Don't Make Your Thoughts Your Prisons

You're more important than any of your problems. What you have outside you counts less than what you have inside you. Courage gives you the power to face your difficulties. It comes from the reserves of your mind that are more powerful than your outside circumstances.
Your obstacles will look large or small to you according to whether you are large or small. Courage gives you the capacity to confront what can be imagined. It gives you the ability to rise above your present reality. Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. When you recognize that you're bigger than your problems, you'll gain the courage necessary to overcome anything.
Difference between Focusing on Problems and Focusing on Solutions
Case 1
When NASA began the launch of astronauts into space, they found out that the pens wouldn't work at zero gravity (ink won't flow down to the writing surface). To solve this problem, it took them one decade and $12 million. They developed a pen that worked at zero gravity, upside down, underwater, in practically any surface including crystal and in a temperature range from below freezing to over 300 degrees C.
And what did the Russians do...?? They used a pencil.

Case 2
One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was the case of the empty soapbox, which happened in one of Japan 's biggest cosmetics companies. The company received a complaint that a consumer had bought a soapbox that was empty. Immediately the authorities isolated the problem to the assembly line, which transported all the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason, one soapbox went through the assembly line empty. Management asked its engineers to solve the problem. Post-haste, the engineers worked hard to devise an X-ray machine with high-resolution monitors manned by two people to watch all the soapboxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not empty. No doubt, they worked hard and they worked fast but they spent whoopee amount to do so.
But when a rank-and-file employee in a small company was posed with the same problem, he did not get into complications of X-rays, etc., but instead came out with another solution. He bought a strong industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line.. He switched the fan on, and as each soapbox passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out of the line.

Moral:
1.. Always look for simple solutions...
2.. Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problems...
3.. Always focus on solutions & not on Problems...

Motivational Quotes

"Learn to be happy with what you have while you pursue all that you want."
--- Author Unknown --- Submitted by Charity --- Singapore

“There is no color to the hand of friendship."
--- Author Unknown --- Sent in by Heather G.

"If you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, you live more richly those moments."
--- Anne Morrow Lindbergh --- Submitted by Terésa M. --- Perth - Western Australia

“Happiness lies for those who cry, those who hurt, those who have searched and those who have tried, for only
they can appreciate the importance of people who have touched their lives."
--- Author Unknown --- Submitted by Chen --- Malaysia

"Steadfast, friend, though the seas be high and the crests break the soul, for the swells of the heart dwarf those of
the storm."
--- Author Unknown --- Contributed by George B.

"The person who sends out positive thoughts activates the world around him positively and draws back to himself
positive results."
--- Norman Vincent Peale

"Believe in something that captures your heart, your body, and your soul. Let it captivate your mind and open you
to new possibilities. Let it consume you and show you that through hard work, determination, and dedication you
will not fail."
--- Copyright © 2006 Jariel Morales

This is just something that I wrote to help me get through a situation. It helped me put things into perspective and
“Every moment of light and dark is a miracle."
--- Walt Whitman

"It is human nature to get depressed by setbacks, but it is a superhuman task to rise above your circumstances
and rewrite your destiny. The one that stands erect and unfazed, in the face of adversity, ultimately leaves the
footprints to success."
--- Author Unknown --- Submitted by Ranjita R. --- California

"To know someone here or there with whom you feel there is understanding, in spite of distances or thoughts
unexpressed; that can make of this earth a garden."
--- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe --- Submitted by Lei L. --- Hawaii

"Love cures people; both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it."
--- Karl Menniger --- Submitted by Kim T. --- Kansas

"What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. They are but trifles, to be sure; but, scattered along life's
pathway, the good they do is inconceivable."
--- Joseph Addison --- Sent in by Ray L. --- Ontario, Canada

"The only thing that you can carry with you on your travels is your heart. Fill you heart with good things and good
things will follow you for the rest of your life."
--- Scott Murray --- Zimbabwe, Africa

"Sometimes on the way to our dreams, we get lost and find an even better one!"
--- Author Unknown --- Contributed by Martha Gil --- Virginia

"Souls are like athletes that need opponents worthy of them if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the
full use of their powers and rewarded according to their capacity."
--- Thomas Merton --- 'The Seven Storey Mountain'
--- Sent in by Bruce B. --- Out on a Submarine

"When odds are against me, I prove them wrong. When all else fails, I succeed. When all turns to ash, from it I
rise. So it doesn't matter what you throw at me or what you do, I will rise above it."
--- Author Unknown --- Submitted by Luke C. --- Victoria, Australia

"You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it."
--- Margaret Thatcher

"The people in one's life are like the pillars on one's porch you see life through. And sometimes they hold you up,
and sometimes they lean on you and sometimes it is just enough to know that they are standing by."
--- Author Unknown --- Submitted by Gwyneth F. --- Connecticut

“Be delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting
somewhere behind the morning."
--- J.B. Priestly --- Submitted by Hunter Barnett --- Florida

"When your world seems like too much to handle, just take a deep breath and laugh. It clears the mind and frees
your spirit."
--- Michael P. Miller --- California

"Find the good. It's all around you. Find it, showcase it, and you'll start believing in it."

" I am the best gift I have ever received."
--- Marion --- Washington

Grant me the strength to forgive myself
When innocent mistakes occur.
Grant me the knowledge to forgive myself
When decisions thought right backfire.
Grant me the courage to forgive myself
When issues arise I can't control.
Grant me the ability to forgive myself
When perfection falls short.
Grant me the intelligence to forgive myself
When my shortcomings are exposed.
Grant me the strength to forgive others
When errs are done onto me.
--- Written in 2001 by Ellen F.

"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."
--- Edith Wharton --- Contributed by Ed M.

“My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there."
--- Charles F. Kettering

"Once we recognize the fact that every individual is a treasury of hidden and unsuspected qualities, our lives
become richer, our judgment better, and our world is more right. It is not love that is blind, it is only the unnoticing
eye that cannot see the real qualities of people."
--- Charles H. Percy

"Don't be afraid, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you. I
will uphold you with my victorious right hand."
--- Isaiah 41:10 --- Sent in by Jim H. --- Illinois

"Don't fear the bumpy roads that lie ahead, for it is nothing more that the settled dust we left behind."
--- Author Unknown --- Submitted by TH NH --- Mbabane, Swaziland

" To believe is to perceive the dance of intimacy upon the soul; to wish upon a shooting star is where the thought
of existence is upon the heart; to have a dream or a vision of a desire is to see beyond your circumstance of life."

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great ones
make you feel that you too, can become great.”
--- Mark Twain

“The wise man in a storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear."
--- Ralph Waldo Emerson --- Contributed by Laureen M., Age 14 --- Washington
"Credulous hope supports our life and always says that tomorrow will be better."
--Tibullus --- Contributed by Jessica McCauley --- Pennsylvania

"We are not put on this earth to see through one another, but to see one another through."
--- Author Unknown --- Submitted by Jen U. --- Kentucky

"It isn't always necessary to achieve great things. Sometimes, just surviving is a great achievement."
--- Lori Hard --- California’’

"We all need each other."
--- Leo Buscaglia

"May every hour of this day bring something special; a thought that makes you smile, a smile that warms the heart,
and a heart that holds much happiness inside."
--- Author Unknown --- Submitted by M.N. --- Manila, Philippines