Service is the rent we pay

“Service is the rent we pay for living on this earth. It is the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time.”

Those words were spoken by Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund.

Make clarity your first goal

From a newsletter by David Allen:

"If you aren't yet at the point of clarity, then make that your first goal. It's a big waste of time to go through life being unclear about what you want. Most people wallow way too long in the state of "I don't know what to do." They wait for some external force to provide them with clarity, never realizing that clarity is self-created. The universe is waiting on you, not the other way around, and it's going to keep waiting until you finally make up your mind. Waiting for clarity is like being a sculptor staring at a piece of marble, waiting for the statue within to cast off the unneeded pieces. Do not wait for clarity to spontaneously materialize—grab a chisel and get busy!"

-Steve Pavlina

What to focus on when life gets choppy

I recently read about a person who was having trouble with the daily turmoil of his life. He said that eventually he found guidance from a daily devotion, which “was about a guy who was a sailor. One of his buddies came along, they were in choppy waters, and the guy was throwing up. He was told, stop looking at the waves, find a point on the horizon. And he did this and it worked."

Note: This turns out to be from a story told by Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin. While I strongly disagree with many of his actions, nevertheless I can see some wisdom in this comment from him.

This is America

Thanks to me good friend Elisa for bringing this to my notice, it made my day.

This is America, where a white Catholic male Republican judge was murdered on his way to greet a Democratic Jewish woman member of Congress, who was his friend. Her life was saved initially by a 20-year old Mexican-American gay college student, and eventually by a Korean-American combat surgeon, all eulogized by our African American President." - Mark Shields, PBS