“It’s great to be over the hill. That is where you can pick up some speed.” – anonymous
I like this quote a lot. It reminds me of that reality TV show where the contestants had to carryall this weight from station to station. At each station they got to off-load a certain amount of weight. By the end it was just them, no extra baggage, and they were able to go very fast and free to the finish line.
Dropping off baggage, physical, emotional and psychological, is really helpful if you want to pick up a head of steam and move forward, no matter how old you are!
“The fastest way to fill your life with things you want is to eliminate the things you don’t.” – Anonymous
It’s a simple idea, but I really haven’t thought about it this way before (or I did and forgot I did, which happens frequently). Think of it like your closet. Get rid of the clothes you don’t like and what do you have left?
I think for me, I have to start at the extremes to be successful. What am I SURE I don’t want in my life? Hatred, racism, sexism, intolerance, ugly furniture, tripe pasta, stuff like that I KNOW I don’t want and I get rid of it as best I can.
Start with one thing, one thing you DON’T want in your life. Maybe it is alcohol, maybe it is a backyard tiki lamp, maybe it is a person. It doesn’t really matter, jettison it, maybe just for a day, a week. See what happens. Likely you will find you have more of what you want and less of what you don’t!
“Busy souls have no time to be busybodies.” – Anonymous
This is drawn in honor of a friend of mine, a real Baroness from a Barony far away.
The most recent story is of her finding a way to turn two gossiping, malevolent souls away from the empty pleasure towards the true pleasure. The true pleasure is, of course, to talk about others with the intent of understanding and helping instead of diminishing and debilitating.
To do this she uses a pretty hammer that can nail a balloon to a cross without the balloon knowing it’s been deflated and reblown as a good heart.
Of course, she knows she will have to use her pretty hammer again and again, alongside her sardonic screwdriver, sassy saw, artsy awl and crazy crowbar to work these balloons into her vision of good and God but she will do it and say ‘That was fun’.
She is crazy, over the top and the best thing to happen to her island nation since the explorer first arrived.
This quote engendered a lot of debate when I first drew the napkin back in 2000. My daughters and friends all got into thinking this through. Is it really true? I tend to think it is.
The key is to take the question far enough back from the anger.
For example, Here is a statement; ‘I am angry because my husband didn’t come home on time.’ How is that rooted in fear? Well, perhaps the wife is worried (fear) that something happened to him, an accident. Perhaps she is anxious (fear) that he is having an affair. Perhaps she is upset because some dinner plans are now delayed. Because they are delayed she fears that the people they have made the dinner plans will be angry themselves, or inconvenienced or…..
You get the point. so, as an exercise do this. Think about what last made you angry. And step it back until you can find the root of fear that led to the anger. It might take one step, it might take 20, who knows. Maybe you won’t find it, but I bet you will.
Share with us if you come up with any interesting revelations about this.
“The pursuit of happiness is no laughing matter.” – Anonymous
This is an oxymoron in action but is it true? Do we have to be serious about our pursuit of happiness? Who is happier in life, the true pursuer who is deliberate about it all, or the happy-go-lucky sort who doesn’t have a care in the world?
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Hey all you Napkin Kin! Just wanted to let you know you are in good company recently. Over the past week The Napkin Dad Daily has been visited by people from 122 cities in 26 different countries on every continent. Well, ok, not Antartica, but they visited before I think!
Some of the cooler city names I had not heard of before include:
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“May our eyes be no keener when we look upon the faults of others than when we survey our own.” – Anonymous
I have discovered that in many, including myself, the eyesight can sometimes be just as keen when looking upon my own shortcomings as upon others. But that is only half the equation. There is more arithmetic to do.
What is keener though is my understanding. I understand what I do and why better than I understand another.
And, finally, based on that understanding, I am willing to forgive myself more readily than another doing the same thing. If I could have 1/10 the forgiveness for other’s flaws and failures as I am for myself, I would living out this dictum in a much truer fashion.
The first part of the equation is perception, the second part is understanding and the third is forgiveness.
It’s when they are added together that you become a person who is fair about all three and end up with a fair judgment of both yourself and the other.
“When a person does not have a good reason to do something, he does have a good reason for not.” – Anonymous
I don’t know if I agree with this. It seems a little to ‘protestant work ethic’ oriented. You have to always have a known reason beforehand for doing something. You need to redeem your time, your money, your efforts for the greater good, or for business, or for your family, your home, something. You can’t just do something.
Is this true for you? If so, do you end up with what you want or does it still escape you?
If it is not true for you, what about it do you think actually would be a good thing for you to put into practice?
“Not beauty but respectability is only skin deep.” – anonymous
At first I didn’t get this idea, so I tried to come up with something that had outer beauty but would somehow deny respectability at the same time. A hairy underarm on a beautiful woman seemed the perfect illustration.
The surface styles and trends of an season, an era or a culture are often seen as being the same as respectability. What is on the surface is what others see and judgments are made based on that. The more critical of judgments is not the one deciding if someone is beautiful, but if someone is respectable.
For example, if an American sorority is picking between two girls at rush, and there is the plain one with shaved underarms or the beautiful one with unshaved underarms, which one do you think they will pick?
I predict they will pick the plain one. Why? Because they care more about surface respectability than beauty when it comes down to it.
How do you judge in this same way? How do you combat this type of judgment? Or is it valid to do so?
