Mr. Obama’s Profile in Courage
March 19, 2008
I typically don’t focus on politics here at Midlife’s A Trip because there are some many blogs that address this issue very well. So as you read this post, I want to make it clear that my focus is still not on politics. It’s on the divisive, pervasive and destructive issue of racism in America.
We talk about it amongst ourselves in our respective communities. We whisper, we chatter and we condemn but our collective dialog on race never rises to a higher level where a positive shift can take place. Well that changed this week.
Whether you are a supporter of Barack Obama’s candidacy for president or not, his speech this week about race is, as today’s New York Times editorial characterized it — a profile in courage . Senator Obama is challenging us all to take our private views on race and come to the table in a nationwide dialog.
I won’t even attempt to paraphrase or quote soundbites from the senator’s speech to show you what I mean. Instead, watch the 37-minute speech yourself and decide if you can answer this call to action.
Age Is A Perspective
February 15, 2008
The following perspective on age is a quote from George Burns on my newest refrigerator magnet:
Young. Old. Just words.
I’d Rather Be a Butterfly
February 8, 2008
Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.
In a week when the top news for Baby Boomers is the study on how 2 million of us are unhappy and depressed, I rather have this anonymous quote as my perspective on midlife.
What about you?
Success v. Happiness
January 31, 2008
Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get. By Unknown But Wise
Which is most important to you?
A Question from Dr. King–What Is Your Life’s Blueprint?
January 21, 2008
Thanks to friend and dedicated civil rights attorney, Sue Ellen Eisenberg for sharing Dr. King’s still relevant question and timeless wisdom from a speech he made to students at Philadelphia’s Barratt Junior High School on October 26, 1967–six months before his assassination:
I want to ask you a question, and that is: What is your life’s blueprint?
Whenever a building is constructed, you usually have an architect who draws a blueprint, and that blueprint serves as the pattern, as the guide, and a building is not well erected without a good, solid blueprint.
Now each of you is in the process of building the structure of your lives, and the question is whether you have a proper, a solid and a sound blueprint.
I want to suggest some of the things that should begin your life’s blueprint. Number one in your life’s blueprint, should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your worth and your own somebodiness. Don’t allow anybody to make you fell that you’re nobody. Always feel that you count. Always feel that you have worth, and always feel that your life has ultimate significance.
Secondly, in your life’s blueprint you must have as the basic principle the determination to achieve excellence in your various fields of endeavor. You’re going to be deciding as the days, as the years unfold what you will do in life — what your life’s work will be. Set out to do it well.
And I say to you, my young friends, doors are opening to you–doors of opportunities that were not open to your mothers and your fathers — and the great challenge facing you is to be ready to face these doors as they open.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great essayist, said in a lecture in 1871, “If a man can write a better book or preach a better sermon or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, even if he builds his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.”
This hasn’t always been true — but it will become increasingly true, and so I would urge you to study hard, to burn the midnight oil; I would say to you, don’t drop out of school. I understand all the sociological reasons, but I urge you that in spite of your economic plight, in spite of the situation that you’re forced to live in — stay in school.
And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. don’t just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn’t do it any better.
If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can’t be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.
Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail. If you can’t be a sun, be a star. For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.
— From the estate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 
Is Dr. King’s Dream Our Reality Yet?
January 20, 2008
Worry on Your Mind?
January 16, 2008
What did you worry about today? Were you able to let it go at some point? If not, here’s a quote I heard this week that may help put a different perspective on your worries:
Worry is like sitting in a rocking chair. It’s something to do but doesn’t get you anywhere.
The Spoken Word in All Its Glory
December 13, 2007
This was sent to me by a friend today. Of all the things that get passed around these days via email, this is one of the more notable and inspiring ones. And so I pass it on to you. Enjoy.
A Time When Words Were Used Beautifully
There was a time when words were used beautifully. These glorious insults are from an era when cleverness with words was still valued, before a great portion of the English language was boiled down to four-letter words.
The exchange between Churchill and Lady Astor: She
said, ‘If you were my husband, I’d put poison in
your tea.’
And he said, ‘If you were my wife, I’d drink it.”
Gladstone, a member of Parliament, to Benjamin
Disraeli: ‘Sir, you will either die on the gallows
or of some unspeakable disease.’
‘That depends, sir,’ said Disraeli… ‘On whether I
embrace your policies or your mistress’.
’He had delusions of adequacy.’
- Walter Kerr
‘He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the
vices I admire.’
- Winston Churchill
‘He is a modest little person, with much to be
modest about.’
- Winston Churchill ’
I have never killed a man, but I have read many
obituaries with great pleasure.’
- Clarence Darrow
‘He has never been known to use a word that might
send a reader to the dictionary.’
- William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)
‘Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions
come from big words?’
- Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)
‘Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll
waste no time reading it.’
- Moses Hadas
‘He can compress the most words into the smallest idea
of any man I know.’
- Abraham Lincoln
‘I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice
letter saying I approved of it.’
- Mark Twain
‘He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his
friends’
- Oscar Wilde
‘I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my
new play; bring a friend — if you have one.’
- George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
‘Cannot possibly attend first night but I will be
able to attend the second night — if there is one.’
- Winston Churchill, in response
‘I feel so miserable without you; it’s almost like
having you here.’
- Stephen Bishop
‘He is a self-made man and worships his creator.’
- John Bright
‘I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope
it’s nothing trivial.’
- Irvin S. Cobb
‘He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of
dullness in others.’
- Samuel Johnson
‘He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run
up.’
- Paul Keating
‘There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation
won’t cure.’
- Jack E.Leonard
‘He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.’
- Robert Redford
‘They never open their mouths without subtracting
from the sum of human knowledge.’
- Thomas Brackett Reed
’In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always
yielded easily.’ - Charles, Count Talleyrand
‘He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.’
- Forrest Tucker
‘Why do you sit there looking like an envelope
without any address on it?’- Mark Twain
‘His mother should have thrown him away and kept the
stork.
- Mae West
‘Some cause happiness wherever they go; others,
whenever they go.’
- Oscar Wilde
‘He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts
for support rather than illumination.’
- Andrew Lang
‘He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.’
- Billy Wilder
‘I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this
wasn’t it.’
- Groucho Marx
What are the most glorious words you’ve ever spoken?
The Definition of Fear
November 24, 2007
The other day I was taking a coaching class and we were discussing how fear can block us from the things we really want out of life. Someone in the class threw out this acronym and I’m throwing it out to you:
"F" = false
"E" = evidence
"A" = appearing
"R" = real
Is there any false evidence appearing real keeping you from something you want?
What Age Really Means
November 3, 2007
This quote was from my coaching instructor Bill Turpin. It helps me just lighten up on the getting older part of midlife. Maybe it’ll give you a different perspective too.
Age is an issue of mind over matter.
If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.
-
Karen - Midlife Coach
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