The Joy of Giving

There is now and then a man who sees beauty and true riches everywhere, and "worships the splendor of God which he sees bursting through each chink and cranny."

Phillips Brooks, Thoreau, Garrison, Emerson, Beecher, Agassiz, were rich without money. They saw the splendor in the flower, the glory in the grass, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. They knew that the man who owns the landscape is seldom the one who pays the taxes on it. They sucked in power and wealth at first hands from the meadows, fields, and flowers, birds, brooks, mountains, and forest, as the bee sucks honey from the flowers. Every natural object seemed to bring them a special message from the great Author of the beautiful. To these rare souls every natural object was touched with power and beauty; and their thirsty souls drank it in as a traveler on a desert drinks in the god-sent water of the oasis. To extract power and real wealth from men and things seemed to be their mission, and to pour it out again in refreshing showers upon a thirsty humanity. They believed that man's most important food does not enter by the mouth. They knew that man could not live by estates, dollars, and bread alone, and that if he could he would only be an animal. They believed that the higher life demands a higher food. They believed in man's unlimited power of expansion, and that this growth demands a more highly organized food product than that which merely sustains animal life. They saw a finer nutriment in the landscape, in the meadows, than could be ground into flour, and which escaped the loaf. They felt a sentiment in natural objects which pointed upward, ever upward to the Author, and which was capable of feeding and expanding the higher life until it should grow into a finer sympathy and fellowship with the Author of the beautiful. They believed that the Creation thunders the ten commandments, and that all Nature is tugging at the terms of every contract to make it just. They could feel this finer sentiment, this soul lifter, this man inspirer, in the growing grain, in the waving corn, in the golden harvest. They saw it reflected in every brook, in every star, in every flower, in every dewdrop. They believed that Nature together with human nature were man's great schoolmasters, that if rightly used they would carve his rough life into beauty and touch his rude manner with grace.

The object for which we strive tells the story of our lives. Men and women should be judged by the happiness they create in those around them. Noble deeds always enrich, but millions of mere money may impoverish. Character is perpetual wealth, and by the side of him who possesses it the millionaire who has it not seems a pauper. Compared with it, what are houses and lands, stocks and bonds? "It is better that great souls should live in small habitations than that abject slaves should burrow in great houses." Plain living, rich thought, and grand effort are real riches.

Invest in yourself, and you will never be poor. Floods cannot carry your wealth away, fire cannot burn it, rust cannot consume it.

"If a man empties his purse into his head," says Franklin, "no man can take it from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."

"There is a cunning juggle in riches. I observe," says Emerson, "that they take somewhat for everything they give. I look bigger, but I am less, I have more clothes, but am not so warm; more armor, but less courage; more books, but less wit."

Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'T is only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.
TENNYSON.

He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.—SOCRATES.

Choice

Who is in control of your life?

Your choices lead to the results you earn. To where you are today.

“Success is a most fleet-footed—almost a phantom—goddess. You pursue her eagerly and seem to grasp her, and then you see her speeding on in front again. This is, of course, because one is rarely satisfied with present success. There is always something yet to be attained. To speak personally, I never worked harder in my life than I am working now. If I should relax, I fear that the structure which I have built up would come tumbling about my ears. It is my desire to advance my standard every year,—to plant it higher up on the hill, and to never yield a foot of ground. This requires constant effort. I find my reward, not in financial returns, for these are hardly commensurate with the outlay of labor; nor in the applause of others, for this is not always discriminative or judicious; but in the practice of my art. This suggests what, it seems to me, is the true secret of success.

Love your work; then you will do it well. It is its own reward, though it brings others. If a young man would rather be an actor than anything else, and he knows what he is about, let him, by all means, be an actor. He will probably become a good one. It is the same, of course, in many occupations. If you like your work, hold on to it, and eventually you are likely to win. If you don’t like it, you can’t be too quick in getting into something that suits you better.

Focus Your Efforts

The tissue of the life to be

We weave with colors all our own,

And in the field of destiny

We reap as we have sown.

—Whittier.

“You lay down rather severe rules for one who wishes to succeed in life,” the reporter ventured, “working eighteen hours a day.”

Edison's response:
“Not at all,” he said. “You do something all day long, don’t you? Every one does. If you get up at seven o’clock and go to bed at eleven, you have put in sixteen good hours, and it is certain with most men that they have been doing something all the time. They have been either walking, or reading, or writing, or thinking. The only trouble is that they do it about a great many things and I do it about one. If they took the time in question and applied it in one direction, to one object, they would succeed. Success is sure to follow such application. The trouble lies in the fact that people do not have an object—one thing to which they stick, letting all else go.”

No man is born into this world whose work is not born with him.—Lowell.

“You have discovered much about it (electricity)?” The reporter asked, smiling.

“Yes,” Edison replied, “and yet very little in comparison with the possibilities that appear.”

“How many inventions have you patented?”

“Only six hundred,” he answered, “but I have made application for some three hundred more.”

“And do you expect to retire soon, after all this?”

“I hope not,” he said, almost pathetically. “I hope I will be able to work right on to the close. I shouldn’t care to loaf.”


To be thrown upon one’s own resources is to be cast into the very lap of fortune.—Franklin.

Live Your Dream

Do you dream of a better life? More money? Better health? A happier life?

You can achieve the life of your dreams. Develop a plan. Take action. Assess your results and adjust your efforts. What if you fail? That's OK - everybody fails. Winners don't let failures get in the way of their success.

Getting Ahead - A Better Life

Do you ever feel like you're not getting anywhere - or maybe your goals and dreams are simply never going to happen? Are you wanting to shed some unwanted extra pounds? Maybe you'd simply like to make more money or change your life for the better in a new relationship?

The good news is, you can overcome whatever challenges come your way! You can emerge from your current situation even better than before! You can enjoy life more. You can take steps to make more money. You can lose those extra pounds. You can start having fun again and feel years younger. You can overcome your obstacle(s). Whatever life brings your way - use it to build a better life for yourself and your family or loved ones!

Learn from and then forget the past. Start making a plan to get to where you want to be. The past is over. We can't reverse the misfortunes caused by economic forces out of our control. Whatever happened yesterday or last week is over. Last year's mistakes and meltdowns are in the history books. Learn from and then forget the past. Why bother fretting over those situations we can't control?

Choose instead to focus on where you want to be. Take this opportunity to do some self evaluation and decide what you'd really like to do with the rest of your life. Make a plan. Then set out taking steps to reach your new goal(s).

Any plan you decide upon will happen much sooner if you set out with a written goal and plan. People just like you and I who reach their goals or attain great measures of success more often than not have their goals written down on paper. And they take action - massive action towards realizing their goals.

Your options are nearly endless. Find better balance throughout your life enjoying a healthy variety of interests. Head out to your local library and learn something totally new. T

Life is too short. Don't you owe it to yourself to enjoy your life as much as possible? Keep moving and maintain a positive outlook. Never give up. Take action. You may just find things starting to go your way sooner than you ever dreamed possible.

How to Be Happy

Do you ever wonder How to Be Happy? What is the secret of real, lasting happiness? To some degree - We are about as happy as we decide to be.




Lord of all Power and Might, who art the Author and Giver of all good things; graft in our hearts the love of thy name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of thy great mercy keep us in the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

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Nothing in the whole world is so sought after for beauty as the soul, nor is there anything to which beauty clings so readily. There is nothing in the world capable of such spontaneous up-lifting, of such speedy ennoblement; nothing that offers more scrupulous obedience to the pure and noble commands it receives. There is nothing in the world that yields deeper submission to the empire of a thought that is loftier than other thoughts. And on this earth of ours there are but few souls that can withstand the dominion of the soul that has suffered itself to become beautiful.

The soul changed into beauty the little things we gave to it. It would even seem, the more we think of it, that the soul has no other reason for existence, and that all its activity is consumed in amassing, at the depths of us, a treasure of indescribable beauty.

Enlighten, O our Lord and God, the movements of our meditations to hear and understand the sweet listenings to Thy life-giving and divine commands; and grant unto us through Thy grace and mercy to gather from them the assurance of love, and hope, and salvation suitable to soul and body, and we shall sing to Thee everlasting glory without ceasing and always, O Lord of all. Amen.

The Road to Wealth

Andrew Carnegie amassed an incredible fortune in his lifetime. Then he gave it all away! ( Most of it anyway. ) In his native land, Scotland, thrift is a virtue that is taught with the alphabet; and, when the twelve-year-old “Andy” Carnegie came to America with his father and mother, he was full of the notion of thrift and its twin brother, hard work.

Selfish wealth stood surprised, amazed, almost indignant, at the announcement that Andrew Carnegie, instead of resting in Olympian luxury on the millions he had earned, and going to the grave with his gold tightly clutched in his stiffening fingers, proposes to expend the bulk of his riches, during his lifetime, for the benefit of his fellowmen. Great financiers, who, if they lived to be as old as Methuselah, could not use a tithe of their vast fortunes on their own ordinary maintenance, protest against Mr. Carnegie’s plan of action, and declare that he ought to go on accumulating to the last. Others mildly suggest that his charity will be wasted on unworthy objects, and others frankly avow that they doubt the sincerity of his intentions. Altogether it may be said that Mr. Carnegie has stirred the very heart of Mammon as it has not been stirred since the Savior told the rich man to sell what he had and give to the poor.

When asked how to build wealth - Mr Carnegie suggests saving early and often! Here's what he had to say: "There is one sure mark of the future millionaire; his revenues always exceed his expenditures. He begins to save early, almost as soon as he begins to earn. I should say to young men, no matter how little it may be possible to save, save that little. Invest it securely, not necessarily in bonds, but in anything which you have good reason to believe will be profitable; but no gambling with it, remember. A rare chance will soon present itself for investment. The little you have saved will prove the basis for an amount of credit utterly surprising to you. Capitalists trust the saving young man: For, every hundred dollars you can produce as the result of hard-won savings, Midas, in search of a partner, will lend or credit a thousand; for every thousand, fifty thousand. It is not capital that your seniors require, it is the man who has proved that he has the business habits which create capital. So it is the first hundred dollars saved that tells.”

The accumulation of millions is usually the result of enterprise and judgment, and some exceptional ability or organization. It does not come from savings, in the ordinary sense of the word. Men who, in old age, strive only to increase their already too great hoards, are usually slaves of the habit of hoarding, formed in their youth. At first they own the money they have made and saved. Later in life the money owns them, and they cannot help themselves, so overpowering is the force of habit, either for good or evil. It is the abuse of the civilized saving instinct, and not its use, that produces this class of men. No one needs to be afraid of falling a victim to this abuse of the habit, if he always bears in mind that whatever surplus wealth may come to him is to be regarded as a sacred trust, which he is bound to administer for the good of his fellows. The man should always be master. He should keep money in the position of a useful servant; he must never let it be his master and make a miser of him. A man’s first duty is to acquire a competence and be independent, then to do something for his needy neighbors who are less favored than himself.”

Mr. Carnegie has always lived up to this doctrine. He has made philanthropy a factor of existence. Already he has endowed over ninety libraries in different cities of the United States, having spent about $4,500,000 in this manner alone. He believes that a man can learn the science of true life and success in good books. In Scotland, where many of the residents of a poor hamlet have been benefited by his generosity, he is called “the good angel.” Whenever he visits any of these places, he is a greater man than the King of Great Britain.

While thus endowing the city where his fortune was made, he has not forgotten other places endeared to him by association or by interest. To the Allegheny Free Library he has given $375,000; to the Braddock Free Library, $250,000; to the Johnstown Free Library, $50,000, and to the Fairfield (Iowa) Library, $40,000. To his native land he has been scarcely less generous. To the Edinburgh Free Library he has given $250,000, and to his native town of Dunfermline, $90,000. Other Scottish towns to the number of ten have received helpful donations of amounts not quite so large.

“I should like you to say some other important things for the young man to learn and benefit by.”

“The first thing that a man should learn to do is to save his money. By saving his money he promotes thrift,—the most valued of all habits. Thrift is the great fortune-maker. It draws the line between the savage and the civilized man. Thrift not only develops the fortune, but it develops, also, the man’s character.”