To be alive means to have a sense of humor

 

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
- Mark Twain

A well-developed sense of humor is the pole
that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life.
- William Arthur Ward

Life is not a tragedy, it is a comedy.
To be alive means to have a sense of humor.
- Osho

A sense of humor... is needed armor.
Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's lips is a sign
that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life.
- Hugh Sidey

Further reading: Be as a Child

Sense of Humor

Cherish the Whimsey

Not Too Serious
    

Felt with the Heart

 

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
- Oscar Wilde

Many men go fishing all of their lives
without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
- Henry David Thoreau

To know the whole world is nothing
when it is compared to knowing your own inner mystery of life.
- Osho

The best and most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the heart.
- Helen Keller

Further reading: Wonder and Mystery

The Mystery of Life

Beyond Answers

Experience Life with Reverence
      

Try a new way of looking at things

 

One's destination is never a place but rather a new
way of looking at things.
- Henry Miller

Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life.
- Burton Hills

Life is a continuity always and always.
There is no final destination it is going towards.
Just the pilgrimage, just the journey in itself is life,
not reaching to some point,
no goal - just dancing and being in pilgrimage,
moving joyously, without bothering about any destination.
- Osho

I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life
as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.
- Joseph Campbell

What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.
- Helen Keller

Further reading: Purpose and Direction

Through the Eyes of Another

Where You're Going
    

Choose to be Honorable

 

Reputation is what other people know about you.
Honor is what you know about yourself.
- Lois McMaster Bujold

If you doubt the virtue in self-honor,
remember what the flight attendant says,
"Put your own oxygen mask on first."
You are of no use to anyone else
if you have not taken care of your own needs first -
this includes your own emotional,
as well as physical, well-being.
In addition, your greatest value to your children,
your family, your friends, and your community
is the example you set, leading a great life that inspires
those around you to emulate your being.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Self-respect is often mistaken for arrogance
when in reality it is the opposite.
When we can recognize all our good qualities
as well as our faults with neutrality,
we can start to appreciate ourselves
as we would a dear friend
and experience the comfortable inner glow of respect.
- Osho

This above all, to thine own self be true.
- William Shakespeare
[Be true to your own values - live an honorable life.]

Further reading: To Earn a Good Name

Either Accept It, or Change It

Treat ALL with Goodness

At the Center of Your Being
        

Breathe in Eternal Peace

Breathe deeply and slowly.
Let yourself become centered - shutting out distractions.
Breathe in eternal peace; let your body fill with unconditional love.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

At the center of your being you have the answer;
you know who you are and you know what you want.
- Lao Tzu

A mind at peace, a mind centered and not focused on harming others,
is stronger than any physical force in the universe.
- Wayne Dyer

When you become centered, suddenly there is great freedom
because you know you are not the mind and you are not the body.
- Osho

Further reading: Five 30-Second Emotional Releases to De-Stress at Work
     

Live Mindfully

 

To the mind that is still,
the whole universe surrenders.
- Lao Tzu

Being wakeful in each and every moment of your life is meditation.
The simplest definition of meditation is:
when seeing, just see; when hearing, just hear.
- Josh Baran

Walking is Zen, sitting is Zen.
Then what will be the quality?
Watchfully alert, joyously unmotivated,
centered, loving, flowing, one walks.
And the walking is sauntering.
Loving, alert, watchful, one sits, unmotivated -
not sitting for anything in particular,
just enjoying how beautiful
just sitting doing nothing is,
how relaxing, how restful.
- Osho

To manage your mind,
know that there is nothing,
and then relinquish all attachment to nothingness.
- Lao Tzu

"Beginner Mind" is a Zen Buddhist term
that describes moving past our assumptions
of the nature of our life,
and really SEEING our surroundings -
especially the people we interact with -
with new eyes.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Managing Your Wayward Mind

Breathe In, Breathe Out

Opening Your Mind

The World is a Paradox

Stay Adaptable
    

Life is too important to be spent being unsmiling, grim, and humorless

Life is too important to be taken seriously.
- Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde was a writer, playwright, humorist, satirist,
and astute observer of the human condition.
What does he mean by, "Life is too important to be taken seriously?"
Is it just a simple joke?

"Serious" can mean thoughtful, careful and profound,
but it also can mean unsmiling, grim, and humorless.

Life is too important to be spent being unsmiling, grim, and humorless.

Dance lightly with life today and every day.
Life is too short not to be joyful and celebrate each day.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Seriousness is a sickness; your sense of humor
makes you more human, more humble.
The sense of humor - according to me -
is one of the most essential parts of religiousness.
- Osho

Your attitude is like a box of crayons that color your world.
Constantly color your picture gray, and your picture will always be bleak.
Try adding some bright colors to the picture by including humor,
and your picture begins to lighten up.
- Allen Klein

Smile.
Today would be a wonderful day
not to take life so seriously.
Today may end up the way you prefer -
and it may not.
Happiness is not about being a winner -
it's about being gentle with life -
being gentle with yourself.
Let life be a dance,
and choose the kind of
dance you want for today -
perhaps a gentle loving dance.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Humor in the Face of Adversity

As a Child Again

Be Gentle with Yourself

Time to Smell the Flowers
      

Opinions are Not Truth

 

The antiquity and general acceptance of an opinion
is not assurance of its truth.
- Pierre Bayle

There is no truth.
There is only perception.
- Gustave Flaubert

If you wish to see the truth,
then hold no opinion for or against.
- Osho

Having a personal opinion is great.
Believing that one's personal opinion is absolute truth
leads to most of the world's troubles.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Even the truth, when believed, is a lie.
You must experience the truth, not believe it.
- Werner Erhard

Further reading: What is "The Truth?"

Not As It Appears

The Work - Four Questions

Art of Seeing
     

Pay It Forward

 

TODAY, consider performing an act-of-kindness for someone who can never repay you.

Sometimes our light goes out but
is blown into flame by another human being.
Each of us owes deepest thanks
to those who have rekindled this light.
- Albert Schweitzer

Each of us has been generously gifted by parents, teachers, mentors, and others we can never repay. So, in gratitude for what we have received, it is now our turn to generously gift the children, the up-and-coming, and the down-and-out -- with no expectation that they can ever repay us - and with the hope that they will, in turn, pay-forward to another generation.

Pay It Forward.
Gift future generations in proportion to your gratitude.
The nature of life is that we pay forward
our biological creation and nurture.
Our parents gift us with life and nurture,
and we gift our children with life and nurture.
While this much is essential to continued human existence,
choose to take "pay it forward" farther - much farther.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The debt of gratitude we owe our mother and father
goes forward, not backward.
What we owe our parents is the bill presented to us by our children.
- Nancy Friday

The moment you become miserly you are closed
to the basic phenomenon of life: expansion, sharing.
The moment you start clinging to things,
you have missed the target.
Because things are not the target,
you, your innermost being, is the target -
not a beautiful house, but a beautiful you;
not much money, but a rich you;
not many things, but an open being,
available to millions of things.
- Osho

Further reading: Pay It Forward - as an Expression of Universal Gratitude

Opportunity for Daily Thanksgiving

True Measure of a Successful Life

Universal Kindness and Compassion
    

I Welcome THIS Day with Gratitude

I will greet this day with love in my heart.
And how will I do this?
Henceforth will I look on all things with love and be born again.
I will love the sun for it warms my bones;
yet I will love the rain for it cleanses my spirit.
I will love the light for it shows me the way;
yet I will love the darkness for it shows me the stars.
I will welcome happiness as it enlarges my heart;
yet I will endure sadness for it opens my soul.
I will acknowledge rewards for they are my due;
yet I will welcome obstacles for they are my challenge.

- Og Mandino

The key to forgiveness is to forgive from the heart -
not from the mind.
- Sheri Rosenthal

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The heart is always right -
if there's a question of choosing between the mind and the heart -
because mind is a creation of the society.
It has been educated.
You have been given it by the society, not by existence.
The heart is unpolluted.

- Osho

Further reading: Your Heart's Longing

Honor Your Heart

Listen To Your Heart

Follow Your Heart

Changing Your Heart

     

Consider Making the Choice to be of Service

 

Create your future from your future not your past.

Begin building the future through
"conversation for possibility."
- Werner Erhard

Imagine the future you want.
Then design that future.
Then implement that future.
Choose.
Choose to soar.
Choose to be of service.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The golden age is before us, not behind us.
- William Shakespeare

Life is the future, not the past.
- Terry Goodkind

Fill your heart with the creative power
to accept the past,
decorate the present
and transform the future.
- Osho

Today's affirmation:

I trust my intuition to deliver
powerful visions of my inspired future,
and I empower my intent to
transform those visions into reality.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: What Are You Going To Do About It?

Create Your Own Future

Embrace Change

        

Focus on the Beautiful and the Good

 

The foolish seek happiness in the distance;
the wise grow it under their own feet.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer (paraphrase)

Do the small things of life with a relaxed awareness.
When you are eating, eat totally -
chew totally, taste totally, smell totally.
Touch your bread, feel the texture.
Smell the bread, smell the flavor.
Chew it, let it dissolve into your being.
- Osho

Happiness is to be Found in Small Things, Close to Home.
...
Pay attention to rainbows, and snowflakes,
butterflies and the songs of birds,
the crash of storm-driven waves
and the mirror-surface of a quiet pond.
Let the depths of nature become a part of your innermost being.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It is wisest and best to fix our attention on the beautiful and the good,
and dwell as little as possible on the evil and the false.
- Richard Cecil

Further reading: Cultivate Awareness

The Power of Focus 

Manage Your Wayward Mind

Life is Beautiful
   

Avoid Assumptions and Expectations

 

Cultivate a Beginner Mind.
(be open to newness)

Bringing a childlike wonder
and a beginner's mind to life
maximizes both success and joy.

- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Become more and more innocent,

less knowledgeable and more childlike.
Take life as fun -
because that's precisely what it is!

- Osho

Innocence isn't ever lost completely;
we just need to maintain our goodness to regain it.
- Jewel

Children are born innocent.
Before they are domesticated they live in the moment,
love without fear, and don't even think about the opinions of others.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Over the years, we come to see life as we expect it to be. We make assumptions that support how we "KNOW" that things ARE. We make expectations of others and of ourselves based on those assumptions. For example, we "KNOW" what kinds of people are "good" people and which kinds or people are "bad" people.

Imagine what life would be like if you could forget all the past resentments and perceived offenses that color your thinking and your emotions. Buddhists call that state "beginner mind" - an opening to experience life without the jaundiced filter of past disappointments, to move past assumptions about the nature of life, and really SEE your surroundings - especially the people you interact with - with new eyes.

Today is your day to shed the scales from your eyes.

Further reading: Reverence

Growing Up - Staying Young

Natural Web
    

Change Is Life

 

You change your life by changing your heart.
- Max Lucado

Thinkers do not accept the inevitable;
they turn their efforts toward changing it.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

If you take the responsibility for your life,
you can start changing it.
- Osho

It’s the most unhappy people who most fear change.
- Mignon McLaughlin

Everyone thinks of changing the world,
but no one thinks of changing himself.
- Leo Tolstoy

When you are through changing, you are through.
- Bruce Barton

Further reading: A New Perspective

Moving Forward

Rattlesnake of the Mind

Perspective on Tradition: An Open Mind
      

Take Yourself Lightly

 

Keys to a great life... taking oneself lightly, forgiveness, and acceptance.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If we could all just laugh at ourselves,
in hard times or good times, it would be an incredible world.
- Jena Malone

Life's burdens are lighter when I laugh at myself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There is no defense against adverse fortune which is
so effectual as an habitual sense of humor.
- Thomas W. Higginson

Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.
- Mark Twain

Life is not a tragedy, it is a comedy.
To be alive means to have a sense of humor.
- Osho

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.
- Mark Twain

Further reading: Power of Laughter

Cherish the Whimsey

Having a Sense of Humor

As a Child Again 
   

Be joyful while peeling the potatoes

Be Selective.
Choose to do a few things really well,
and let others do the rest.
 - Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If Taoism is a river flowing effortlessly, Zen is a sword cutting through illusion.
 - ChatGPT

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about
God while one is peeling potatoes.
Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.
- Alan Watts

By letting it go, it all gets done.
The world is won by those who let it go.
But when you try and try,
The world is beyond the winning.
- Lao Tzu

Besides the noble art of getting things done,
there is the noble art of leaving things undone.
The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.
- Lin Yutang

Be - don't try to become.
Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance.
- Osho

The things of this world exist;
they are; you can't refuse them.
- Lao Tzu

Aspiration and Vision certainly have their time and place,
but mostly life consists of choosing to be joyful
while peeling the potatoes and taking out the trash.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Stillness

Paradox

Gratitude for THIS Moment

Stay Adaptable
    

Intentional Action

 

Life is a balance between rest and movement.
- Osho

Find your balance and stand with it.
Find your song and sing it out.
Find your cadence and let it appear like a dance.
Find the questions that only you know how to ask and
The answers that you are content to not know.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Balance activity with serenity,
wealth with simplicity,
persistence with innovation,
community with solitude,
familiarity with adventure,
constancy with change,
leading with following.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
 
He who knows that enough is enough
will always have enough.
- Lao Tzu

Balance happens when I invite it to happen
with my intentional actions and my guided perspective.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Further reading: Balance Service with Play

Tips for Stress-Free Living

Living in Harmony 

Finding Balance in Life

A Balanced Life
       

Conscious Breathing

 

Move to your heart, Breathe.
Close your eyes and breathe deeply - slowly -
fill your lungs with love and gratitude -
exhale each and every trouble -
again and again - gratitude in, troubles out.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Inhale, and God approaches you.
Hold the inhalation, and God remains with you.
Exhale, and you approach God.
Hold the exhalation, and surrender to God.
- Krishnamacharya

The moment you start seeing life
as non-serious, a playfulness,
all the burden on your heart disappears.
All the fear of death, of life,
of love - everything disappears.
- Osho

Breath by breath, let go of fear, expectation, anger,
regret, cravings, frustration, fatigue.
Let go of the need for approval.
- Lama Surya Das

Today's affirmation:
Slowly and Deeply, I Inhale a Calming Breath.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Breathe In, Breathe Out

Breathe deeply and rejoice

Feel Your Connection With the Infinite - a Meditation

Conscious Breathing to Relieve Stress
   

A sense of humor is needed armor

 

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
- Mark Twain

A well-developed sense of humor is the pole
that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life.
- William Arthur Ward

Life is not a tragedy, it is a comedy.
To be alive means to have a sense of humor.
- Osho

A sense of humor... is needed armor.
Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's lips is a sign
that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life.
- Hugh Sidey

Further reading: Be as a Child

Sense of Humor

Cherish the Whimsey

Not Too Serious
    

Your Own Inner Mystery

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
- Oscar Wilde

Many men go fishing all of their lives
without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
- Henry David Thoreau

To know the whole world is nothing
when it is compared to knowing your own inner mystery of life.
- Osho

The best and most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the heart.
- Helen Keller

Further reading: Wonder and Mystery

The Mystery of Life

Beyond Answers

Experience Life with Reverence