In today’s post to his blog Jack’s Winning Words, Jack Freed uses this quote –
“Helping one person might not change the whole world, but it could change the world for one person.” (Quoted by Brittany Trout)
During the holiday season many people become a little more generous and drop money into a red Salvation Army kettle or perhaps donate to some other worthy cause. It makes them feel good about themselves and they know that it will help someone, somewhere.
The truth is that there is need all the time all around us and we have opportunities every day to help someone and perhaps change their world. Perhaps it is cynicism or fear that prevents us from stopping to help the homeless man on the street corner begging for enough to but a meal or maybe to provide one for his family. Maybe we feel that we are too busy doing things that are “important” to us to bother with stopping to talk to the lonely elderly women that we sitting in the 
retirement home window. We don’t have time to be bothered trying to discuss their issues with the distraught and depressed neighbor that we wave to in the yard. Yet, each of those encounters represent an opportunity for us to change the world for that person.
Sometimes it takes money to help; but, many times it just takes your presence and your time to make a difference in that other person’s life. Maybe you can’t 
afford to buy a house for someone, but you could afford the time to work on a house for someone on a Habitat for Humanity project. Maybe you can’t take in the homeless man on the corner, but you could volunteer with the group Home for the Homeless to find him a place to stay. Or, perhaps you could volunteer to spend time at a local retirement home reading to the residents or just visiting with them.
If we have nothing else to give, we have our time. How we use that time to the benefit of others can change the world one person at a time. We see stories on the nightly news
every so often about the ex-soldier with PTSD or the ex-addict or the ex-homeless person who was helped by someone and who now runs a shelter or charity organization that is helping others. That person’s life was changed by an act of kindness by someone else and it changed their world from one of hopelessness and despair into a world of fulfilling accomplishment and self-worth through service to others. Now they are changing the world, one more person at a time.
Try it. Stop and help someone today. You might like it. YOU can change the world for someone today!
Posted by Norm Werner 
but it is more likely that we haven’t positioned ourselves to take advantage of it. H. Jackson Brown, Jr. put it this way – “Opportunity dances with those already on the dance floor.” Brown was pointing out that we need to be working at it, building that door, in order for opportunity to present itself. I also like this piece of advice about that dance with opportunity from Wayne Dyer – “When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way.” 
who believe.” A great way to start each day is to reaffirm your faith in God and in His hand in your success. That pause to be in contact with God and reaffirm your faith will allow you to take the all-important first step on your journey to success. Martin Luther King, Jr. put it this way – “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
long it will take or how hard it will be. We make the journey by taking each day step by step and then repeating it again and again until we reach our destination.” 
and being manipulative in our daily lives. We often hear the phrase, “He/she knows how to push my buttons.” That is just another way of saying that we are being manipulated by a puppeteer.
country would go to pot (in some cases literally), if those scoundrels made it into office. The non-fear messages were just about as ridiculous – “elect me and I will go to Washington and single-handedly solve all of the problems.”
deceptive behavior at work to gain an advantage or to “butter up” the boss. Maybe you are the boss and are allowing office flirting to influence your decisions. Are you acting as the puppeteer or being manipulated like a puppet?
that we choose the role pf puppeteer we are being manipulative and really doing it for our own good, not theirs.
As you go through the days ahead, see if you can identify those situations in which someone is trying to manipulate you or the times in which you find yourself trying to manipulate someone else. Just being aware in both cases will make you a better person, companion and friend, because you have chosen not to be manipulated and not to try to manipulate others. Let others dance to the puppeteers pulls on their strings. You have no strings attached and dance to your own tune.
the decisions that you make.
is yes, then give some thought to what it will take to maintain or even increase that happiness. In either case, the answers that you come up with will provide some new directions for you to pursue.
start each day with a prayer can help you reset your compass and get you started in the direction of happiness and contentment. I’ve found that the simple prayer, “Lord help me make good decisions today” helps me get off to a good start each day.
sleaze-bags and the dirt-bags; between fanatical, bigoted storm troopers on one side and Communist sympathizers on the other; between those who would stand by and watch your sick child die and those who would steal the future from that same child. The party colors may be blue and red, but the political contrasts stand out in stark black and white. The only reaching across the aisle being done here is to reach out in anger for the throats of the opponents.
However, some of these more reasonable candidates have expressed their independence from the platforms and leadership of the party under whose banner they are running. They have shown that they are more in tune with the needs and desires of their constituents than the just being toadies to the party line. In itself, that is enough reason to get out and vote on Tuesday. Make the choice about your tomorrows by voting on Tuesday.
physical) preparing for things that they imagine might happen. The recent fascination with the concept of a zombie apocalypse is an extreme example; however, there is a huge contingent of “survivalists” in every corner of the country who are planning and preparing for apocalyptic events that they “see” coming. They have stockpiles of food, water and guns to provide for and protect their families when the imagined worst happens.
reaction may be one in which you say to yourself, “Oh well, I guess that wasn’t meant to be” and move on. The worst reaction is one in which you wallow in self-pity, self-recrimination or self-doubt. Those reactions are all the first steps toward self-loathing and depression. Don’t go there. There may well have been things that you could have done differently; but, you didn’t; so get over it, learn from it and get on with it.
regret or shame or hurt to ourselves. Perhaps we have no “significant other” with whom we can share these feelings. In either case, don’t forget that you are ever alone. God is there with you and ready to share and offload your burden. All you have to do is ask God for help and accept that help; in order to experience the peace that surpasses all understanding. Try it. Use the little prayer that I often use – “Not my will but Thy will be done”. Let God lift your burden from your shoulders. Let it go.
and smile at yourself. See if it doesn’t immediately force the question, “What am I smiling about?” into your mind. The mind has the interesting ability to immediately find an answer to that question. You will either remember something that is smile worthy – something that happened to you or something that you saw or something that someone said to you – or you will look at that smiling face in the mirror and stop taking yourself so seriously. In either case, it will set a tone for the start of your day that is way better than walking out to face the world with a frown on your face.
or an unhappy look. It’s not that yo are mad or really unhappy, it’s just that your at rest continence does not have a pleasant smile on it. Ask a friend to take a picture of you sometime in a normal setting when you are not expecting it to see how you look. You may be surprised how unfriendly you 
look.
for your mind to let you know why you are smiling and then carry that with you the rest of the day.
may be. This is the ugly face of politics.
I’m reminded of a quote that I saw in the 
imagine having two minds inside your brain, one which sees the world as heaven and one that only sees darkness and hell. A bi-polar person may actually be living that experience, although only one of the minds may be in control at any one time. Schizophrenics may house many minds, perhaps with more than one “mind” fighting for control at any given time.
themselves and how they work. Much of the work in this area of science has focused upon how the brain controls various functions of our bodies or how it gathers, sorts, stores and recalls the information that it encounters in order to build our knowledge base. Yet to be understood is how the brain is capable of original thoughts. It may be that most of what we think of as original thoughts are really just well organized paths of discovery of the origin of something or the solution to a problem.
He encounters here on earth. When you talk to God through prayer, what do you “see” in your mind’s eye? Does God sound like James Earl Jones when he answers you?
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