Sometimes I forget the importance of friendship. A shoulder to cry on. An embracing smile. A trusted Counselor. A listening supporter. Its an unconditional love that accepts your faults without judgement. A friend sees the 'real' you, loves the 'real' you.

Today we turn to my personal favorite story-time gang, Winnie the Pooh. Christopher Robbins says to Pooh Bear,

Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

There's a Friend and Trusted Counselor already within us.

Today is a shared thought and quote in one. Thanks for stopping by.

There is a conscious decision made by a person whether to do right or wrong. I wonder though, how often decisions are made when consideration is given to cause and effect. There is relative ease to see the short-term impact, but what about long-term? What are the emotional effects? What is the message being conveyed by taking action? Or not taking action as the case may be?

A friend shared with me these thoughts and I relay them to you.

Your actions are the truest indicator of who you are as a person. Words are just words. The greateast orator can speak volumes. It is the action which defines.

In tribute to all things Swiss, we turn to the Founder of Analytic Psychology, Dr. Carl Gustav. He is best known for his pioneering work of dream analysis.

The unconscious mind of man sees correctly even when conscious reason is blind and impotent.

Inside, I know what is right and what is wrong. Why does my mind try to always be right? It fights my heart and soul. I need to master my mind. It is only a tool that I've been given. If i can control my mind, I can control myself. My conscious tells me, listen.

He is considered to be the world's pre-eminent dramatist. With more than 38 plays penned and 154 sonnets, not including his poetry, William Shakespeare expressed his emotions, his beliefs, his convictions in his works. It is the reason
he is admired and remembered.

Honesty is the best policy. If I lose mine honor, I lose myself.

I took 'honesty' foregranted. I didn't give it a second-thought, and just considered myself to be it. I lived day to day thinking that I 'was' being honest. Its weird. I had thought I doing everything right. Making the right decisions. Saying the right things. There was tough decisions inside that i made, who really made though decisions? Was it the 'real' me? I would like to think so.

Looking back on it, I was performing on a stage. The applause from the cheap seats fueled the performance. Those just outside of 'eye' sight didn't know the difference. There was a stare from the front row. When sitting front row and middle, you see it all. What's real and what is not. You see the performance for what it is. You see the person for what they are. You also see a glimpse of the person they truly want and are meant to be. I still see the stare. I see the same stare in the mirror.

I am critic of life. I believe each of us are in some accord.Cesare Pavese was not only a critic of literaure, but a poet, novelist and translator. He lived during the fascism 1930's of Italy and was persecuted because of anti-fascism viewpoints. He led a difficult life which he ended at his own choice. This quote is taken from his diaries.

We do not remember days, we remember moments. The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.

This is an pondering perspective that I'm not sure I grasp completely. Does he mean that we often overlook the richest memories of past? That we've forgranted them, merely as a way of everyday living?

There are moments of yesterday that I put into a storage chest, filed away, per say. As if I was a sponge soaking in the moments but not realizing that they occurred or of their signifigance. I am challenged to look into the storage chest. Sort through the files of yesteryear and learn from them. I sense that they are far 'richer' than I ever could have imagined.

I refer to a passage in the Bible, Hebrews Chapter 12, Verse 1.

God Disciplines His Sons.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.

To all the readers of this blog, embark upon this day's journey with vigor and love. Fill your heart with compassion and be grateful you slept under a Moon and awoke to a rising Sun. Act with urgency. Live with Discipline. Add Value.

Today we have a simple quote from the famed folk artist, Grandma Moses. Born with the name of Anna Mary Robertson, Grandma Moses reminded American of its roots, its values and the fruits of living life to its fullest.

Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.

Sometimes we forget that we can take the reigns of life and make things happen. I can make it better.

William James may be more known for the company he kept than his writings. Godson to Ralph Waldo Emerson and a friend to the likes of Helen Keller, Mark Twain, G. K. Chesterton and Sigmund Freud, James wrote books on the young science of psychology.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.

Inside, I always knew this to be true. Someone once told me, all the answers are already inside. I just shut the door in my mind to hear only what I want to hear. Its time I open the door.

Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in India. She is most known for her work among the poverty-stricken of Kolkata (Calcutta) and is referred to as the Angel of Mercy. Her work has changed the life of millions and the way she lived continues to be a source of inspiration for even more around the world. She is remembered and she is loved, because she gave love.

Few of us can do great things, but all of us can do small things with great love.

It truly is amazing what a person can do when they allow love and gratefulness to fill their heart. Let us be reminded of that this day.

An English writer, Aldous Leonard Huxley is said to be a 'leader of modern thought' in distinguished circles. Others thought his perspective was ill-conceived and baseless, encroaching too harsh a critic.

There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.

I say to thee, all of us think we know what is best. Best for me, best for you, best for everyone. Father teaches that there is only One who knows. All else is merely a guess. All else is perception between fact and truth. Lost life will forever exist if under another's list. No one can live in self-freedom under markings of expectations. True life and love comes from chosen-disciplined living, unjudged acceptance and unconditioanal gratefulness.

Born and lived in the 1800's, Henry George was an early American economist. He was also looked upon with political influence as a philospher forming policies that helped shape the American economic infrastructure.

He who sees the truth, let him proclaim it, without asking who is for it or who is against it.

Living in a politically-correct world, we need to remain bold and stalwart to follow and live our convictions. Sometimes its not that easy though, right? I remind myself, dig a little deeper, and a little more, and a little more until all doubt has left.

CS Lewis helped changed the world's landscape, but he first started by changing himself. His faith, his strength, his courage is an inspiration.

Though our feelings come and go, God’s love for us does not.

There's something surreal about that phrase - How we can be loved unconditionally. Its unfathomable by the human mind, which is why you have to let mind go. Feel it with your heart. Feel it with your soul.

CS Lewis was an atheist in his youth. He described himself as being "very angry with God for not existing." He was later influenced by arguments with his Oxford colleague and Catholic friend J. R. R. Tolkien, and by G.K. Chesterton's book, The Everlasting Man. He slowly rediscovered Christianity. He came to believe in the existence of God although he fought greatly against it. He describes his last struggle in Surprised by Joy:

You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.

It sounds incredibly similar both in feeling and action. God wanted me to hit bottom. Not for him, but so I would see Him. I had been blind and deaf, stupid and ignorant.

My best friend told me of her similar experience and I relate her advice, and my 'awakening' with these words, 'I was trying to find myself by looking to the core of my humanity. I was looking in the wrong place. There is fault in being human. It is the Divinity within me that I must listen to, trust completely."

Born in Northern Ireland, CS Lewis was awarded many honorary doctorates for his accomplishments, but he found self- passion in Renaissance literature and Poetry.

What you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing; it also depends on what kind of a person you are.

Move. Change where you are standing. You are missing the world if you stay in the same spot. What's the saying about grass growing under your feet? You need to find yourself to know you need to move.

Clive Staples Lewis, or more commonly known to his friends as 'Jack', is most recognized for his literary work, The Chronicles of Narnia.

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

Maybe its because we turn to Him the most during those times. We should always be listening...

This week we turn to the great author and story-teller CS Lewis...

The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal.

I wonder why the pain feels so much greater? Is it because we don't really appreciate the happy times? We coast through them without even thinking. We should all be a bit more grateful.

There was no third-party quote that could embody the words being felt, so this is a new creation.

No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time to look inside yourself, view how you are living life, see your faults, surrender your ego and yourself to what is just.

I have found myself living in ignorance far too long and its penalty far greater than ever imagined.

Nobel Prize Peace Awardee, the Most Reverend Desmond Mpilo Tutu said these words,

Without forgiveness, there's no future.

American actress and sex symbol Mae West was the Diva of Vaudeville and a shining star in the hype of Hollywood birth.

Love thy neighbor - and if he happens to be tall, debonair and devastating, it will be that much easier.

Ladies, this one's for you.

Born in 1854, the Irishman, Poet, Novelist, Dramatist and an opinionated Critic,
Oscar Wilde sharply stated,

I like men who have a future and women who have a past.

I don't know exactly what that means,
but I like it.