Thursdays Encounters
Good Morning Friends,
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Thursday is knocking on your door to let you know the week is?winding down.?Have?you?created many opportunities to share a kind word, a smile or a moment of laughter with those you have encountered this week? Sharing these things with others; only helps to keep the positive things coming back to us two fold. Our opportunities are endless if we so choose; don’t let life’s challenges hold you back in fear, they are given to us to make us grow and be stronger than the days before.
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Welcome every morning with a smile. Look on the new day as another special gift from your Creator, another golden opportunity to complete what you were unable to finish yesterday. Be a self-starter. Let your first hour set the theme of success and positive action that is certain to echo through your entire day. Today will never happen again. Don't waste it with a false start or no start at all. You were not born to fail.
~Og Mandino
The Obstacles in our Path
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?Walking down a path through some woods in Georgia in 1977, I saw a water puddle ahead on the path. I angled my direction to go around it on the part of the path that wasn't covered by water and mud. As I reached the puddle, I was suddenly attacked!
Yet, I did nothing, for the attack was so unpredictable and from a source so totally unexpected. I was startled as well as unhurt, despite having been struck four or five times already. I backed up a foot and my attacker stopped attacking me. Instead of attacking more, he hovered in the air on graceful butterfly wings in front of me. Had I been hurt I wouldn't have found it amusing, but I was unhurt, it was funny, and I was laughing. After all, I was being attacked by a butterfly!
Having stopped laughing, I took a step forward. My attacker rushed me again. He rammed me in the chest with his head and body, striking me over and over again with all his might, still to no avail. For a second time, I retreated a step while my attacker relented in his attack. Yet again, I tried moving forward. My attacker charged me again. I was rammed in the chest over and over again. I wasn't sure what to do, other than to retreat a third time. After all, it's just not everyday that one is attacked by a butterfly.
This time, though, I stepped back several paces to look the situation over. My attacker moved back as well to land on the ground. That's when I discovered why my attacker was charging me only moments earlier. He had a mate and she was dying. She was beside the puddle where he landed. Sitting close beside her, he opened and closed his wings as if to fan her. I could only admire the love and courage of that butterfly in his concern for his mate. He had taken it upon himself to attack me for his mate's sake, even though she was clearly dying and I was so large.
He did so just to give her those extra few precious moments of life, should I have been careless enough to step on her. Now I knew why and what he was fighting for. There was really only one option left for me. I carefully made my way around the puddle to the other side of the path, though it was only inches wide and extremely muddy.
His courage in attacking something thousands of times larger and heavier than himself just for his mate's safety justified it. I couldn't do anything other than reward him by walking on the more difficult side of the puddle. He had truly earned those moments to be with her, undisturbed. I left them in peace for those last few moments, cleaning the mud from my boots when I later reached my car.
Since then, I've always tried to remember the courage of that butterfly whenever I see huge obstacles facing me. I use that butterfly's courage as an inspiration and to remind myself that good things are worth fighting for
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领英推荐
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A bit of humor for your day
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The Taxi Driver
A taxi passenger tapped the driver on the shoulder to ask him something.
The driver screamed, lost control of the car, nearly hit a bus, went up on
the footpath, and stopped inches from a shop window.
For a second everything went quiet in the cab, then the driver said "Look
man, don't ever do that again. You scared the daylights out of me!"
The passenger apologized and said he didn't realize that a little tap could
scare him so much.
The driver replied "Sorry, it's not really your fault. Today is my first day
as a cab driver - I've been driving hearses for the last 25 years
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