Quotations Weblog

I love this quotation because it reminds me whose fault it is if my secrets are revealed. It’s mine for telling them in the first place.

I try to live my life without secrets. So much of my life is online and available for the world to know that I forget that the people in my life don’t read all of my weblogs. My mom doesn’t even read my personal weblog. Things that I have revealed and opened up freely are just there floating in the wind, but have stopped being revealed to the people closest to me.

I’m waiting for that day when they find it all. I’m not hiding, but I think that my friends and family don’t quite realize how much they could find out about me if they just read my weblogs. I know I write about a lot of insignificant things, but those are the things that are floating around in my head. Anyone who wanted to know about me could find them out.

Kahlil Gibran doesn’t have a corollary to that quotation, but if I were to create one it would be:

I am so grateful that I am a writer and not a public speaker. I feel like speeches lack the spontaneity of conversation, yet I had a speech performed on the fly. It leaves me in an awkward position whenever I have to speak publicly. I don’t want to have a canned speech AND I don’t want to be unprepared. It feels like a losing proposition every time.

In the end, I read from a paper and do my best to keep it real, but I know that my public speaking has been nominal at best. A horrid cross between the kind of stuff you see in a lay-lead church and an elementary school auditorium.

I’ll leave the public speaking to the professionals.

“You will eat, but you will not live.” That phrase has haunted me since I first typed this quotation into the database years ago. How do I feed both parts of my psyche? I need to make sure that I make enough money to survive, but that survival can’t come at the expense of my soul.

There have been so many jobs that I took over the years that fed my stomach, but not my heart. I was really good at mixing solutions, processing claims and typing letters, but I didn’t really ever enjoy it the way I enjoy writing. I was always a hard worker, but I never felt passion in those jobs.

If you are in a job that is sucking out your soul through your pores every day, make an escape plan. What did you want to be when you grew up? I never wanted to count pills when I was a kid. I wanted to be a writer or an archaeologist. Archaeology could have been a fulfilling career for me, but writing is so easy to do in the comfort of my air-conditioned home. No dust. No muss.

Don’t quit your job. You still need to eat. You can feed your soul in your free time. Set aside time every week to do what you always wanted to do with your life, no matter what it is. It might be that the eight-year old that you were was wrong. Maybe owning a vineyard isn’t as fun as you thought it would be. In that case, you are free to set that old goal free in your mind and pursue other dreams.

Let your 8-5 job feed your stomach and pursue your dreams every week. Guard that time just as fiercely as you would your full time job. Don’t ever call in sick on your dreams. If you give enough time to follow your dreams, something will happen.

Maybe you’ll find out that you hate your dream. Then you can set it free.

Maybe you’ll make so much money from your dream that you can quit your full time job. Then you’ll have a whole new set of barriers in your way.

Maybe it will be enough. Maybe you will return to work every day refreshed from your dreamwork and maybe that good attitude will actually help you be a better worker at your 8-5 job.

No matter what happens, remember. You need to eat, but you also need to live.

This article starts with some boring talk about the penny, but ends with some good advice on keeping fiscally fit.

• Happy News – Watercooler stories – by Justin Bachman with Associated Press

The good advice is from Peter C. Wallace, author of the book, “Life 101: Real World Skills for Graduating College Seniors.” Although it’s meant for young adults, this advice is good for everyone.

• Borrow wisely: Credit cards and loans mean that you pay even more for whatever you financed. If you can pay cash, all the better.

• Rest and prepare: Work is demanding, so make sure you prepare well and get your rest. If you want to make a lot of money, you have to take care of yourself.

• Be unsure: Choose a profession that you truly enjoy. There is nothing worse than wasting your life away in a job that you hate.

• Embrace budgets: If you can avoid any debt or expenses, do so. Don’t buy a car if you can get to work using public transportation or car pools. Part of being wealthy is saving what you earn.

When we don’t have money, it’s all we think about. Make sure you take care of your financial matters as well as your physical and emotional ones and you will sleep better at night.

For more quotations on Money:

• Money Quotes – The Quotations Page

I have found this quotation to be profoundly true. I cannot buy a toothbrush without being bombarded by a plethora of choices. It used to be firm, medium or soft. Now, I have so many choices in just the toothbrush aisle that I am paralyzed by it.

How do we do it? How do we move beyond the paralysis and make a decision, whether it’s about our lives or what we are going to put in our mouths every morning?

When we played pinochle, my grandpa used to say, “Make a decision. Even if it’s wrong.” He was talking about cards, but I really feel that philosophy is the way to live life. I can get paralyzed by the choices that are out there, but if I make a snap decision it usually works out for me.

When it’s something like a toothbrush, there is no big risk, but when it’s something like a career choice, I have lived my life that way as well. Sure, I wasted time trying to find the career that was best for me, but I learned so much in the meantime. If I had stayed in college until I KNEW what I wanted to do for a living, I might still be there instead of here in a career that I love with a bag full of experience from my attempts at other careers.

There is something to be said for our abilities as humans to make decisions, even if they’re wrong.