"There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up."
                                                                                  Booker T. Washington

About Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington, the influential American educator, was the first African-American to be invited to the White House; he also had tea with Queen Victoria. He was born in slavery in Virginia in 1856. After emancipation, he worked in the salt mines. When he learned of a school that would accept former slaves, he walked much of the 400 miles to get there. He became an outspoken advocate of education and hard work for African-Americans and founded Tuskegee University. He died in 1915.

"A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What one can be, one must be."
- Abraham Maslow

"The great challenge of adulthood is holding on to your idealism after you lose your innocence."
                                                             Bruce Springsteen

"Kind words can be short and easy to speak,
but their echoes are truly endless."
- Mother Teresa

Another Quote From Mark Twain:
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream!"

 

 

Twain

"Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact."
                                                                 – William James

"Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring."
                                                               – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."
                                                                        – Mark Twain

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."
                                                                 – Eleanor Roosevelt

Countless unseen details usually are the only difference between mediocre and magnificent.

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the Master calls a butterfly.

"Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to him."
                                                                        – Aldous Huxley

"Gratitude is the open door to abundance."

"The one thing all famous authors, world class athletes, business tycoons, singers, actors, and celebrated achievers in any field have in common is that they all began their journeys when they were none of these things. Yet still, they began their journeys."
                                                 Mike Dooley
- Mike

"What a fearful object a long-neglected duty gets to be!"
- Chauncey Wright

"Don't let other people tell you what you want."
                                                                                       – Pat Riley

           Where Did The Month Go?

No record better reveals the gap in my January, 2010 life than my blog site. I started the year and then, <puff>, the month was over.

Where did it go?

Two old hernias seized control on my body system and early one morning I found myself riding an ambulance to the emergency room at Boulder Community Hospital.

Thereafter I met numerous dedicated medical people who plied their training and experience to the task of saving my life and restoring my health.

Here's to everyone there, especially Dr. Charlie Jones, the world's greatest general surgeon. His quick and accurate diagnosis, followed at once by his surgery skills, again saved my life. Three cheers!

I had met Dr. Jones five or six years ago with the same life-saving needs, just arising from different causes. 

Correct mention of this 2010 medical event must be made: I remain alive, sober, sane, and useful by the grace of a loving God who often works through people. They are not gods; they just do his bidding.

There were such folks in my life during January 2010. Sure they all weren't great surgeons, but they formed a core team (dare I call them a God Squad?) who helped me carry on.

They were from down the street and from the far-away Czech Republic; from Harvard and from Front Range Community College; from Kenya and from Alaska. They all added something essential to my life and I now have a small part of them in me, with me, always.

Dr. Charlie Jones was the captain, but they all were mates on God's ship.

I pray that you too have a Doctor Charlie in your life. Unless you were born with saint-like spirituality, you might make some human mistakes in your life as I have done in mine. If that occurs, we all need a Charlie Jones and crew to stand by and help give us another chance.

I am grateful to be alive, sober, sane and useful today. When I squeeze out the adjectives, the punctuation, and all the excess verbage, I have left only the loving God who gets all the credit.


                       With Respect & Gratitude,
                                                              Tom
                        http://aronbestsellers.com

"Far away in the sunshine are my highest inspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see the beauty, believe in them and try to follow where they lead."
                                                                         – Louisa May Alcott

About Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott, the beloved American author, is best known for her semiautobiographical novel, Little Women, which was made into a movie five different times. Born in 1832 near Philadelphia, she grew up in Massachusetts. Her family lived in the genteel poverty depicted in her fiction. She wrote lurid stories anonymously to bring in money but gained fame under her own name with young adult novels, which held readers with their warm characterizations and simple, engaging style. She died in 1888.

Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.
- Martin Luther

"If a little dreaming is silly and a waste of time, the remedy for it is not to dream less but to dream more. Dream powerfully!"