“Faith can move mountains. Bring a shovel.”
-Frank Zingaro
Tag: belief
Nice photo here, of me FINALLY passing my dissertation defense. Ed.D., here we come! Should be official by the end of September.
Included in this photo are my three faculty advisors, whom I appreciate very much. They strove to help me make the best, most professional, acceptable, stellar work possible.
I cannot quantify the hours, days, weeks, months, years of time, I put into this doctorate degree. Technically it was about 3.5 years. But the real time and effort is not quantifiable.
One interesting thing, is that during the process over these years, I could not let myself imagine this day, because it was too painful to imagine while I still had so much work to do. I had to stay Present in the work to keep my motivation. Essentially, not really lifting my head up, but keeping the head to the grindstone until the work was done. Otherwise I was afraid of becoming lazy and unmotivated with the weight of all the work that remained.
The best security we have is in who we decide to be, who our relationships are, and our faith in the higher power.
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A Bit on Nostalgia
This winter I realized that I was craving for some things from my past, like video games from my childhood. And I found a way to start playing some again, and it’s been great 🙂
I noticed once, in my very cold apartment, that thinking fondly of things from the past, from my warm past, actually made me feel warm physically and as if I was not alone. It was a beautiful moment and revelation.
Here is a brief online article about how nostalgia has been found to literally reduce mild pain: https://neurosciencenews.com/nostalgia-pain-20114/
And here is a New York Times piece on many benefits of nostalgia which I personally found very surprising: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/26/briefing/nostalgia-oscars-mardi-gras.html
If you don’t have access to the New York Times article you can look at the Wikipedia entry for nostalgia which mentions a lot of the psychological benefits I found surprising: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostalgia
Cheers to a warm past reaching out to give us comfort, security and hope in the Present.
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When We Do the Best We Can
“When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.“
–Helen Keller
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Excerpt from Siddhartha
“…when you throw a stone into the water, it finds the quickest way to the bottom of the water. It is the same when Siddhartha has an aim, a goal. Siddhartha does nothing; he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he goes through the affairs of the world like the stone through the water, without doing anything, without bestirring himself; he is drawn and lets himself fall. He is drawn by his goal, for he does not allow anything to enter his mind which opposes his goal.”
—Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
“Everyone can reach their goal, if they can think, wait and fast.”
Short video from Meg LeFauve, writer/director for Pixar Animation Studios. Here she seamlessly weaves together faith, determination, belief, vulnerability, courage through fear, and other values, talking about her career.
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Where Courage Lives
Even where there is fear, it doesnt mean we wont overcome. That is where courage lives.
After uploading the most recent podcast, I ran into this short video of Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning:
Also found online here:
https://www.ted.com/talks/viktor_frankl_youth_in_search_of_meaning
He speaks about aiming for your greater potential to reach one’s true possibilities. Enjoy 🙂
Leap of Faith
Sometimes the Faith is exhibited by knowing that you dont have to jump.
If you dont see many signs,
it can be difficult to believe.
The irony is,
if you believe,
you will see more signs.
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Sometimes we are given distractions on purpose, so that we look elsewhere while our gift is brought right into our hands
Things are fine for you when you feel fine for you. They may come out of nowhere, and shock you, but if you hold the “this is fine”, “it is going to be ok” feeling constant, things reorder themselves to be fine for you.
If your perspective is at a general high/up/optimistic constant, Life will appear magical, because things are reordered in ways that appear crazy, to meet you on your perspective. Throughout the low times, your high perspective continues to carry you through, until Life comes seemingly out of nowhere again to meet your high perspective with a beautiful gracious blessed set of events.
Keep your perspective high, your optimism, and you invite the perception and experience of a charmed Life.
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“Though I do not believe a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”
-Henry David Thoreau
No matter what, Life can change for the better, starting from right Now
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this will work out somehow
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“It’s not a test, it’s an opportunity to be the person you want to be”
Sometimes Life comes with events that people call “problems”, “challenges”, “tests”, “opportunities”. Since we make our destiny in the moment, these are all asking to be done in a good way
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“…the beautiful thing is with Faith you never know how you will get passed things but you just do.”
Faith is your ground.
It is what you look at.
When you are unsure,
look down
You are standing on Rock
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Faith and fear eat eachother. It’s up to you to decide who eats who.