Food for Thought

Sixteen Lessons on Life

1. Start your day saying positive affirmations to yourself. Smile and say something positive and be cheerful to everyone you meet. Give someone a hug!
2. Good, Better, Best…never let it rest. Don't become complacent. Push yourself out of your comfort zone and set higher standards of achievement for yourself. Once you've achieved a standard of excellence, never let it rest — push yourself even higher.
3. Be hard on yourself and life will be easy on you. Be easy on yourself and life will be hard on you. Don't look for the easy way. You won't grow and you won't learn anything.
4. If it's to be, it's up to me. Learn to depend on yourself. You are responsible for where you are in life. Quit blaming others for your failures. Change yourself and the world around you will get better.
5. Never complain; never gossip. Instead, always find goodness.
6. Work hard on your job and you'll earn a living. Work hard on yourself and you'll earn a fortune. Do more than you're paid to do. Always volunteer for extra work. Never quit learning. Whatever you do, take pride in your work.
7. Giving makes you bigger than you are. The more you pour out, the more life will be able to pour in. Only by giving are you able to receive more than you already have.
8. Be "Solution Conscious" not "Problem Conscious." Anybody can point
   out problems. The valuable person is the one who finds solutions and accepts the responsibility to implement the solution.
9. Working 40 hours will only earn you a living. Everything invested over
   40 hours earns you a fortune.
10. Live life to its fullest. Don't waste it. It's better to "wear out" than to "rust out!"
    
11. Patience is a virtue. There are no shortcuts in life. What you do, day-in-and-day-out may be boring, but those who stay the course are always
    the ones who win at the end.
12. Be all that you can be. Always try to achieve your maximum potential.
13. What happens to you on the inside becomes reality on your outside.
14. Pay attention to the details. God is in the details.
15. Live healthy to be happy!
16. May you always be surrounded by good friends and great art.

The Value of Time
Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with $86,400.
It carries over no balance from day to day, allows you to keep no cash balance, and every evening cancels whatever part of the amount you had failed to use during the day.

What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course!

Well, everyone has such a bank. It's name is TIME. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night, it writes off as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose.

It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against the "tomorrow."

You must live in the present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the ut-most in health, happiness, and success! The clock is running. Make the most of today.

• To realize the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who has failed a grade.
• To realize the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who has given birth
  to a premature baby.
• To realize the value of ONE WEEK, ask an editor of a weekly newspaper.
• To realize the value of ONE DAY, ask a daily wage laborer who has kids to feed.
• To realize the value of ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.
• To realize the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who has missed the train.
• To realize the value of ONE SECOND, ask a person who has avoided
  an accident.
• To realize the value of ONE MILISECOND, ask the person who has won
  a silver medal in the Olympics.

Treasure every moment that you have! And treasure it more because you shared it with someone special — special enough to spend your time with…
and remember that time waits for no one.

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it's called the PRESENT!