Showing posts with label self help. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self help. Show all posts

Monday, September 8, 2014

My Kids Share Their Top Two Life Lessons

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"Life Lessons" photo by Luke Austin Daugherty Copyright 2014
Last week, I gave my four youngest kids a little assignment. I asked them to consider the two most important life lessons they have acquired during their tenure on planet Earth thus far and write them down in brief. They each spent some time working on their answers independently. Here is what they came up with. Being that they are raised in the same household, a couple reoccurring themes surfaced. Maybe there is something here you can use in your own life, no matter what your age may be :) 
Nathanael- 14 years old:
 
  1. Don’t waste time on something or someone who is not worth it. Focus on what you are doing.
  2. If you want to do something, then do it.
 
Caleb- 14 years old:
 
  1. When studying anything, look at the facts.
  2. Live in the now.
 
Lydia- 13 years old:
 
  1. Don’t live in the future or the past. Live in the present.
  2. Every yes to one thing is a no to something else. Every no to one thing is a yes to something else.
 
Charity- 10 years old:
  1. Don’t let people talk you in to something you don’t want to do.
  2. Every yes in life is a no to something else. Every no in life is a yes to something else.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

What is the Definition of Love? Fill in the Blank – (A Poem)


I heard her ask, “What is the definition of love?”
The definition of love?
No such thing
Only definitions
As Ingersoll spoke of the ocean
And the Bible
Love is the same
When one stands on the edge of the sea
To gaze at its wonder
He receives the echo of his own self
His thoughts, moods, and experiences
When one opens the pages
Of the book called, “Holy”
He sees in that god
His own character reflected
And finds the Jesus who he is seeking
The one he himself is
For the kind
God is found gentle
For the viscous
They happily discover Jesus’ words in the Gospel of Luke,
“But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them,
bring hither, and slay them before me.”
And then smile, thinking within their mind,
“How ironic it is that Jesus was so much like me the whole time.”
This is the meaning of love
Rather the meanings
Only a fool believes there is just one
Definition
Of the meaning of love
Or of life
When you stand on the edge of the sea of love
You will find naught but yourself
Crashing back at you
Your own answer in the foaming waves
The love you find in life
Can have no fire
But that provided by your own spark
Within
And if the definition you find
Does not suit you
Or if you find the answer to the question
“What is the definition of love?”
Wanting
I suggest that you change the definition of your own self
So that the music made by the sound of crashing waves
When you stand at the edge of the sea
Loses its dissonant and unpleasant tone
So much so
That when the blue deep, in all its glorious fury, smiles at you
You can smile back
At the meaning of it all
What is the definition of love?
I have my own
What is yours?
Fill in the blank

-Copyright 2014, Luke Austin Daugherty- All Rights Reserved