Favourite Quotations

I just saw a tweet by Cesar Millan that I like:

"Don't let the past hinder your progress. Let it go and stay true to the dream"

I like that. He knows what he's talking about when you're trying to improve your skills as a pack leader: dogs are not hung up about the past, they react to the energy you bring now.

The quotation transfers pretty well to everything else. Why remain stuck on something from the past that doesn't help you now but instead makes everything so much harder?


There are other quotes I like:

'I would rather get occasionally taken advantage of, than run through life with permanently bared teeth.'

'Don't put off to tomorrow what you can do today, cos if it was fun today, you can go for it again tomorrow!'

And Winston Churchill had a lot of brilliant things to say:

'Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.'
'We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us'
'The first quality that is needed is audacity.'
'We occasionally stumble over the truth but most of us pick ourselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.'

And one I'm often guilty of:
'The length of this document defends it well against the risk of its being read.'

An exercise to boost your self-esteem

I'm really fed up with the negative rubbish that sometimes runs through my head (ker-klunk, ker-klunk, ker-klunk).  Dark, dysmal, gloomy thoughts are such an obstacle to living life more positively, cheerful and brighter:  when your sense of curiosity animates you, when hopefulness energises you and a positive frame of mind makes it possible to see things as do-able, instead of hanging back fearfully and letting the negativity restrict my outlook.

But when I keep telling myself the same old codswallop that I don't even want to think of let alone repeat here in this blog post, then trying to hit the off switch ain't all that easy*.

That's why I like the simple exercise as described in this article on the Gay UK News website. The specific bit starts a bit further down and is head-lined: Boost your confidence.

Making a list of things you feel good about, and re-reading it as often as you can!  I really like the idea.

I do similar things, even though probably not often enough.  I like to put up a big old sign with a short mantra or quotation.  I place it next to a mirror or on a door that I use a lot.  Anywhere where I will see it often.

I don't keep the same one forever.  The shortest one said: Smile!
The corniest one was probably: I deserve it (I just about resisted the 'I am worth it' variation...).
I'm thinking of putting up a new mantra, it'll have to be something along fabulous lines.  I could do with a bit of a spark in my life.  (To be pondered...)

Other people do similar things with a photo, or a child's crayon drawing.  The kinds of things that remind you - feeling more upbeat is better for you (yup, corny again).

Maybe it's the body's natural endorphins that lift our mood, maybe that's how it works.  I don't really care, I just don't want the ker-klunk stuff running through my head.

*: I am not talking about depression.  I do not believe that you can lift yourself out of depression by using will power.  I am talking about the moods I get at times when negative thoughts do that carousel in my head thing.  The kind of thing where changing what you think will change how you feel.

Little things that make me happy

I was thinking this again last week: there are some little things that make me very happy whenever I happen to do them.

One of them is how my white everyday china sparkles when I've done the dishes.
Another one is how cosy it feels to slip into a freshly made bed.
And when I finally got round to continuing with a crafts project I've been putting off for ages! It's just sheer and utter bliss!

Why does it take so long and so much effort to do things whose outcome I know I'll enjoy enormously? Just how contrary as people are we that we struggle with stuff that we don't enjoy, and then we don't do the things we actually enjoy either??  What is that all about?

How very odd.

It doesn't take long to wash up a couple of dishes in order to bask in how sparkling and fresh they look.  And feel satisfaction from an achievement.  I suspect that the 'china question' has something to do with whether the sun is out or not.  On a gloomy, miserable day you can't exactly see that sparkle, can you?  Also: everything seems to take so much more effort to get going with if it's a grey and unwelcoming day outside.

There is another little thing that I really enjoy: I wanted to buy a chain of fairy lights just before Christmas last year to put up.  Couldn't find any.  But I found some branches (painted white) with fairy lights on.  I stuck those in a nice glass vase, a generously big cylinder with a nice rim, - and placed them on a window sill.  I love seeing them twinkle after it gets dark, it just gives my heart a warm glow - if that doesn't sound too soppy.  Yes, it does, but who cares. Right?

I think I'd like to do things like that more often.  It'll be fun.

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