A Quote by Lloyd D. Newell
There are two ways to look at life and the world. We can see the good or the bad, the beautiful or the ugly. Both are there, and what we focus on and choose to see is what brings us feelings of joy or feelings of despair.
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At the core of all human behavior, the good feelings we all want are more or less the same. Therefore, what we get out of life is not determined by the good feelings we desire but by what bad feelings we're willing to sustain.
Joy is what makes life worth living, but for many joy seems hard to find. They complain that their lives are sorrowful and depressing. What then brings the joy we so much desire? Are some people just lucky, while others have run out of luck? Strange as it may sound, we can choose joy. Two people can be part of the same event, but one may choose to live it quite differently than the other. One may choose to trust that what happened, painful as it may be, holds a promise. The other may choose despair and be destroyed by it. What makes us human is precisely this freedom of choice.
Many oriental cultures make a distinction between two ways of looking - 'hard eyes' and 'soft eyes'. When we look with hard eyes, we see specific details with sharp focus, but we don't see the relationships between different details as well. When we look with soft eyes we see the relationships between everything in our field of vision, but with this softer focus, we don't see all the details as clearly. It's possible to look in two ways at once.
Part of the problem with the word 'disabilities' is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can't feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren't able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities.
Most of us are never educated about feelings. Instead, we're expected to learn socially acceptable ways to deal with feelings by watching the people around us. But the truth is, many people don't role model healthy ways to deal with feelings.
We don't need to complicate all the "reasons" behind our emotions. It's much simpler than that. Two categories .. good feelings, bad feelings.
In a sense, human beings are human beings. Their feelings of aloneness, of brokenness, their feelings of hurt and disappointment, are universal. It's the ways they choose to act on their feelings that separates them.
We human beings don't realize how great God is. He has given us an extraordinary brain and a sensitive loving heart. He has blessed us with two lips to talk and express our feelings, two eyes which see a world of colors and beauty, two feet which walk on the road of life, two hands to work for us, a nose which smells the beauty of fragrance, and two ears to hear the words of love.
You begin looking at things and they look just fine, as normal as ever, but then you look for a while longer and your feelings get involved and they begin changing things for you and they go on and on till you only see your feelings, and that's why you see this mess.
You've got to give kids really beautiful children's books in order to turn them into revolutionaries. Because if they see these beautiful things when they're young, when they grow up they'll see the real world and say, 'Why is the world so ugly?! I remember when the world was beautiful.' And then they'll fight, and they'll have a revolution. They'll fight against all of our corruption in the world, they'll fight to try to make the world more beautiful. That's the job of a good children's book illustrator.
Your feelings are cosmic communication! The good feelings mean, GOOD FOR YOU. The bad feelings are to get your attention so that you will change what you are focusing on.
Every day is a miracle. No matter how bad my
circumstances, I have the freedom to choose my
attitude to life, even to find joy. Evil is not new.
It is up to us how we deal with both good and bad.
No one can take this power away from us.
I see the joy in life and I see the joy in simple things. I over-compliment. I over-praise. I over-express my feelings toward people because I never got it in my family. I am the first to hug somebody, because I wasn't hugged.
Everywhere we look, the world urges us to turn on the radio or TV, to make a phone call, to see a movie. Many of us fear, worry, that if left alone with our thoughts and feelings, we may discover that we do not make very good company for ourselves.
The feelings I don't have I don't have. The feelings I don't have, I won't say I have. The felings you say you have, you don't have. The feelings you would like us both to have, we neither of us have.
In the real world, those of us who are most productive, successful, and satisfied focus not on fixing feelings or manipulating thoughts, but on what needs to be done-and then doing it-no matter what thoughts or feelings arise.
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