Just remember
that everybody on the planet is a little bit nuts. Remember that and every now
and then a lot of life’s weirdness will make sense.
Welcome
John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC
We are not randomly tossed into this life
We are not randomly tossed into
this life. We are not an irrelevant, haphazard chance of the universe. Nothing
is. There is a purpose to all things, a progression, and a sequence of events
that all happen for a reason.
You and I are a part of that
grand rhythm but we are more than that. We are children God placed on this
earth by him with the mission to lead an honorable life, to have compassion, to
be useful in the world and to have made a difference in the world.
Pay attention to your loved ones.
When you have a family of your
own make sure you don’t lose them by becoming lost in the world. The job will
be there tomorrow, but if it isn’t there, there will always be another job and
another appointment and another career thing you absolutely have to do…those
things will always be there….. but your
family may not be there. People grow, they change and sometimes they move
along. Pay attention to your loved ones. Help them grow. See them through a
change. Don’t let them move along without you. Don’t lose them.
Lead a good life, a full life. Fight for it if you must.
Lead a good life, a full life. Fight
for it if you must. Commit to never leading a compromised life. If you do that,
know that at times the price you pay for living your life on your grounds will
seem high. But the good life, the fulfilled life, is a treasure, and at the end
of our journey we will look back, you and I, and we will realize that all we
paid to walk our own path was a mere pittance compared to the magnificence of our prize.
The common virtue of all great people is their sincerity.
The common virtue of all great
people is their sincerity.
Sincerity and authenticity
attracts people.
Sincerity, even in error, is
strength.
Sincerity is earnest and it is
honorable and makes for a highly effective life.
Sincerity is real so it is rarely chic or cool. In fact it is the opposite. It
can’t be faked. It has to be a part of you. It must permeate all of what you
are.
Work to be sincere. Push the
weakness, the hypocrisy and the insincerity out of your existence and fill that
void with sincerity.
No matter what the odds, plan to win.
Even when you are the clear
loser, start writing your victory speech. Don’t ever expect to lose. No matter
what the odds, plan to win. History is filled with victories that were stolen
from the jaws of sure defeat and it almost always happens at the last moment
when all seems lost and hope is almost gone.
Don’t make being happy the goal in your life.
Don’t make being happy the goal
in your life. If you do you that, will always be unhappy because life is hard,
it’s filled with disappointments and missed opportunities. People will let you
down and all of it will drain away your happiness.
Instead, live a life that seeks
purpose, that means to improve the world and leave it better than what we found it. Build a life
around great passions. Strive to be kind and generous and filled with
compassion. Those things are the point of the journey. Do those things and happiness will find you
and fill your life.
The house where I grew up, in Ansonia Connecticut
Google Maps
North Cliff Street, Ansonia Ct.
(Click the Google maps link to look at the house)
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North Cliff Street, Ansonia Ct.
I grew up on the left side of the house, where the ramp is.
(Although that's gone now) My bedroom was where the far left window is.
When I was a boy there were two enormous pine
trees on the front lawn and the house had wood sidings painted brown and red.
Around 1910 it was all one house but was
subdivided in the mid 1930's. The original owner was Chapel S. Carter, the son
of a Connecticut Baptist church deacon, who, in 1905 patented a finger-nail
clipper. Carter was secretary (and part
owner) of the H.C. Cook Company of Ansonia, which was incorporated in 1903 as
the H. T. Cook Machine. The company introduced the Gem Brand nail clipper in
1920.
All you need is you.
During the life long
transformation of our spirits we eventually realize that as ourselves, in our
own being, is all we need in this life.
The life less ordinary
To experience anything that is important
in this life takes courage. What is important is often not easy and nor is it
popular.
To be kind and compassionate
and decent takes courage because the world is often none of those things.
It takes courage to live a life filled with passions because society encourages uniformity, advocates the safe route, applauds the cautious and often rewards the mundane.
It takes courage to live a life filled with passions because society encourages uniformity, advocates the safe route, applauds the cautious and often rewards the mundane.
Don’t look back on your life
and try to recall how many times you failed to live a brave life. It takes time
to develop courage. You aren’t born with it but you are born with the potential
to become courageous and every day the world challenges you to put that courage
to practice. You’ll have a lot of opportunity to prove yourself to yourself.
When those instances do come,
expect to get knocked on your kester a few times because it is not easy to live
a courageous life. You’ll fail occasionally. The day will come, I assure you, when
you will compromise your convictions. That doesn’t mean you are a moral
failure, a coward, or a quitter or a bad person. It means you’re human and you
goofed up, you dropped the ball. That’s
all it means. Nothing more and nothing less.
As difficult as it is, try to build a life that is well grounded in YOUR well-being.
As difficult as it is, try to
build a life that is well grounded in YOUR well-being.
Not the other guy’s well-being,
not the world’s well-being, but your well-being.
And to do that you must be
willing to spend your entire life learning and then practicing what it takes to
grow and blossom as a person while doing your best not to merely get by in
fulfilling your own happiness and fulfillment.
It is a worthy and noble life’s pursuit.
It is a worthy and noble life’s pursuit.
Here’s one way to start. Take one hour a day and give it to
yourself as a present. Savoy it, enjoy it, relax in it, it’s yours.
"Do the thing that makes you happy" Emerson and throwing a pile of grass seems to make this guy happy.
The tension between standing apart
“The tension between standing apart and being fully involved: this is what makes a writer.” Nadine Gordimer
Life lesson: Defeat.
Life is going to knock you on
your rear end. It will happen. It has nothing to do with kind of person you are.
It happens to everybody. It will happen and it happen without cause or purpose
or reason. What you deserve has nothing to
do with it. Life is unfair. The powers that be in the world aren’t picking on
you. Life is often unfair for you and everyone else. But there are ways of
dealing with setbacks. Failure is very democratic in its reach. Bad things and setbacks
happen even to the finest people. It’s not God, the universe, or the human race
conspiring to ruin your best laid plans. Everybody gets defeated once in a
while. The hard reality is that setbacks are a part of life, your life, my life.
Everybody will take a sound life-thrashing every now and then. This is the reality of life, learning to
accept it is half the battle.
It’s all about balance. Success
is not a permanent state, its transient. Things change. Don’t worry about it
and don’t let it get you down. Just because you ran into a string of defeats doesn’t
mean you have to be defeated. This too shall pass, I assure you it will. Keep
your hopes up and keep dreaming. That sounds easier than it really is because disappointment
has a way of lowering hope.
Look, you can’t win anything
without meeting defeat and disaster along the way so adjust your expectations
to fit the defeats. In fact, do your best to enjoy the inevitable. When life
knocks you to the canvass, stay there and take the 8 count. Relax, take in the view. When you’re ready,
not when the world tells you you’re ready but when you’re ready, get up off the
floor and get back into the fight. Repeat as needed.
Learn what you can from your
downfall but remember that sometimes defeat has no lesson. It just happens. There
is nothing to learn from it. And when
you do get up, get up with as much grace and style as you can because people
tend to believe what they see.
Here’s the bottom line; you’re
going be okay, you’ll see.
Life lesson: Here is the glory and the dilemma of life.
Here is the glory and the dilemma
of life; we are, each of us, made up of all the things that we have seen and
heard. Everything that has ever had even the most remote influence on you becomes
a part of you. We carry it around in our
minds and bring it with us on the incredible voyage that become sour lives. So
be careful what you take in. Avoid the negative and all the many attractive shapes
it can take. Examine your life every once in a while to make sure that you have
not allowed yourself to be reduced by the often very subtle powers of negativity.
Know that there are events that will happen to you in this lifetime that you have
absolutely no power to control and remember know
that those events do have the power to diminish your integrity, your compassion
and your kindness. Seek out the positive.
Live with the purpose always becoming a person of warmth, good humor, strong
passions and decency.
Life lesson: In this life you’re going to get blindsided, hit from behind, stabbed in the back, tripped up, kicked when you’re down, lied to and lied about
In this life you’re going to
get blindsided, hit from behind, stabbed in the back, tripped up, kicked when
you’re down, lied to and lied about with
the intent of harming you as much as
possible. It’s going to happen and there isn’t anything you can do to avoid it
or make it not happen. People have the power to do these things to each other
and the intended effect of these things
is to ruin the way you feel about yourself and others.
Don’t let that happen. While people have the power to create grief
and misery in your life, and often they do it simply because they can, they do
not have the power to control the effect it has on you.
Once again, they do not have the power to control
is the effect it has on you.
Only you have that kind of power. If their slings and arrows dig into you it’s because
you are allowing it to dig into you. Don’t give them the satisfaction of
letting that happen by giving away that kind of power to someone whose sole
intention is to hurt you.
Life lesson: Ever wonder what God’s plan is for world justice?
Ever wonder what God’s plan is
for world justice? Or what his plan is for world peace? Well it’s you. You’re
God’s plan for peace and justice in the world and he expects you to bring those
into the world not by storming the barricades of hate and intolerance but by
simply doing the right thing in your life all the time. It’s a simple plan but
it works.
Life lesson: You want freedom?
You want freedom? Then be responsible to yourself. Live by a
set of standards, a code of conduct and be ready and able to account for your
life, not to someone else, but account for
your life to yourself based on the guide lines your have assigned yourself. Do
that and you’ll live free.
Life lesson: Your soul has its own value system.
Your soul has its own value
system. And while your soul values bravery and courage, kindness and creativity
and hundreds of other noble traits it also values and needs alone time. It needs to reflect. It needs to daydream. Sometimes it just needs
to vegetate and not do a dang thing. It
needs a good belly laugh every now and then. It needs conversation and it needs
to interact with the souls of others. It
needs to laugh with them, to smile at them and be smiled at and the soul needs
to look at beauty so once in a while stop and watch the sunset or spend an hour
looking at the clouds. You and your soul need it.
Life lesson: As hard as it sometimes is, believe in God.
The question that I hope you
ask yourself at some point is why do I need a relationship with God? And let me
clear, I’m talking about God here, not religion. There’s a big difference
between the two.
The answer is that because with
God in your life anything at all is possible. Anything.
And the reason for that is, God loves you. Without condition, he loves
you warts and all.
Often you'll have to look for him. And if you’re looking for God in
your life, and you should look for God in your life, then be the person God
made you. Warts and all. It's that simple.
Do that and I guarantee you’ll see him in everything
you do and then you’ll realize he was always there. You were never alone and you will never be alone with
God in your life. Never. He’s always there. Always. He won’t fail you, he’ll always answer you,
but you have to always remember that God’s not on your time clock, as frustrating
as that it and that it's not easy being a believer.
Life lesson: Never compare yourself against anyone
Never compare yourself against
anyone, ever, under any circumstances. Because when you do that you’re giving
the other person an enormous benefit of doubt. Its apple and oranges. You are measuring
all the things inside you, all the hundreds of complicated factors that make
you who you are, against the other persons outside appearance. The other guy will always come out looking
better than you because you can’t see his doubts or his failures or his demons.
Here’s my best advice, just accept
yourself for who and what you are, which probably isn’t as bad as you think it
is, and be happy with that....and don't forget to dance!
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Cynicism Linked to Dementia, Study Finds
By Victoria Bekiempis
Over the years, the definition
of cynicism has shifted dramatically—from an ascetic school of philosophy in
ancient Greece (spelled with a capital “C”) to, today, a distrust of others for
being selfishly motivated. What hasn’t changed so much about cynicism is its
association with mental decline.
For example, the best-known
Cynic of the Classical Greece era, one Diogenes of Sinope, slept in an empty
wine barrel, masturbated in public and urinated on critics. (Diogenes syndrome
now refers to “an older adult living in squalor,” according to the British
Medical Journal.) And then there’s philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who at 44 had
a nervous breakdown that eventually led to his dementia and death. While deeply
influenced by the Cynics, much of Nietzsche’s writing is arguably closer to
today’s concept of cynicism—distrust in social systems and, by extension, the
people who partake in them.
Researchers now think there
might be a direct link between this attitude and mental decline, beyond these
historical examples: People with high levels of “cynical distrust,” which they
define as “the belief that others are mainly motivated by selfish concerns,”
are more likely to develop dementia, according to a study published Wednesday
in the online issue of Neurology.
Over the course of eight years,
researchers examined 1,449 people, whose average age was 71, to determine
whether they had dementia. They also gave study participants a questionnaire
“to measure their level of cynicism,” according to the study’s authors. (Per
the questionnaire, participants were asked to say how much they agreed with
statements such as “I think most people would lie to get ahead.”)
They found that “people with
high levels of cynical distrust were three times more likely to develop
dementia than people with low levels of cynicism,” even when adjusted for other
dementia risk factors, such as smoking, according to a statement on the study.
“This is not explained by the
lifestyle choices or other factors like age or sex,” study author Anna-Maija
Tolppanen, Ph.D., of the University of Eastern Finland in Kuopio, tells
Newsweek. “Personality might actually affect brain health.”
The study does not explain
whether the cynicism causes the dementia or whether bodily and mental decline
in the elderly enables a bleak opinion of others. The study detected a
correlation, the cynicism-dementia link, not causation.
However, Tolppanen says, social
interaction is key to cognitive health—so any worldview that might deter
socialization could plausibly have an impact.
“We know that people who engage
in social activities are more likely to preserve their cognitive function as
they age,” she says.
Tolppanen’s advice for cynics?
“Even if you are reserved
toward others, it is really important to be socially active,” she says. “That
has been shown to be good for your brain.”
Cynicism has also been linked
to other health problems, such as heart disease. According to this study,
however, extreme cynics do not die any earlier than those who are more
trusting.
Life lesson. Character
noun \ˈker-ik-tər, ˈka-rik-\
: the way someone thinks, feels, and behaves : someones personality
: a set of qualities that are shared by many people in a group, country, etc.
: a set of qualities that make a place or thing different from other places or things
Have character, develop character and never stopping adding to your character because it's priceless. A great character will make you attractive, It will certainly make you more attractive to those vaporise people who are all looks and no substance. Character will bring you to interesting people and places. It will make life interesting.
Be honest •
Don’t deceive, cheat, or steal
•
Be reliable — do what you say
you’ll do •
Have the courage to do the
right thing •
Build a good reputation •
Be loyal — stand by your
family, friends, and country
Treat others with respect;
follow the Golden Rule •
Be tolerant and accepting of
differences •
Use good manners, not bad
language •
Be considerate of the feelings
of others •
Don’t threaten, hit or hurt
anyone •
Deal peacefully with anger,
insults, and disagreements Responsibility
Do what you are supposed to do
•
Plan ahead •
Persevere: keep on trying •
Always do your best •
Use self-control •
Be self-disciplined •
Think before you act — consider
the consequences •
Be accountable for your words,
actions, and attitudes •
Set a good example for others
Fairness Play by the rules •
Take turns and share •
Be open-minded; listen to
others •
Don’t take advantage of others
•
Don’t blame others carelessly •
Treat all people fairly Caring
Be kind •
Be compassionate and show you
care •
Express gratitude •
Forgive others •
Help people in need
Stay informed; vote •
Be a good neighbor •
Obey laws and rules •
Respect authority •
Protect the environment •
Volunteer
Life lesson: the wrong person
At some point in this life, you will fall in love with the wrong person, befriend the wrong person, care for the wrong person.
You'll eventually figure out that they are the wrong person when you realize they don't value you nor do they value your concern for them.
It's okay that all of this happens, it's not nice and it's hurtful, but it's okay. You're not the first person this will happened to and you won't be the last. The fault is on them, not you.
When you come to see these people for who and what they are, leave them in your past. Because if you don't they'll just keep taking and taking. It's a harsh lesson and I wish it weren't true, but it is.
Life lesson: Perfection
Nothing, ever, in the history of the world, has arrived perfect. In themselves, as they are, there is no perfect moment. Nor is there a perfect marriage, or person or place or thing. Nothing is perfect until you decide it is. You have that power. And what you decide is perfect, another will find it flawed. Always remember that. If it's perfect for you, leave at that, be satisfied with that and cherish it for what it is.
Sometimes people hold a core
Here's added advice from me; When you meet people like this RUN FROM THEM. Don't walk. RUN FROM THEM. They are bad for your soul and will keep from becoming all the good and wonderful things you can be.
You're gonna be just fine,.........
Your going to be okay and so am I. Watch and see. God doesn't miss a trick, he sees ever teardrop, he sees every sparrow that falls from a tree. There has never been one single moment, not one second, when God didn't care about you and me and there has never been a prayer or a cry for help from us that he didn't hear. Just remember God isn't on our time clock....and have faith. Always always always have faith.
Make the most of yourself,
“Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of
you.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is not the critic who counts
“It is not the critic
who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where
the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man
who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;
who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there
is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do
the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself
in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high
achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring
greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who
neither know victory nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt
Despite everything
“Despite everything,
I believe people are good at heart.” Ann Frank, a child who was gassed to death
by the Nazis
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