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As you may recall, I went on a rant a while back about the Top 10 Most Dangerous Sayings Ever. I really don’t like to focus on the negative in life, so I decided to share with you my picks for The Top 5 Best Sayings of All Time!!!
Make Hay While the Sun Shines!
This is a saying that comes from the farming world and it means that you should make hay when the sun is out. If you don’t the hay can get damp and it all sticks together and it’s a big mess. In life this means that if something is going well you should just run with it! Perfect timing is rare, and if you happen upon the best time to do something you should go for it! This past fall I was given a rare opportunity to handle sales for three centers at once. That almost never happens, so I made sure to focus as much effort as possible on getting sales while I had the chance. It meant that I had to put some other tasks on the back burner, but you’ve got to make hay while the sun shines!!! The trick is to realize that you sometimes have a limited window of opportunity and to seize that time and make the best of it!
A Watched Pot Never Boils
This one is true both literally and figuratively. How many times have you stood there waiting for the water to boil and it took three times as long to boil as it would have if you had walked away? Yet if you put on the kettle and run into another room to do something quickly that darned whistle is blowing in record time? The idea here is that if you put water in the kettle and put it on a high flame or heating element, the water IS GOING TO BOIL. There is no uncertainty here. There are basic principles involved here and once you have put all the steps together you will get boiling water.
For me this saying is about letting go and letting our dreams happen. I am by nature a very impatient person and, as I was reminded recently by a spiritual advisor, I get in my own way more often than not. I always try to push things along faster and, by doing so, I actually get in the way and slow it all down. Once you have set your intention, and put the pieces in place, just sit back and let God and the Universe do their thing. Stop getting impatient and thinking its taking too long to come to fruition. Don’t go in there and start tweaking it and trying to optimize it. Just have faith and go do something else. Before you know it your dream will be at hand.
Life Begins at 40
This one is near and dear to my heart for so many reasons. When I was a young child I lived with my grandparents. Geritol had come out with their advertising campaign focused on the over forty crowd and were using the slogan “life beings at forty.” My grandfather, who seemed ancient to me at the time, but was probably only in his mid-sixties, was very achy and his diabetes (that he did not take care of) was really getting the best of him. I cannot count the number of times he looked at me after collapsing into his easy chair at night and said “Ahhh, life begins at forty - shoot the sonofabitch who said that!” Ahh, Grampa, I really miss you.
In any event the other reason this saying is so meaningful is that I am now forty-one! The truth of the matter is that I finally feel like a grown-up. I think have have amassed a goodly amount of life experience and I feel as if I know what I’m doing. While that may all be an illusion, it’s way better than my thirties where I still felt like kid and suddenly I was supposed to be someone’s parent! Seriously, I think by the time we hit forty, we really are getting into a groove with life and it is a great time to really begin to stretch your wings and find out what your spirit can really do!
Good Things Come to Those Who Wait
See: A Watched Pot Never Boils above and try along with me to truly internalize the concept of patience! Together we can lick this instant or nearly instant gratification issue. Life goes on a pretty long time barring any unexpected circumstances, so if the dream doesn’t come true today, there’s always tomorrow and the day after. When we master the art of having a patient heart I suspect that it won’t matter to us one way or another because we will be happy and at peace in each and every moment.
Do What you Love
Every success and motivation coach on the planet will tell you that the way to succeed is to do what you love. Donald Trump loves making deals. What he does is not WORK to him, it is passion and fun. Great athletes love the games they play, which is why it is so hard for someone like Michael Jordan or Brett Favre to retire. How do you know what you love? Pay attention to the way you feel when you do different things in your life. For me, the what I love is writing. I love speaking too, but if it were a choice between the two I can say without hesitation that sitting here with my fingers flying over the keys is where I want to be.
When I write and I am in the groove, the words just flow. There is no discernible separation between my mind and my fingers and the words as they appear. I do not think the words and then type them; they just flow. At those times, like right now, when I am truly inspired, my fingers can hardly move fast enough and my heart races and I lose touch with my body. I completely lose my awareness of everything around me. It is as if the words and I become one as they magically appear before my eyes. I can truly say that at these times I am in touch with the Divine. The line that separates me from God and the Universe blurs and then disappears and I know Heaven. If there is something that you do that gives you that kind of feeling. Something that brings you so much joy that you would grieve terribly at its loss as if you had lost contact with God, then that is the what you love in your life.
Will doing what you love bring your riches? Well, I’m going to leave that for another article. For now let’s just say that doing what you love will bring you joy and you should do that thing that you love as often as life permits. If you can make a living doing what you love, that’s wonderful. If what you love is not something that would generate income, you MUST still do it! Do not sever your tie to the Divine because it doesn’t pay well!
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Well, then there must be something miraculously wonderful coming to me, because I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting… I guess I should stop watching the darned pot. {sigh} Good reminders, all.
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I love your Watched Pot and Good Things. I believe that ALL of us deserve wonderful things. Granted, some of us have been given different hardships than others, but in the end, I think that, as long as we are willing to let God work on our lives on His timetable (which may vary WIDELY from ours), then we will get all of the things that He wants us to have (even though we may not think we want them at the time, or we don’t know we want them). Happiness is ours to achieve, but we also have to do our part. ^_^
I love your take on the Watched Pot. The part about just letting go and letting your dreams happen really spoke to me. Being the OC person that I am, I’ve been pretty obsessed about making sure things happen in my life exactly like I want them to. Suffice to say, the more I tried to control things, the slower the results were in coming. Now, I know what I should do. Or shouldn’t do, for that matter. I need to stop watching the pot and just let go. Thanks for the inspiration!
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The last one Do What You Love is the one that really can change your life. Even if you do not become rich doing what you love, the benefits in your life will multiply. It is not good for your health to work in a job you hate, or “have to” do something day in and day out. I am so very, very happy for you that you can do what you love. I had that with dance for 14 years. God blessed me with those 14 years and the memory still makes me happy and content.