Daily Motivator - December

[bluidkiti]

December 1

Difficult questions

Difficult questions give rise to useful answers. Challenging problems compel valuable solutions.

What difficult questions have you been unwilling to ask? What challenging problems have you been avoiding?

In doing so, how much of life’s richness are you denying to yourself and to others? What joys, what achievements, what connections, what beautiful vistas are you failing to experience?

Maybe this week you could work up the nerve to dive into a problem that’s been vexing your life. Perhaps you could dare to ask one of those difficult questions and then work on an honest and useful answer.

Take the time, make the effort, and discover it’s not as bad as you feared it would be. Indeed, you’re likely to find it’s much more valuable than you hoped it would be.

Let go of your fear surrounding what’s difficult, challenging, inconvenient, uncomfortable. Open yourself to powerful possibilities that can raise your life to a whole new level.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 2

How can this be good?

How can this be good? How can it be helpful, to you, to others?

What can you learn from this? In what ways can you become stronger because of it?

Categorizing anything as all good or all bad is almost always an oversimplification. Ask yourself instead what would or what does make it good?

What can you do that will make it more positive than negative? What is the potential value in this, and how can you bring it to life?

Every reality is what it is. Yet what you do with reality and what comes about as a result of that, is largely up to you.

How can this be good? And what are you doing to make it so?

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 3

Within arm’s reach

The world is not obligated to be the way you think it should be. Your responsibility is to live in the world as it is.

Concern yourself with the progress you can actually make. Focus on those problems you can actually solve.

Don’t become so outraged or despondent about society’s ills that you fail to adequately address your own shortcomings and opportunities. It is by improving yourself that you improve your world.

Right now within arm’s reach you have good and valuable work to do. Get that done before you even think about sailing off to right the wrongs on some foreign shore.

Experience life’s potential for goodness by personally embodying it. Always remember that the most powerful way to promote your highest ideals is by living them.

You always have much good work to do within arm’s reach. Operate on a human scale and enable your life to be of great benefit to all of human experience.

— Ralph Marston

[willbe275]

Happy new month Tammy and Kracker. Thanking God for watching over us during the month of November, thank you Father for bringing us to this new month of December one day at a time.

[bluidkiti]

December 4

It’s an opportunity

The obstacle you encounter is not just something that gets in your way. It’s an opportunity.

The beauty you see is not merely there to be admired. It represents an opportunity.

This is not just another hour, another trip, another situation. It’s an opportunity to live with purpose, with effectiveness, with joy, gratitude, and love.

Whatever form it takes, see the opportunity. Take the opportunity to act, to speak, to learn, to improve, to understand.

Appreciate the opportunities and they return the favor. The more opportunities you make good use of, the more and better opportunities there will be.

Whatever place you go, whatever thing you see, whatever is going on, it’s an opportunity. Make it your business to make good and lasting value from it.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 5

You have what it takes

You can find wisdom in every corner of life. Open yourself to it.

You will gain knowledge and strength from every experience. That goes double, triple, ten times for the difficult ones.

Get out there, get going, live and learn. Dig out new ways to transform that learning into richness, into beauty, into fulfillment.

Stop wishing in vain that you could rearrange the past or be magically inserted into a different present. Reach within yourself and figure out what you can do with whatever you have, with whatever the situation may be.

It will absolutely require some difficult choices, and you’re absolutely capable of making those choices. Go ahead, for your own sake, for your family’s sake, for the world’s sake, move forward with those choices.

Decide right now to be a fully active participant in the future. You have what it takes, so put it all to good use.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 6

Multiply the goodness

Are your skills being regularly tightened and lubricated by challenge and purpose? Or are they falling prey to rust and decay through neglect and complacence?

Are your resources being renewed and increased in relevance because they’re being put to good use? Or are they sitting in some forgotten warehouse gathering dust and obsolescence?

What about your relationships, your knowledge, the places you love, the experiences you treasure? Have you grown complacent about them or are you constantly finding new ways to breathe more life into them?

The good things in your life lose their value when you hoard them, neglect them, or hide them away. To maintain and increase their value, share them and make beneficial use of them.

Open up the full value of all you have by infusing it with the power of purpose, effort and attention. Multiply the goodness in your life by doing good things with it every day.

Give full respect and appreciation to all you are, all you have, and all you can be. Make use of it all, and make it all even better.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 7

What are your choices?

Your choice can make any situation miserable. Your choice can make any day enjoyable.

You may have more potential than any other person who has ever lived. Yet it is only your choice that enables that potential to be realized.

Your life is subject to countless forces, to the designs of strangers, to random twists of fate. Your choice determines what you make of it all.

Others are likely to define you by your heritage, your job title, your appearance, even by the sound of your name. Much more than these things, though, you are defined by your choices.

Your great fortune is that you are in control of those choices. You can keep them, you can change them, you can abandon them in whatever way you see as best.

Through all your choices you live a life that is uniquely you. Ask yourself often, what are your choices and where are they taking you?

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 8

This time

You’ve been here before. It’s time to stop doing this to yourself.

You know what got you here. You know how much work you’ll have to do to get back on course.

This time you’ll have to do that work again. As you do, consider all the good possibilities you must give up or delay while you correct the situation you’ve gotten yourself into.

You will make things better because you must. Then you’ll have the opportunity and sufficient determination to never make the same unforced error again.

Take that opportunity. Nurture that desperate sense of determination into lasting inspiration, into a permanent improvement in the way you handle your life.

You know where you went wrong and you know you’re never going to let it happen again. That’s a very good thing and it is yours to earn this time, right now.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 9

Full commitment

What you do is what you’re committed to doing. Actions are driven by thoughts, and your level of commitment determines which actions your thoughts select.

Your commitments are not necessarily what you say they are, to yourself or others. Your commitments are evidenced by the results you get, by the way your life unfolds.

You determine the nature and amount of thought, effort, purpose, and passion you put into each moment. Commitment bundles all those moments together in a coherent and meaningful direction.

As such, commitment gives great power to your actions, knowledge, resources, and skills. Upon what goals, what dreams, what roles, what responsibilities, will you expend that power?

Look around your life at this time. It’s easy to see what you’ve been committed to, and what you haven’t.

What will you be fully committed to now, going forward? In the answer to that question is a significant part of the span of life that now stretches in front of you.

— Ralph Marston

[willbe275]

Hey Kracker, where have you been?
Even though we never met we share this daily reading together. So I just want you to know I miss
You. God bless you and have a great day.

[bluidkiti]

December 10

Wonderful time and place

It’s good to focus most of your attention on where you are. And where you are is in this moment, doing whatever you’re doing.

Sure, you can take the past and the future into consideration. Just be sure not to cheat yourself out of living the present moment you’re in.

There’s great value in this moment because you can actually make a difference in how it unfolds. You can take action and create results.

See the colors, feel the textures, listen to the music of life as it plays around you. Realize what a privilege it is to have this moment, this very moment you are in.

Here now is your power, you’re awareness. Here now are all kinds of possibilities and the opportunity to access them, to make something of them.

Live the beauty and potential of this moment, now while you have it. Discover on countless levels what a wonderful time and place it is to be.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 11

Speak the truth

When you are at a loss for what to say, speak the truth. Truth is always your most powerful choice.

There is no way you can hide behind a lie for very long. Although the truth can be extremely difficult at times, it ages very well.

You don’t necessarily have to be rude or confrontational to speak the truth. You are fully capable of speaking the truth with respect, consideration, and understanding.

In fact, speaking the truth is one of the most respectful things you can do. People appreciate it, people remember it, and people remember you in a good light because of it.

The way to successfully deal with reality is truth. Anything else is at best a delusion that will eventually set you back.

Don’t let yourself be tempted to sidestep the truth. Speak the truth, and speak in everyone’s best interest.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 12

Powerful space

You live always in a powerful space. It is the space between what happens and what you do about it.

It is the space between how you feel and the way you act. In that space, your choice makes all the difference in the world.

You have no real power over what others think or say or feel or do. You have full power over what their words and actions and ideas mean to you.

If you depend on some particular outcome for your happiness and satisfaction, you’re sure to be disappointed. Yet in the space where your choice resides, the highest level of fulfillment is always available to you.

Whatever happens is merely whatever happens. What you make of it within yourself is what makes all the difference.

Activate and utilize that power, every time. Your choice is everything, so choose well.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 13

What’s easy

It’s easy to demonize those who disagree with you. It’s better to work at finding common ground so you can cooperate and create real value.

It’s easy to blame your troubles on someone else or something outside your control. It’s better to envision a way forward and to put your vision into action.

It’s easy to construct fantasies about the world that assuage your feelings. It’s better to deal with the facts as they are, no matter how challenging that may be.

It’s easy to come up with lots of excuses for delaying or avoiding what must be done, and to hope against hope that things will improve anyway. It’s better to give time, attention, and focused, effective effort to your hopes and to bring about improvements in your world.

Life is difficult, and the way to make it even more so is by seeking to deny or avoid the difficulties. Life is difficult, yet by meeting its demands with positive purpose and diligence, you can fill life with meaning, joy, and goodness.

What’s easy is not what makes life good. You deserve, and your world deserves, for you to do what makes life good.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 14

A life well lived

A life well lived seems like it would be mostly about what you’ve already done. Yet it actually can be about what you do now.

Now is your chance to make what you have, whatever it may be, into something good. Now is your opportunity to make what happened to you in the past into something good.

Your life up to this point has been the way it has been. There’s nothing you can do to change the way your past has unfolded.

Yet there’s no limit to what you can do when it comes to how your past affects your current and future life. From your past you can always carry forward inspiration, wisdom, knowledge, skill and much more.

What your past ultimately means, and how it influences you going forward, those things are up to you. Though the facts of your past are set in stone, the future they point to is yours to decide.

Do you want to have a life well lived? Right now is when you can make that happen, no matter what has happened before.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 15

Sweet spot

Seek the sweet spot that’s more than nothing and less than everything. Not too much, not too little, that’s the place to be.

The extremes, in thoughts, in actions, in possessions, in feelings and opinions, can be glamorous and dramatic. Perhaps you could visit them occasionally but they’re not good places to set up residence.

What’s useful in moderation becomes exhausting and unsustainable when taken to extreme. In the things you do, settle yourself in the beneficial place between never and always.

Be enthusiastic, but make sure you stop well short of being overwhelmed with obsession. Be prudent, but not so much that you fail to ever do anything.

Set yourself up as a benevolent moderator of your own life. Recognize when your actions, words, or opinions stray too far out of range, and pull yourself back.

Inhabit that sweet spot where you can actually get good work done and get along with those around you. There’s plenty of room to be passionate without going over the edge.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 16

Start with integrity

Whatever you gain is only a gain when it is done with integrity. Otherwise it is at best a meaningless token, and possibly a whole lot worse.

Integrity enables everything it touches to grow in meaning and value. Every accomplishment of any significance comes about because the people involved are able to trust each other.

Living with integrity is difficult. Living without integrity is a bottomless pit of darkness and despair.

Start with integrity, continue with integrity, finish with integrity. With integrity your life improves, you forge your goals and dreams into reality.

You know all this because you’ve experienced if firsthand throughout your whole life. Yet the world constantly tempts you to act against your wisdom, so let this be a reminder not to do so.

Countless and widely varied paths lead to success and fulfillment. One essential value they all have in common is integrity, so you know what to do.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 17

Put the past in the past

When life brings it, experience it and then let it go. Make room for the next experience.

Don’t let the bad stuff linger. Don’t let the good stuff make you complacent.

Live the moment. Then live more in the next moment.

When you’re frustrated give yourself the chance to get beyond the frustration. When you’re joyful give yourself the opportunity to discover new joys.

How can you make whatever has happened into a good thing? Save the best from it and then put the rest of it in the past.

Time moves forward and your best bet is to move with it. Let go of what has been and enable yourself the make the most of what will be.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 18

Stronger inside

No one will question you, no one will stop you when you seek to be stronger inside. And the stronger you are inside, the more successfully you can deal with every aspect of your life.

You need not ask anyone else’s permission to become stronger inside. You can nurture your inner strength wherever you are, whatever you are doing.

Love yourself, love others, be thankful, and you grow stronger inside. Open yourself to new thoughts, ideas, experiences, and grow stronger inside.

Engage with life, laugh, embrace responsibility, indulge your curiosity. As you do all this, your inner strength grows.

There is great treasure to be found within you. As you grow stronger you uncover more of that treasure, causing it to resonate throughout your life.

What thought, what attitude, what feeling right now would increase your inner strength? Take every opportunity to give yourself, your life, your world the benefit of becoming ever stronger inside.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 19

Look forward

In order to look forward, you must have something to look forward to. It can be simple and silly or serious and profound, but mainly it must be enticing.

To get through any obstacle you have to have a good enough reason to do so. Be sure that reason is more powerful than the challenges and distractions that come your way each day.

What have you always wanted to do, or what particular kind of value have you been wanting to create? Get yourself on the path of getting it done.

When you’re looking forward, you’re not as troubled by the problems. When you’re looking forward, you’ll find a way to successfully work through each difficulty that arises.

Look beyond whatever might stop you by keeping your focus on something that inspires and excites you. The more it means to you, the higher your levels of motivation and energy.

You’re at your best when moving forward. So give yourself a specific, compelling destination and get going.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 20

Talk yourself back into it

Is there something you want to experience or need to accomplish that you’ve talked yourself out of doing? Maybe you can talk yourself back into it.

Is it really so bad as you imagined it? Or have your thoughts just made it seem that way?

Think what could happen if you took an initial step. Imagine the result if that gave you the courage and enthusiasm to take another step, and another.

Soon you could be well on your way. Soon you could have it done.

Don’t leave yourself wondering what might have been and regretting what could have been. Get out there, even though the cold wind is blowing, experience the full beauty of the world and of your life in it.

Talk yourself back into those valuable opportunities you’ve been avoiding. Discover again and again how much good you can do.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 21

Structures of reality

Your life is not some nebulous, abstract concept. It is the actual, physical embodiment of truth, of reality.

You have great latitude and ability to form your life in the ways you choose. Yet in order to do so, you must conform to the immutable boundaries of the reality in which you exist.

You dream, you imagine, you conceptualize, you test limits and explore alien territory. And although the possibilities are limitless, they are nonetheless governed, supported, and indeed made possible by an unchanging objective truth.

You can soar high into the sky and even beyond it through the vastness of the universe. Yet it is the solid, unyielding ground beneath your feet that enables the sky, and your experience of it, and you, to exist.

It is easy to despise and to curse the stark, uncompromising structures of reality through which you must constantly navigate. But without those structures nothing would have value, nothing would have meaning, nothing would be possible.

Far better to accept and even to celebrate what is true, what is real, even with all its inherent challenges and boundaries. For within those boundaries, in meeting those challenges, you can reach levels of joy and fulfillment that have no limit.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 22

Continue living well

You are confident in who you are, in the good you’re doing. With that confidence, step by step, you’re able to make real progress.

You don’t need the praise of others and you’re not discouraged by being ignored or maligned. With confidence, with purpose, you keep on going.

That going is not always easy, yet neither is it impossible. With one sincere effort and then the next, you make your way forward.

You enjoy the successes and grow in strength, in wisdom, in fortitude from the mistakes and defeats. You’ve learned long ago to be thankful for every experience.

For you, living well is not a matter of how you appear to others. It is being faithful to the truth that you know is within you.

Every day, in every circumstance, with every person you encounter, you discover new opportunities to strengthen that faith, to live that truth. This is your time, here is your place to continue living well.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 23

Follow what is good

No matter how many times a falsehood is repeated, it is still false. No matter how often the truth is denied, it is still true.

Just because something is trendy and popular does not make it good, or right, or beneficial. Make your choices based on what you’ve experienced to be true, not on what the crowd is chanting.

Being praised for doing something foolish does not make it any less foolish. Being scolded for doing the right thing does not make it wrong.

You are strong enough to see and follow what is good, and to avoid what is not. Use that strength to benefit not only yourself, but even those who oppose you.

There is much good you can do in your life, great value you can add to the world. Don’t let the frivolous, empty fashions of the moment discourage you or impede your work.

Summon your courage and live your life according to the highest vision you hold. Those values that have withstood the test of time will empower you to do the same.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 24

Draw closer

Draw closer to those people you care so much about. Draw closer to the sacred moment that is now.

Draw closer to the love that powers your life. Draw closer to the goodness, the joy, and to the possibilities for expanding them.

Draw closer to the stillness where you can feel and think and be. Draw closer to the energy and enthusiasm of acting to make a difference.

Draw closer to be beauty that lives in every detail of your world. Draw closer to your own potential for love, generosity, gratitude and fulfillment.

Draw closer to the wisdom that grows from every experience. Draw closer to the truth toward which that wisdom always points.

Draw closer to all the good you’ve known and all the goodness you can now enable. Draw closer to your life, to all life, and to the best it can be.

— Ralph Marston

[willbe275]

Have a fantastic Christmas Eve,
And a very Merry Christmas to you and your family
My family in recovery.

[willbe275]

Happy Christmas Eve my dear friends, God bless you
and have a very Merry Christmas with love.

[bluidkiti]

Merry Christmas willbe!! :42:

[bluidkiti]

December 25

Surrender to joy

Surrender to love, surrender to joy. Allow new miracles to spring from the miracle that is your life.

Allow peace to be the home where your heart lives. Choose love to be your guide.

Free that love from the constraints of your ego. Magnify joy by sharing it abundantly.

Let sincerity be your plan. Let generosity be your perspective.

Lose yourself in the simple, unique beauty of each moment. Make that beauty a part of who you are and what you do.

See the potential for joy that exists all around you. And enable that joy to come fully to life.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 26

Those who win

You don’t win by trying to win. You win by doing something useful, valuable, helpful.

You don’t win by being popular. You win by being good.

You don’t win by putting others down. You win by lifting up as many people as you can.

You don’t win by saying you care. You win by putting your care into effective action.

You don’t win by controlling others. You win by exercising positive, purposeful control over yourself.

All the world benefits from those who win. Be a real winner, again and again, and make life better for everyone.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 27

Let determination kick in

Don’t let yourself talk yourself out of your own most effective actions. Go ahead and do your best at what you know you can do.

You’re able to construct compelling excuses, but what real value do those excuses have? Choose instead the real and lasting value of action.

Remind yourself every moment is an opportunity that will never come again. Do what you must do to make use of that opportunity rather than letting it go to waste.

Tomorrow you can be thankful for the choices you make today. And you know from experience that thankful is a whole lot better than regretful.

Plenty of factors are working against you. Yet you can more than overcome them with your own sense of purpose and determination.

Let that determination kick in now. Taste the inspiration, feel the enthusiasm, get going and get your good work done.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 28

How great it feels

A powerful time to take action is when you don’t feel like it. If you can do what must be done even when you don’t feel like it, you can do it any time.

Even when you’re not inspired, you can still do something positive and helpful. Even when your heart’s not in it, you can nonetheless make progress.

Sure, enjoying your work has great benefits. Yet it is absolutely possible to get that work done even when it’s not so enjoyable.

Yes, there are other things you’d rather be doing. And most of those activities will still be available to you once your work is completed.

Fortunately, the more you see yourself making progress, the more eager you’ll be to continue the effort. As you invest yourself in the necessary task at hand, you’ll enable yourself to feel better about it.

Go ahead and do the work that must be done. Discover how great it feels to have it all behind you.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 29

Treat yourself

Give yourself a treat. You deserve it.

Enjoy a wholesome pleasure you don’t often enjoy. Bring a genuine smile to your face with no guilt, with no regrets and no apologies.

You’ve been diligent in your responsibilities to yourself and to others, and you know you’ll continue to be. Reward yourself for that outstanding behavior.

Show yourself how much you appreciate all the good things you do. Motivate yourself to keep it up.

Your kindness, your actions, and your diligence make a positive difference in the world. Take the time to commemorate that with a little bit of pure, private joy.

Every now and then, give yourself a treat. Acknowledge and encourage the goodness you can offer by regularly offering it to yourself.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 30

Find your courage

You have great capacity for courage. Put it to good use.

In ways small and large, fear can prevent you from doing what’s best for your life. Counter that fear with courage.

How do you activate the courage that is surely yours? By connecting it to purpose.

Fear typically revolves around the immediate situation and your worst imaginings about it. Courage takes a wider, longer term view.

What do you care about more than anything else, what gives your life a sense of meaning and purpose? That’s where you’ll find strong and sustaining courage.

Follow that purpose, move forward with that courage. And live fully the live you were meant to live.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

December 31

Power of expectations

Expectations chart your course, raise your awareness, and empower your life. Whatever you sincerely expect, you’re much more likely to experience.

But expectations are not infallible. And nothing happens solely because you expect it will happen.

If your expectations have disappointed you, that’s no reason to throw them out entirely. It’s an opportunity to re-evaluate those expectations and your commitment to them.

Are your expectations solidly in line with what matters to you? Or did you choose them just because they sounded good or for the purpose of making a good impression?

The most powerful expectations are the ones you truly care about, the ones you keep at the center of your awareness. They’re the ones you devote thought and effort to on a daily basis.

Expectations get their power from the way you incorporate them into your life. Give time, energy, and commitment to your best expectations and they will improve the reality of your life.

— Ralph Marston