Trail of Hope

Your Dimension Of Greatness

No one can know the potential,
Of a life that is committed to win;
With courage – the challenge it faces,
To achieve great success in the end!

So, explore the Dimension of Greatness,
And believe that the world CAN be won;
By a mind that is fully committed,
KNOWING the task can be done!

Your world has no place for the skeptic,
No room for the DOUBTER to stand;
To weaken your firm resolution
That you CAN EXCEL in this land!

We must have VISION TO SEE our potential,
And FAITH TO BELIEVE that we can;
Then COURAGE TO ACT with conviction,
To become what GOD MEANT us to be!

So, possess the strength and the courage,
To conquer WHATEVER you choose;
It’s the person WHO NEVER GETS STARTED,
That is destined FOREVER to lose!

    ~ Author Unknown ~

  ( Please share your thoughts and this blog.  Sharing is Caring!)

Our time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

Life’s circumstances are not always what you might wish them to be.The pattern of life does not necessarily go as you plan.Beyond any understanding , you may at times be led in different directions that you never imagined , dreamed,or designed.Yet if you have never put any effort into choosing a path , or tried to carry out your dream , then perhaps you would have no direction at all.
Rather than wondering about or questioning the direction your life has taken , accept the fact that there is a path before you now.

Shake off the ”why’s” and ”what if’s” ,and rid yourself of confusion.Whatever was- is in the past.Whatever is – is what’s important.
The past is a brief reflection.The future is yet to be realized.Today is here.Walk your path one step at a time – with courage , faith , and determination.Keep your head up , and cast your dreams to the stars.Soon your steps will become firm and your footing will be solid again.A path that you never imagined will become the most comfortable direction you could have ever hoped to follow.
Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by chance or by means of good luck. Illness, Injury, love, lost moments of true greatness and sheer stupidity all occur to test the limits of your soul.

Without these small tests, life would be like a smoothly paved, straight, flat road to nowhere. Safe and comfortable but dull and utterly pointless. The people you meet affect your life. The successes and downfalls that you experience can create who you are, and the bad experiences can be learned from. In fact, they are probably the most poignant and important ones.
If someone hurts you, betrays you or breaks your heart, forgive them because they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to whom you open your heart to.

If someone loves you, love them back, unconditionally, not only because they love you, but because they are teaching you to love and open your heart and eyes to little things.

Make  every day count. Appreciate every moment and take from it everything that you possibly can, for you may never be able to experience it again. Talk to people you have never talked to before, and actually listen.
Let yourself fall in love, break free and set your sights high.

Hold  your head up because you have every right to. Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself, for if you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will believe in you.

( Please share your thoughts and this blog.  Sharing is Caring!)

“I believed in belief, for its own shining sake. 
To believe in the face of utter hopelessness, every article of evidence to the contrary, to ignore apparent catastrophe – what other choice was there? We are so much stronger than we imagine, and belief is one of the most valiant and long-lived human characteristics. To believe, when all along we humans know that nothing can cure the briefness of this life, that there is no remedy for our basic mortality, that is a form of bravery. To continue believing in yourself…believing in whatever I chose to believe in, that was the most important thing.”

It is essential to believe in oneself in order to sustain the drive not only to live but to succeed. “The greatest oak was once a little nut who held its ground.” Just as that nut held its ground, we too need to hold our ground in the midst of human struggle. The greatest weapon against adversity is belief in oneself.

“Human beings are made up of flesh and blood, and a miracle fiber called courage.” It is this courage, combined with belief, which work together as two indestructible forces, prevailing in the storms of life. “During our lives…we experience so many setbacks, and fight such a hand-to-hand battle with failure, head down in the rain, just trying to stay upright and have a little hope.”

We must continue to enlighten our spirit with these seeds of hope. We must seek out words which inspire us to create our own destiny. “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” 

               ( Please share your thoughts and this blog.  Sharing is Caring!)

 Looking back I started to think about some of the more difficult times I’ve encountered along the Trail. From snow to mountains then to never ending rain and the flat plains and heat, the difficulties have been numerous. At times I lack substantial food for the journey since there are no places to stop for a bite to eat. Yet throughout these challenges I understand that I need to not only feed my body, but feed my mind as well. The mind needs to be energized at all times. If it remains stagnant, the lack of energy will take us down. 

Yesterday I took the day off to renew my body, soul and mind. I started reading some articles and things about Lance Armstrong. As I read, I became more and more inspired. I realized that while walking in the heat for hours at a time, my mind is not fed properly. It doesn’t take in anything along the journey unless it is a tree offering shade.

We experience many setbacks in our lives and it is important to try to stay upright and find a glimmer of hope.  We go through different pains but we must keep in mind that pain is something that is temporary. It will only last an hour, a day, a week, or a limited amount of time. Eventually the pain will subside and something else will take its place. We must believe in ourselves and allow that belief to drive us through whatever hardship we encounter. Quitting should never be an option because quitting is something that lasts forever.

(Please share your thoughts and this blog. Sharing is Caring!)

                                 William Penn’s Fruits of Solitude

  -  A good End cannot sanctify evil Means; nor must we ever do Evil, that Good may come of it.   

  -  If thou wouldn’t conquer thy weakness , thou must not gratify it.        

  -  Passion  is a sort of fever in the mind, which ever leaves us weaker than it found us.     

  -  Right  is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.     

  -  True  silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.  

  -  Sense shines with a double luster when it is set in humility. An able yet humble man is a jewel worth a kingdom.       

  -    To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals – this alone is worth the struggle.”

                 ( Please share your thoughts and this blog.  Sharing is Caring!)

Change can be one of the most difficult aspects of our lives. Change is inevitable. Our surroundings change, our relationships change, even our bodies change. Change can be for the good and for the bad. Most of the time, change makes us feel uncomfortable because it asks us to do unfamiliar things. We feel a certain sense of security when things remain the same. Naturally, we favor predictability and constants.  Change is also a powerful thing. It can keep us stagnant in the same space or allow us to embark on new and invigorating journeys.

“If you keep on doing the same things over and over again, you will keep getting the same results.” Unless you are happy with the same results, try something new and see what will be produced. We should embrace change and work within it. We should use change as fuel to power our lives.

Our willingness to change plays a big role in our ability to succeed at life. Our first step is to create change and decide what we ant so we have something to move towards. There should be checkpoints in our lives where we take time to examine our being and decide if we are content with the same or we wish to strive for something more. We can create our own change.

For change to possess any true value, it must be lasting and consistent. The change must have its own legacy within itself. False changes are only temporary moderations which we make and then retract to a previous state.

Change is important, for we can look back upon the changes in our lives and see how each change led us to the place we are today. Suddenly the sporadic and sometimes violent changes in our lives are the very events that led us to our destiny. At the moment of change, we were distressed but looking back we learn that we can always cope and move forward no matter what constant was disturbed.

If we wish to create change, we have to realize that it is not a question of whether we can do it, but rather whether we will do it.

     (Please share your thoughts and this blog.  Sharing is Caring!)

One day not too long ago, I was walking along in the rain and I happened to see a little pin lying on the ground. It read, “United We Stand.” That little pin left an imprint on my mind and I began to think about the aspect of unity. Unity is from the Latin word unitatem (nom. Unitas) meaning “oneness, sameness, agreement,” from unus “one.”

Unity is a cherished element of time. Even when Benjamin Franklin signed the Declaration of Independence he expressed the importance of unity when he said, “We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” However, unity does not have to be just a large scale endeavor. Unity can be achieved on a smaller scale as well.

Unity to me is like creating a single unit out of many different individuals. Like John Dickinson said in “The Patriot’s Appeal,” “By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.” Unity is like forming a team, in the literal and metaphorical sense. The individual parts that each person has must help create parts for another teammate. Each person is responsible for encouraging one another to experience their talent and provide as much as possible. This encouragement is necessary to make another teammate successful in their endeavors. Unity can be achieved when each member makes sure that others on the team are utilized to the best of their ability.

At times I believe that people may appreciate the concept of unity, and they like the act of creating it, yet they are still selfish in a way and do not want to put in a large amount of personal effort to exude the ultimate value that unity creates. The success of every individual is inextricable bound to the success of the whole team. As Mia Hamm once said, “I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team. I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.”

I believe unity is two people or more who want to and create the best outcome they can. Unity is undividable, unbroken completeness. When we create unity, we create a totality of oneness.

“All for one; one for all” – Alexandre Dumas from The Three Musketeers.

Life

                The adventure of life is to learn. 
                The purpose of life is to grow.
                The nature of life is to change. 
                The challenge of life is to overcome. 
                The essence of life is to care.
                The opportunity of life is to serve.
                The secret of life is to dare. 
                The spice of life is to befriend. 
                The beauty of life is to give. 
                The joy of life is to love.

                                                              ~ William Arthur Ward

       (Please share your thoughts and this blog.  Sharing is Caring!)

Spirit

                     And while I stood there
        I saw more than I can tell,
        and I understood more than I saw;
        for I was seeing in a sacred manner
        the shapes of things in the spirit,
        and the shape of all shapes as they must
        live together like one being.
                                                              -  Black Elk,

       (Please share your thoughts and this blog.  Sharing is Caring!)

Throughout the past few days, I’ve been thinking a lot about peace. While many of us have somewhat of a perceived understanding as to what peace is, very few people understand what peace means. I believe peace is not shared enough in society today. Peace needs to be created everyday in order to maintain it throughout humanity.

The day after I arrived in Indianapolis, there was a peace rally being held downtown. I read in the newspaper that the rally took place in the city and shockingly, only 50 people attended. I was surprised that in such a large city there was so little a response to an honest effort.

Peace has to be created within ourselves to be maintained in our neighborhoods and beyond. We have to take the steps and follow through with action. It is not enough to talk about peace or idealistic values. It is interesting that many people I meet along the way are not interested in spreading peace, even in the simplest of ways.  

I want to pose the question, do we wait for something violent or negatively life altering to happen before we respond? Or, do we create an environment where we can communicate with one another in a peaceful spirit at all times. We should maintain this practice and open relationships between borders, boundaries, and social circles.

When I started thinking about peace, my mind travels back to that Great Elm Tree down in Haverford, Pennsylvania. I remember the great and immense rush of feelings of unity and peace while standing underneath its branches. That tree serves as a nature made symbol of peace and despite storms and changing seasons, it lives on and prospers.

 Peace can prosper and live on just like the Great Elm. People could practice acting as a good people in good faith. People could greet a perfect stranger as they pass by or smile at someone they don’t  know at all. People walk by each other, sit by each other, and live around each other without recognizing each other as creatures, neighbors, and a collective body of the human spirit.  

Peace is more than just a break from war or a group of people not fighting at a certain time. Peace is recognizing the precious gift of communication among every individual. Peace is sharing thoughts and ideas with perfect strangers. Peace is finding ways to support individuals who spread the message of peace.

Peace is living each day in a state of unity which once united different peoples of different walks of life under a Great Elm Tree and beyond its branches.

(Please share your thoughts and this blog.  Sharing is Caring!)