From my little list quotes comes this thought for the day –
“Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
To which I would respond, withhold consent. Do not give others the power to control
your life, your emotions, your actions or reactions. Withhold consent. Take charge of your life and decide that you, and only you, will determine how you feel about yourself and about life.
I’ve posted here many times about the need to love yourself before you can love others (see https://normsmilfordblog.com/2017/03/15/first-of-all-be-happy-with-yourself/ ). A strong belief in yourself and comfort with yourself is the base upon which you can begin to build relationships with others. You will not get positive results if you enter into a relationship with the thought that, “I don’t like me, so you probably won’t like me either.” That will become a self-fulfilling prophesy. As Jack Freed posted in his Jack’s Winning Words blog recently – “If you keep saying that things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet.” (Isaac Singer) Don’t become a prophet about yourself. Withhold consent.
It is not about bragging or being cocky; it about being self-assured and self-confident, 
because you like yourself. It brings with it a radiance in your personality that makes women look more beautiful and men look more handsome. If you can get to that state of liking yourself and feeling comfortable with who and what you are, you will notice that what others may think of you, or say about you, takes on much less meaning. What they think or say cannot make you feel inferior because you withhold consent.
And when you encounter those who would try to drag you down to their level by being judgmental, petty, or just plain nasty; just ignore them. I’ve noticed in life that nothing
makes those people more frustrated than your refusal to rise to the bait that they are using to try to lure you into self-doubt or worse. It is for some a nasty game and for others a way to try to bring others down to their level of misery and self-loathing. Withhold consent.
Perhaps one way to reinforce your positive feelings about yourself is to start each day with a little prayer asking God to be with you throughout the day. If you believe that He 
is with you; then, when you encounter someone who is trying to make you feel inferior, you can quickly bring up this thought from Romans 8:31 – “What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” Indeed. With God in your corner, it’s relatively easy to withhold consent.
Have a great, self-assured and empowered day.
Posted by Norm Werner 
Pollyanna-type who always finds a way to make lemonade out of the lemons that come their way. Which are you? Which would you rather be? The one has decided to be unhappy with life and the other will not let life ruin their happiness. You decide what kind of day you will have.
Sometimes we just happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and something bad happens. Sometimes we actually make the bad decision to be at that place. Whichever it is, you are then faced with more decisions about how to react to things that are happening or that just happened. Perhaps another quote sums up your situation best: “Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.” —Charles Swindoll. Since your day is made up of events that you will react to; you decide what kind of day you will have.
decisions about what to do next, instead of letting some knee-jerk reaction control your future. By being conscious of your situation, you can choose to react in a positive way, rather than a negative way. You can choose to move forward with your life in a positive way, rather than shrinking back or retreating into depression. You can be in control; not of the situation, but of your reaction to it. You decide what kind of day you will have.
while I may not be in control of the things that are happening, I am in control of the decisions that I make in reaction to what is happening. Realizing that causes me to take a little pause and ask myself, “What is the right thing to do?” Just that little pause and that thought will allow you to see what God is telling you to do and you will make better decisions. You decide what kind of day you will have.
took you off in a bad direction. It’s never too late to turn back to God and say “A little help here”. Maybe you need to ask for God to help you recover from a bad decision. God will always be there for you and it’s never too late to ask Him for help. It’s as simple as this little prayer – “Not my will but thy will be done.” You decide what kind of day you will have.
true; sometimes with no actual basis in facts. Most prejudices are based on things that we hold to be true with no actual facts to back them up. They are based upon unfounded hate or fear of something or someone. All of our fears, uncertainties and doubts are also baseless in facts and mostly founded in our own imaginations.
but he was not questioning his faith, just the practices of the men who were the religious leaders of the Catholic Church at the time.
questioning long ago and taken for granted.
God, just from the minds of men. At its most elemental level, your faith is your personal relationship with God. All of the rest of the trappings of the various religions are the works of men. So question those trappings if they don’t seem right to you; but, not your relationship with God.
fires in California. There were scenes on the nightly news of people returning to their homes only to find that they no longer existed. More than one was heard saying, “I’ve lost everything.” Many were also heard thanking God that they had been spared their lives.
It is important, as I have expressed here a few times, that you have a strong sense of self and that you love who and what you are; not letting your sense of self-worth be based upon possessions or job. That’s not to say that you should become self-centered; but, rather, that you become self-confident. If your self-examination of who and what you have become leaves something to be desired, then you have something to work upon and not something to be depressed about. Since no one is perfect, you are always on a self-improvement journey to be the best you that you can be (see my post – see my post 
worrying about something bad that might happen the cause for it not to happen? Do you see how silly that sounds? If you can see that in a third-party example, what do you think is the different if it is you worrying about something.
concern and the expenditure of energy without focus or purpose. Worry is trying to solve the unsolvable problem. Worry is man’s ego being unwilling to accept its own limitations and inability to control things that cannot be controlled.
fame and adoption his tag line – “What, me worry?” Or, you can take the advice of Bobby McFerrin’s song – 
Many people associate the word “giving” with money and there certainly are any number of things and causes that ask us to give money. However, giving doesn’t just mean throwing money into the collection basket or bucket. There are more opportunities in life to give of your time and talents than there are Go Fund Me pages. In fact, your time is the most important gift that you have to give.
sick or elderly relative and helping them with some day-to-day task. The point is that you are making the conscious decision to spend some of life’s most precious commodity – time – with someone else or doing something for someone else.
quo in acts of kindness or service to those that we know – a sibling, spouse or our children; however, there is no expectation of a return to be found in helping a stranger in need. Think about how the simple act of holding the door open feels slightly different when it is a stranger entering verses your spouse entering. Both may say, “thank you”; but the acknowledgement from the total stranger will feel a little different.
In day-to-day living, many people claim to be (or at least, admit to being) perfectionists – people who constantly strive for perfection, sometimes to the consternation of those around them. Many times, if the object of their desire for perfection is a sport, you will see them practicing, doing something over and over until they master that aspect of the sport. For many, the inability to achieve perfection dominates their lives and makes them unhappy.
accept mediocrity as a final outcome. One seldom hears cheers being lead that proclaim proudly, “We’re number two” or signs extolling you to “be good enough”. Rather, we see and hear, “Be the best that you can be”; strive for perfection.
perfection in your religious life those other things will take care of themselves. At least we have one “perfect” example to try to emulate in our pursuit – Jesus. Perhaps one of those little WWJD bracelets would cause us to pause and think before we act, before we say something or do something that would cause us to backslide on our pursuit of perfection.
we accept Him.
we should do and which we could do; but, then we think of other things and those initial thoughts become things that we would do if we weren’t already so busy. At the end of the day we may pause to reflect on our coulda, woulda, shoulda list of things left undone. We knew and maybe we thought ourselves to be willing, but we didn’t DO.
people who hold some negative opinion or dislike for some group or groups of people and who are unable or unwilling to consider a different point of view. That is not to say that you have to agree with those people or practice whatever behavior it is that offends you that they display. But, it is to say that you at least try to understand that they have a different view of the world and come to peace with the fact that those differences exist. So long as the differences in appearance or behavior are not destructive or disruptive, what real difference does it make? Keep an open mind.
make the nightly news. It is hard to tell whether it is fear or hate that is the primary driving force behind these groups, but interviews with members of the groups quickly demonstrate their closed-minded nature. Even for what we might call “normal” people, there are often many things that might cause discomfort or anxiety just beneath the surface of their otherwise calm expressions. Keep an open mind.
likely presents no threat to you. In fact, study after study in the business world has shown the benefits of having a diverse workforce with a rich diversity of ideas and approaches to the same issues, as opposed to having a homogeneous workforce that s all driven by the same set of beliefs and standards (and prejudices). Keep an open mind.
WWJD on it. That stands for What Would Jesus Do and is a good way to pause and think about things before letting some preconception or prejudice dictate you actions. The bible says – “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God…” – Romans 12:2 Keep an open mind.
Keeping an open mind will mean getting out of your comfort zone. Comfort zones are often defined by pre-conceived notions and even prejudices. Comfort zones have walls that are built at the edges of understanding, beyond which lies our fears, uncertainties and doubts. Comfort zones start at our mental dawn and runs until dusk, with everything beyond them hidden in the dark. You must be brave enough to venture into the dark in order to discover new things, have new experiences, make new friends and expand your knowledge. Rosa Parks put it well when she said – “I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear.” Make up your mind to Keep an open mind. 
rest and sleep, as well as eating. For more and more families, a good deal of time maybe be committed to sports, either as a participant or to facilitate our children n sports. For parents with school-aged children those sports activities may become all-consuming. Between overlapping sports seasons and travel teams there is always a game or practice for every waking moment. Over the last few years, those activities more often than not involved starting early Sunday morning and consuming most of the day.
important that learning about God and Jesus? When did kicking a ball around a field become more important that forming a good moral base for life? Where does God and the church fit into your family schedule? No time for that now. What a pity. How often, “I’ll get to that later” becomes, “I wish I had done that than.”
life lessons and moral codes that being in Sunday School and Church would teach them. Learning good sportsmanship is one thing; but learning what God wants them to understand about life is an entirely different thing.
ability to shoot or kick or hit the ball anymore, your children will thank you for setting their priorities right and helping them establish a relationship with God that will serve them well for their entire lives. In the end, how much was the fact that you were a decent young hockey player or soccer player going to mean, as opposed to having established a lifelong relationship with God as a child?
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