What Makes a Friendship a “Real Friendship” and Not a Superficial One? (socyberty.com)
• Do You Care What You Call People, Whether it is a Friend/Acquaintance? (ask.metafilter.com)
• The Gift of Friends (christophersmark.wordpress.com)

It’s time to break out of your shell to things happen in your life. You only have one opportunity to live and prosper and if you choose to live in fear, you will have regrets at the end of the day. Sure, you will have your share of ups & downs, some people can not accept you for who you really are. You know what I have to say about that — So what? You still have friends you can count on and don’t forget all those who love you—the people who know you best. Nothing should stop you from making a life. As long as you know you’re doing the right thing, you can be proud of yourself.

More importantly, always treasure the people you’ve in your life right now. Achieve something will be meaningless when you don’t have someone to share it with. Have you noticed that winning isn’t as sweet when you know that no 1 sees you? The core of your dreams is the people you love & love you back. So you can still work hard to strive to reach the top but at the same time, also you must devote and set aside time to the people who matter most. You just can’t have your work be the center of your universe. This unhealthy attitude is what gets you on the path of loneliness and despair.

Before you start to make things happen, you’ve to appreciate those around you. If you truly took a moment to look back on your most treasured memories, you will find that these are all the people you love. So, open yourself to new friendships & relationships. As cheesy as it sounds, people still share the same joys and anxieties. Although these may vary in some ways, everybody is still on the hunt for happiness. “But then again, is not that what makes life so mysterious and exciting? While you’re working on making yourself a better person, you’ll soon discover that life does not revolve around you. Others too have their very own needs & desires. If you want them to respect your dreams, then you need to show the same kind of respect in the end. Otherwise you’ll always be searching for a pat on the shoulder every time you accomplish something. But if you sincerely praise others, they too will sincerely praise you for your accomplishments.

Only when you come to value the friendships you have, you’ll be ready to work on your own dreams in a meaningful way. There is long journey ahead of you. At times the road will not be smooth. Take time to reflect on different areas of your life and set aside time for this each day.

Finally, go ahead and set up a short term and long term to-do list, so you can break down larger goals into smaller, doable ones—that’s what works best for me. Be patient. Take small steps and you’ll get where you’re going sooner. You’ll then find that you’re slowly inching closer to what you want out of life.

Possibility Guy

Related articles

• Are You Enjoying The Company of Friends? (itakeoffthemask.com)
• Regrets of the Dying (ben.casnocha.com)

I recently received an email  about what happened to to the original 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence and wanted to share it with you.

*********************

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists.

Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer,
Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she was dying.
Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill
were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his  children vanished.

So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and
silently thank these patriots. It’s not much to ask for the price they paid.

Remember: freedom is never free!

The Fourth of July has more to it than beer, picnics, and baseball games.

Pauline

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Working Towards A Happy Life

We know that life is not always a walk in the park, so to speak. Problems come in two forms: ones that are easy to solve and ones that look nearly impossible to overcome. It’s simple to say that life is sweet when we are able to overcome a difficult situation. When things start to go against us, we forget about our basic beliefs and let situations like these affect our overall outlook.

The secret to a happy life is in being optimistic; to always see the glass as half-full. The tricky part comes when we encounter roadblocks along the way. It takes a lot of practice to become a positive person, but once we do become that kind of person, we will live happier lives. Remember, happiness is not a state of mind that can be achieved with just a snap of our fingers. Happiness is a choice we make and it is the attitude we need to inculcate in ourselves every single day.

If you need to take some time off to become the kind of person that oozes out confidence and that brings warmth to everyone, then by all means, do so. Take a step back and reevaluate your life if you must. If the work you do makes you an angry person, then maybe it’s high time that you rethink your career path.

Strive for happiness with the following steps listed below:

1. Write down the things that make you happy – make an inventory of all your dreams, ask yourself how you can achieve them, and start working on them now. The tendency to procrastinate is what gets you into trouble. The longer you sulk, then the bigger the problems become.

2. Have a healthy outlet for your anger – you need to let your frustrations out. Talk to someone if you must or go to the gym to pump out those happy hormones. Studies show that people who exercise are more readily able to find solutions to their problems.

3. Have a support system – with great friends and a caring family, the burden doesn’t have to entirely rest on your shoulders.

4. Be thankful for what you have – the saying, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” is sheer genius. Life may not be all that you wanted it to be, but you also need to know that you are blessed with other things as well. Face the problem head on and see the good that comes out of it.

5. Pray – believing in a higher power has gotten many people out of even the toughest of situations. The idea that there is someone out there looking over everyone is sometimes enough for people to continue on and pursue their goals.

Being too hard on yourself can sometimes hinder you from being victorious. What stops you from pursuing your path? If it’s because you just don’t believe in yourself that much, then you need to know that mistakes can only slow you down. You still can move on after you slip-up because at least then you’ll know what you shouldn’t do. It’s not how many times you fall that counts, but the number of times you got up despite the hard fall.

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Peter Loughlin

Courage and Resilience

Courage is defined as the ability to face fears with our heads held high. It is not the absence of trepidation that we can truly say that we are brave. In fact, people experience fear everyday, and sometimes are even paralyzed by it. We are allowed to feel all these things. In fact, we should! Otherwise, we wouldn’t be human if we were immune to the many types of emotions.

It does not require sacrificing our lives all of the time. In fact, we all have the makings of a real hero, and in our own little ways, we can show that we are willing to face all the trials that life throws in our way.

The opportunity to be courageous is inside us all and we are given many opportunities where we can practice this. We sometimes do everything to avoid these uncomfortable situations. As we face the Goliath of our inner David, we get scared of the unknown and of the possibility that we will lose. We can’t help but flinch and run away.
That is why, in times like these we need to know that there are things around us that can help us. We have to know that we all have the innate ability to summon all our strength and stand our ground.

Here are just a few tips that may help us along the way:

1.    We have to know what we have. Fear can rule us and paralyze us if we let it. Then, instead of facing something manageable, we face a puffed up illusion of the fear. We have to realize that we always have someone to lean on. Pray and ask the people in our lives to help us through the ordeal, no matter how small or big it is. Our insecurities may be huge in our minds that this can seem insurmountable, but the only way we can overcome them is to face them and push ourselves towards them. We have people we can count on. This is not to say that we forgo all our responsibilities and let them handle all of it. We have to know that we still must go through it, but a hand to hold makes a world of difference.

2.    We need to learn to discover what’s beyond our comfort zone. When we have to confront something, it takes an element of risk into the unknown. If there are risks involved, it does mean we have to let go of it simply because we do not know what to do. The more we confront the fear, the easier it becomes in our lives. The risk of threat is always around. If we always give up, we will digress and destroy our lives. What will make us stronger is our ability to always get up every time we fall.

3.    We need to face life with optimism. We have to know that there are just things that are beyond our control. Accept these things and change the way we respond to the situation. Instead of it bringing us down, we must find ways to make it work to our advantage. This takes practice, but once we are able to alter our attitude, we will see that life does not throw us problems that we can’t handle.

Courage and resilience go hand in hand because it brings healthy growth. Nature has gifted us with the ability to adapt. It is now up to us to discover how to use it.

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Peter Loughlin

Happy Easter

On this Easter Sunday I am reminded of the gift of redemption and restoration we have been given.

Whatever your beliefs, I think you will appreciate the Creator’s model of six days of labor – one day of rest.

Watch Jim’s Rohn’s Short Video Below

“You are not limited to the life you now live. It has been accepted by you as the best you can do at this moment. Any time you’re ready to go beyond the limitations currently in your life, you’re capable of doing that by choosing different thoughts.”- Jim Rohn

Happy Easter,

Peter Loughlin

What make me happy will not necessarily bring happiness to you. The things in life that bring us true happiness are subjective, and that’s OK. Everyone seeks happiness in their own way. What makes you happy is unique to you and your experience. What’s more, there is nothing wrong with your vision of success, joy and happiness being the polar opposite of what works for me. Is There a Natural Sate of Happiness?

Modern science supports the idea some people have a genetic predisposition to being happy—a sort of happy gene. Unfortunately, the key term here is ‘some people’ meaning that not all of us have the so called happy gene. But this doesn’t mean that you’re forced into a life of melancholy and misery just because you’re not inclined to be happy all the time. But the good news is that while there is evidence that your happiness is influenced by your genetics it is not the sole a determining factor by any means.

You can control your happiness much the way you can control your other traits and characteristics. You can change the way you think and feel.  The trick is to know how your brain thinks and to initiate some changes in the things you do.

Peter Loughlin