We call it keeping up with the Joneses. They buy a boat and we buy a bigger one. They get a new TV and we get a big screen. They start a business and we start planning our articles of incorporation and the first stock release. And while we're so busy keeping up, we ignore our soul, the inner voice, that's telling us that it really wants to teach children to read. While it helps to identify with each other, we're not the same. So why compare ourselves on the basis of material things? Are you walking a path with heart in your own life, regardless of what others have?

When we don't ask for what we want and need, we discount ourselves.

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

Gratitude isn't a tool to manipulate the universe or God. It's a way to acknowledge our faith that everything happens for a reason even if we don't know what that reason is. ~Melody Beattie, 52 Weeks of Conscious Contact, pg. 34.

A man went to Istanbul, his first visit there. On his way to a business meeting, this man lost his way. He began raging at himself for getting lost, until a realization allowed him to transcend his ire. "How can I be lost? I've never been here before?" pp 104-105

Love means each person is free to follow his or her own heart.

Expressing passion and gratitude will guide your life. Say it again and again. Say it until you believe it. Say it until you live it.