From today’s post to the Jack’s Winning Words blog comes this quote – …“The world is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy to those who feel.” (Horace Walpole)
The world has become much too scary a place recently to laugh at, especially right here in the United States. With the loss of civility in our country has come the return of the 
Wild Wild West mentality that seeks to resolve issue with guns and mayhem. Unfortunately, as a nation we have a long history of bowing to corporate and other special interest groups until it is too late and people have died. We bought into the message through much of the 20th Century that Dupont and other chemical companies could bring us “Better living through chemistry”. We now know that they brought us almost indestructible cancer causing chemicals and pesticides.
Certainly the pharmaceutical industry, the automotive industry and many other industries have always put the interests of profit above our safety and have lobbied our politicians successfully to look the other way and ignore us, too. Perhaps no lobbying group has been more successful at preventing or delaying changes that would help make us safer that the gun lobby. Even in the face of multiple mass shootings year after year, the NRA has been successful in blocking any and almost all attempts to limit access to and ownership of weapons that have no purpose other than to wreak havoc. The thought of a hunter stalking a deer through the forest with his semi-automatic assault weapon, so that he can unload a full banana clip into the hapless animal is ridiculous; yet the NRA continues to defend the sporting nature of ownership of assault weapons.
I won’t even start on the circus that is going on in Washington. Both thinking and feeling people have to be crying at that mess. Fortunately, we have another opportunity in 2020 to correct some of that and perhaps return to at least a sane approach to the governing of
our country. Until then, the nightly news will continue to be a litany of mass shootings and goofiness, prejudice and hatefulness from the clowns in Washington.
Until changes occur to return a semblance of sanity and civility to our country, there is a tendency to just hunker down and wait things out. That is not the right thing to do. There are many needs at local levels, from helping people recover from severe weather events to doing what you can to aid those in needs of food and shelter in your area. You may not be able to fix things at the national or world level, but you can reach out and touch those at your local level who need help. If enough people did that, things would start to change at the higher levels, too.
So, turn off the TV news. You know that it’s going to have stories about some mass shooting somewhere or some stupid thing that those in Washington just did. Instead, 
pick up your local paper and see what groups are asking for volunteers to help distribute food or to provide shelter or perhaps to offer help and counseling to troubled youth. Find a role and a place to help someone else. You may still have a need to cry, when you see how big the need is; but, you’ll end up smiling at the end of the day that you helped fulfill that need.
Yes, the world is not a funny place; but it needn’t all be a tragedy either – you can make a difference in your little patch of the world. Just do it!
Posted by Norm Werner 
minds by the rules that we are taught about how we are to act, if we want to be an adult; although I’m not sure why we ever thought that was such a great idea.
them imagined or self-imposed. The companionship and camaraderie of play is replaced by the competition and stress of career advancement, making a living and getting ahead. Selfishness replaces sharing and anger and revenge displace forgiveness in our lives. Our imagination is replace by ambition and drive.
The revelation that we don’t have to “act your age” can come at any time in life. It occurs when we stop taking everything so seriously and “stop to smell the roses” – to just enjoy being alive.
saying “not my will, but thy will be done.” Once you have arrived at that point, the next step towards, “Let’s go play”, comes much easier, happiness comes much easier, 
contentment comes much easier. God would much rather see us having fun and playing than being worried and serious all of the time.
and admit defeat. Having been in sales and marketing positions most of my adult life, I know a thing or two about rejection or someone saying “no”. There are tons of books on sales and how to deal with objections, and the one constant in all of them is the need to be persistent.
is about rethinking the problem and moving around it or putting it behind you. Go under, over or around it; but, don’t let that seemingly unsolvable problem stop you. Most of the time the problem exists mainly in our heads, due to our inability to accept something that has happened (a failure , a death the end to a relationship) and move on. Dwelling on something is not persistence, it is resistance. That resistance results in stress; stress born out of anger and futility. Allowing that stress in your life results in many health issues, both physical and mental.
has already happened. Learn from yesterday and then let it go. Press on! Take a goo look at the picture and that eh advice that is embedded therein.
speaker was Norma Nicholson, author, motivational speaker and owner of 
believe that we are in control. What we can control is how we react to those events. Almost all of life’s big events cause an initial, sometimes overwhelming, emotional reaction. There is nothing that we can do to avoid the fear or sadness or sense of loss that washes over us at the moment of impact of such an event; however, we can, and should, try to recover and regain control of ourselves as soon as we can. Why? Because we are also often called upon to make quick decisions and to answer the immediate question – What now?
regaining control of the situation is the admission to ourselves that we cannot or could not have controlled the event. For some that is difficult. They tend to spend time in self-recrimination, searching their minds for something that they could have done differently to prevent the event from occurring. What a waste that is. It did occur and there is no going back, no do-overs. There is only, “What now?”
to think clearly again. Whatever, the cause, the effect of turning to prayer can be immediate and dramatic. Most importantly, when you turn to God you have to let go of control of the situation and admit that there was nothing that you could do to change it, it happened. Then you can move on to the question of – now what? Your most effective prayer might be, “Lord, give me the strength and wisdom to get through this situation.”
accomplish. Sometimes we defeat ourselves before we even start with those kinds of thoughts. I’ve posted here many time about breaking seemingly impossibly large problems or tasks into smaller pieces and accomplishing them one at a time. Making steady progress, even in small steps is important, as is rewarding yourself along the way for having accomplished whatever small step you were focusing upon.
school or at work. Maybe you have fallen into an abusive relationship where control is achieve by constantly tearing you down. Maybe some or all of that has happened to you.
eyes. He forgives you whatever sins you may have committed and opens His arms to welcome you.
that no matter how dark it may seem or how deep the hole is that you find yourself in; you are not alone. God is there with you and He is always ready to help, if you will only let Him in. The way to do that is simple – surrender yourself to Him. I have written here many times about the simple, short prayer that I’ve used in times when I needed God’s help – “Not my will, but thy will be done.” The results can be immediate and dramatic.
yourself and that is the ultimate in self-esteem.
soul. They will never forget, but they had forgiven.
need to understand is man’s ego coming out and the need to try to control things. Faith is admitting that we are not in control and putting our trust in the one who is – God. Faith starts with the little prayer “Not my will, but thy will be done.”
It’s going to be a great day.
passages that they felt might ferment rebellion. The result was a Bible that was about ¼ the size of the actual Bible and one in which slaves were advised to mind their masters in Peter 2:18 “Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.”
“reservations” that took place. These are ugly scars on our history, and some would just remove them from our school history books, in an attempt to protect our children from the ugliness of the truth.
written out of our history. We also have intolerance and bigotry against those whom we somehow judge to be “different” – the LBGTQ community, those who are mentally or physically challenged, or those look or speak differently. We cannot write them our of our lives and our history.
and overcame or the things that we discovered about ourselves or about life in general. Yet it is that collection of insights that comprises what wisdom that we have accumulated in our lives. It is our ability to tap into that pool of wisdom that helps us get through life and face new challenges.
the events or asking His help tomorrow when you must face them again. That pause also allows you evaluate how you are spending your life and may force you to re-evaluate your priorities in life.
and those around you; be conscious of how you can contribute to society. However, in all of these things, be aware of your relationship to God and His role in our lives. God watches us all…we are His reality play. Don’t write yourself out of the play by forgetting to pray.
could improve or maybe how something could be improved? Do you stop to think in those moments how you might improve? For some, it is never about them and always about others. Maybe they (you) could benefit from heeding Glasow’s advice.
would; maybe it’s a relationship that has not progressed as you had imagined it. Any and all of those scenarios represent things/situations that you may feel could be improved; however, all of them also represent instances where your reaction may be the real problem.
thinking about how to be a better person or about what improvements you can make to yourself today. Just becoming more self-aware will help. Maybe that will prevent you from blurting out some insensitive remark about someone else or maybe cause you to pause before you jump to some judgement about someone else, based solely on their appearance.
people prefer to be with other people who are upbeat and positive, rather than with a “negative Nellie”. That acceptance by others feeds upon itself to build your self-confidence and things just continue to get better.
NormsMilfordBlog 