I know what you mean. When I was a child my father would tell me at least once a day that it didn’t matter what I wanted in life that it didn’t matter what everyone told me was important. He would tell me I could be anything I wanted an Astronaut, a musician, I could discover the cure for cancer. He also told me to never do something because someone else told me it was the right thing to do or that I would be better if I did what they did. He taught me to make my own decisions and to think for myself, that he still does. But now he talks about, know your limitations and it can’t always be the way you want it. He says, some people just can’t do what other people can. The funny thing is, is that I’m 29 now and you know I still seem to have more respect for and belief in “I can do or be anything I want to be.” It’s interesting because my dad now 55 is inspired by my ability to believe that no matter how impossible something may seem, there is always a way. Brings to mind something he used to tell me, “where there is a will, there is a way” For me my life path has lead me to a place where all I can think about on every day is how can I make even just one life better, my dad says I have a good heart(metaphore), but really he’s the one who let me, helped me believe that no matter what, it all works out, the things that need to happen will.(what a great stress reducer, lol)

It’s funny my dad acts like I discovered these things alone on my own, I think he must have forgotten that he was the one who first shared them with me!!!! (Love You, Dad!)

Kenneth R. Livingston

You make the point that risks don’t guarantee rewards. On the surface that seems plausible. On the other hand, if we never risk we’ll never even have a chance at the rewards. If we always play by the set rules and act only on what’s predictable, probable or what’s happened in the past we’re doomed to live the status quo forever. What’s the fun in only playing games we know we can win when we could challenge the seemingly unbeatable foe for the chance at glory? Win or not we took the chance. Courage, audacity and fortitude are our rewards.

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

-Theodore Roosevelt

Then at the end of it all. I’ll pat myself on the back & say “Atta girl.” Then i’ll thank you Davey & give you a big hug! <3

Luv this guy!

It struck a cord deep inside me that is still vibrating.

Thanx, Jaime.

Peace, Love, and Truth,

Todd in VA

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.