Inspirational Quotes About Life | Deep Wisdom on Choices & Change https://lifeisaforkintheroad.com Add up your choices & that's your life. Change your choices & change your life. Inspirational quotes about life. Thu, 08 Aug 2019 20:05:02 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.8.9 A True Story Of Unconditional Love https://lifeisaforkintheroad.com/a-true-story-of-unconditional-love/ https://lifeisaforkintheroad.com/a-true-story-of-unconditional-love/#comments Sat, 03 Aug 2019 11:11:36 +0000 http://www.lifeisaforkintheroad.com/?p=780 A true story of unconditional love when my wife of 11 years left me for another man  “Love is unconditional. It is a spiritual state, not an emotion. It’s not a choice you pick at a fork in the road….it exists forever.” Is this just an ideal we strive for but can never attain or […]

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A true story of unconditional love when my wife of 11 years left me for another man

 “Love is unconditional. It is a spiritual state, not an emotion. It’s not a choice you pick at a fork in the road….it exists forever.” Is this just an ideal we strive for but can never attain or is it possible for a human to actually love someone unconditionally, love them even if they do something we hate or they decide to leave us?

We all contain unconditional loveThe human condition is affected by all types of pushes and pulls from our emotions, upbringing, personality, temperament, ego and experiences. This makes us who we are and it also makes us imperfect and fallible. Of course, that’s what makes life interesting. Can we rise above all this and actually love someone unconditionally?

This quote was not just something I pulled from the sky because it sounded nice. It was based on my own personal experiences and observations. Now, for the first time since I started collecting stories from others, I am going to share an inner voice experience of my own that first awakened me to what true unconditional love means. This is a true love story on many levels.

I Was Not My Wife’s True Love

The year is 1986. After being happily married for 11 years, my wife suddenly and without warning told me she was divorcing me to go back to a man she had dated before we met. There were no obvious problems in our relationship. No arguments. Nothing was going on to indicate any trouble brewing.

Even after she told me this, she never said there was anything wrong with us. She just said that she had come to realize she loved this other guy in a way she didn’t love me and that’s all it was about. Two days after she told me this, she moved into an apartment. The guy left his wife of 25 years that same day and moved in with her. They got married within the year and she remained with him until she passed on a few years ago.An older couple in love

Hearing this coming from completely out of the blue crushed me. It was like I was run over by a steam roller. I have never before nor ever sense felt pain like that. I had imagined we would spend the rest of our life together.

I didn’t want anyone else. I loved this woman with all my heart. There is no way to describe the hurt and pain I felt. It was like every cell in my body was being torn apart and run through a food processor.

Unconditional Love Isn’t About What the Other Person Does

Yet, within hours of hearing this something else from deep within me spoke loud and clear. This was my true inner voice of wisdom. I still loved this woman as much as I had before she broke the news. I still wanted her to be happy. I still cared about her. If she would be more happy with someone else rather than me, that was her choice. I realized at that moment that if you truly love someone, you want them to be happy, you want the best for them even if that means not being with you.

Couple in love Zydeco dancingThis realization did not make the pain and hurt go away. It was so severe and intense that it took me over three years to finally get back to being me. All my friends told me she was no good and would say unkind things about her. They thought that would make me feel better. They simply didn’t understand.

The way I saw it, how can someone go from loving someone to not loving them overnight just because they did something you didn’t want. That would negate the previous 11 years as if they never existed. It would disrespect all the good that happened in that relationship.

A Love Song About a True Love Story

A couple months after she left, I did a very strange thing which was the next step in helping me move forward with my life. Once again, my inner voice of wisdom came through loud and clear. Suddenly, I started thinking about this guy she went back to and how he must be feeling. I literally began to look at this through his eyes instead of mine.

That inspired me to write the lyrics to a love song written from his point of view. Maybe someday a songwriter will happen along that could put some music to this and turn it into an actual song.

Ticking

Lyrics by Don Shapiro

Courtesy of Rykristo Music Publishing

You told me we were through

It was what we had to do

We made our beds before we met

When our love’s fate was set

Our homes blazing oh so bright

With anger and more in plain sight

So we sought solace as one

Embraced away hurt on the run

(chorus)

It wasn’t right

Oh, no

It wasn’t right

To fly away in the night

To believe we could unite

So you hid our love

Deep inside of you

Tucked away from view

Ticking

Just ticking

Ticking for too many years

Ticking through a thousand tears

(Verse 2)

You locked your love far away

Deep in memory so they say

We became friends for many years

Saying hi without any tears

The years have taken flight

Family chains wrapped so tight

As our seedlings grew up, oh wow

You’ve come back for my love now

(chorus repeats)

(bridge to finale)

You couldn’t keep your love locked away

Just ticking til judgment day

So you threw away that old bed

And came back to me like they said

How was I able to still consider her happiness as being of paramount importance after what she had done? How could I go through the most devastating pain and hurt imaginable without having any ill feelings toward her? How could I possibly write a song lyric that was a love song written from the other guy’s point of view?

There is one and only one answer to these questions. I loved this woman unconditionally regardless of what she did. I am living proof that it is possible for a human being to love unconditionally.Couple in love enjoying a smoothie at McDonald's

It’s one thing to wax philosophically about what we believe is and is not possible concerning the human condition until we are thrown into the fire and discover how we respond in the moment. I wasn’t thinking about the meaning of love or the concept of unconditional love before this happened. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before so I was not prepared for it. Maybe we never are.

If you had asked me a year earlier what I would do under such a circumstance, I’m sure my answer would have been different than what I actually did. How I responded to this situation came from deep within my heart and it was as real as it gets. My reaction surprised me and inspired me.

What Unconditional Love Really Means

Since then, I haveCouple in love hugging after chemo treatment given a lot of thought to the meaning of love versus how the word is thrown around all too easily. From this experience, I came to learn what true love means. The test of true love, unconditional love is this: would you still love the person even if they did something awful or left you for another? Would you still care about them and want the best for them?

If you can answer that question yes, you love unconditionally. If you answer that question no, what you are feeling is not love. It may be a very strong emotion and feeling of attachment but it is not love

The state of true love occurs when the love that is inside of us aligns at a deep energy and frequency level with the love that is inside of someone else. This connection isn’t about desire, attraction, enjoyment, similar interest, common values or emotions. It is something that simply happens outside of human control. Once that internal love alignment occurs, it will last forever. It can never be broken. Our spirit is forever connected to the other person’s spirit regardless of what happens with us on a human level.

True Unconditional Love Is Not a Choice

I honestly don’t know why some people have the capacity to love unconditionally and others do not. It is still a mystery to me why I was able to act and feel this way through such a nightmare. I have my doubts how many could go through this experience and discover their capacity for unconditional love. From my experience, this was not a choice. It simply reflected the state of love that existed inside of me and my natural and normal response due to that state of love.

It may be just fine for many people to exist in relationships based on strong emotional ties that they call love even though, in reality, it is not love at all. Unconditional love may sound like something wonderful but it appears we have no control over its occurrence though it would be something that I would hope all people would strive to find.A couple in love kissing in the park

Relationships Are Conditional. True Love Is Not.

Relationships are conditional. True love is not.

We can and will place all kinds of conditions on having a relationship with someone based on a laundry list of human issues. We may decide we don’t want someone in our life anymore, even one of our children, if their behavior is too awful for us to handle. Most parents love their children unconditionally, even step children and ones they adopt.

If we truly love, love unconditionally, then regardless of what someone does, we will still love them whether we want them in our life or not or whether they want us in their life or not. True love never dies. Love is a spiritual state, not an emotion.

More About Love

The Power of True Love Can Only Be Understood When We Realize It’s Not an Emotion

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Find A Career You Love https://lifeisaforkintheroad.com/find-a-career-you-love/ https://lifeisaforkintheroad.com/find-a-career-you-love/#comments Mon, 27 Oct 2014 00:10:52 +0000 http://lifeisaforkintheroad.com/?p=1211 There are no simple or easy answers as to how we find the career path that’s right for us. Some people manage to figure this out when they are younger. Most people stumble across what they should be doing through their life experiences. It is not always possible to figure this all out before making a […]

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There are no simple or easy answers as to how we find the career path that’s right for us. Some people manage to figure this out when they are younger. Most people stumble across what they should be doing through their life experiences. It is not always possible to figure this all out before making a career choice. Let me start by sharing a few observations before I launch into some tips that can help you out.

Career choices
Which fork to find the best career

You can go through some rather deep reflection on all your experiences in life so far and use that to help you select something that may appear to be better for you. That doesn’t mean it will be the final or best answer. Sometimes, you move in a new direction which helps you to discover more about yourself. That process allows you to add to your list of what works for you and what doesn’t, what you enjoy and what you don’t.

I’ve had experiences where I thought I was doing what I loved only to learn after a few years that it really wasn’t right for me. Then I’ve been in a workplace where I was asked to take on a project or task outside of my normal job and discovered I loved doing that. So there is a mixture of experience, serendipity, reflection and more that all combine to help us edit out of our life what we don’t want and create more of what we do want.

As I look at my life today from the vantage point of being on this planet 65 years, something profound struck me. Nothing that I am doing today was a part of my plan, direction or interest when I was in my twenties to early thirties. Some of it didn’t emerge until I was in my fifties. I also know people who stayed in one career from college on but were never really happy with what they were doing.

They made really good money, got used to living a nice lifestyle and, over the years, assumed the responsibility for raising a family so they stuck with it. Some would pursue their real love like a hobby in their spare time. Others saved up enough money to leave what they were doing and focus on what they really wanted to do. So many different ways it can happen.

And then there is the opposite. In some cases, I know people who got a job that was okay but really had no idea what they liked or didn’t like. So they started out without having a passion for their work. Over time, they focused on mastering their job and being the best they could at it since that was how they brought home a paycheck. Funny thing happened. After a few years, they grew to love and enjoy what they were doing. There was no real selection process and in the early years the work didn’t excite them. When we truly excel at something to the point where we are better than most people who do that work and can feel a deep sense of accomplishment from it, we can sometimes come to really enjoy doing it.

Career Day
Career Day

As you can tell, there are a lot of different ways this all happens and there is no one right way. What’s important to understand here is this. Please take special note. No matter how much you want to think this out right now and make the perfect decision, there is no way you can force that to happen. It may happen and then again it may not. You have to be okay with that. You have to accept that you can engage this process of looking for what you want to do but how it plays out may not be the way you imagined. You do have to be open for the possibility that involving yourself in new experiences whether in a work environment or in your spare time may be critical for you to find the answers you seek. You simply have to be continually open to all the possibilities and learn more about yourself.

A Critical Career Question to Ask Yourself

One final and critical thought before looking at some ways to speed this along. One of the most important questions you can ever ask yourself is this: what would I love doing even if I wasn’t paid for it? Asking that question of yourself repeatedly over time will help you to discover what you enjoy doing most and what type of career that does pay money would be the most fulfilling to you.

Now let’s look at how we can apply all that I talk about on this page to help us make a better choice at career fork in the road. Yes, there are things you can do that will help this process as long as you accept that there are no magical steps to the answer you seek.

Review Your Life Experiences to Find A Better Career

We think we know ourselves yet too often we have not done sufficient reflection to extract all that we actually do know and can consciously view. The lessons that can tell us what we enjoy and don’t enjoy which could apply to a career choice often lie completely outside of our work experiences. Don’t limit your reflection process simply to the obvious work situations.

You need to make a long list of all the things in life you enjoy doing even if you don’t see a way you could make any money at it. It’s not about doing that in exactly that way. It’s about recognizing the more general process or activity and how that could be translated into work type activities. Or it could cause you to start looking at what careers might involve those types of things.

There is so much I learned about myself from the type of things I liked to do for play when I was child and the things that interested me in school. I also found that certain things adults did fascinated me where as others did not. If I identify what all of these personal experiences mean in terms of what I like and don’t like as well as what I’m good at and not good at, I can see all the things I currently love doing. They were there from childhood.

Building with wood
Building with wood

When I was a boy, I loved to build things. I would have my mom take me to the lumber yard to buy real construction lumber and adult tools then I would design my own structures and build them all by myself in the back yard. The lesson here was not about being in the construction industry or design field. It was about seeing the more general type of inclinations about what I naturally enjoyed doing. I like to create things from scratch. I like to work on my own and can work well without supervision. I like to develop things. I am very inventive and creative. I am good at seeing projects through to completion. I can visualize something and figuring out how to create it.

This is just one example. I can find many of the things I enjoy and don’t enjoy from my experiences growing up. There are other things I learned about myself from the jobs I did. Maybe the overall job wasn’t really exciting to me as a career but there was one thing I did for a few hours a week that I loved. So take apart every task and activity in the jobs you’ve held to extract those elements you did enjoy as well as the ones that clearly were not for you.

Look at the things you really like doing with your friends or by yourself. Step away from how those are labeled and look at the underlying process in doing it. Sometimes, you can find insights by taking all the things you enjoy and labeling them in a different way that might relate more to job task. These are called transfer skills and task because you are transferring their application from one type of activity to another.

This reflection is not just a weekend exercise. This is an on-going review process that will yield more and more insights over time. The more you focus on this, the more results it will return for you. Don’t be too quick to jump on something that seems great because you will discover more insights as time goes on.

Experiences Can Help Us Find the Right Career Path

There are many ways you can add experiences to your life outside of the job world that can help you learn more about yourself. Sometimes this is exactly what we need to do to help us find that fork in the road we are looking for.

Recording engineer career
Recording Engineer Nick Tirrell

You can join a club like Toastmasters to learn how to become a better speaker, communicator and leader. Yet there are many other experiences that you gain by being a member of such a club which may help you find things you enjoy that you were not aware of. It might be in the type of social interaction or thinking on your feet or working behind the scenes to help the club out or leading new club project.

There are all types of clubs and organizations that can offer you wonderful experiences. There are also informal groups that center on common interest you could join from drumming circles to wine tasting to book discussions to hiking to travel and so on. Whatever you might have an interest in, there is a group or organization somewhere about it. And when you get involved in something you have an interest in, you may end up doing things that help you discover what you really want to be doing career wise.

You can do some volunteer work. There are all types of community organizations that need help. The activities you get involved with helping out may help you discover more about yourself. This could also be true volunteering to help out at a school or a youth sporting activity or becoming a guide at a museum. There are literally hundreds of such opportunities out there where you can become involved.

Read Like Crazy

Expand what you are reading beyond the topics you now read primarily in the non-fiction area. Though, you might want to read some fiction too since there could be something about that which helps you identify what you would enjoy. You just never know. The more knowledge about different things, interest, organizations, successful people, occupations and more that you expose yourself to, the more your mind can work on your behalf to connect the dots.

Skills and Tools to Find A Better Career

As you may realize by this point, exposing yourself to new things whether through experience, reading or watching videos expands your awareness about yourself. It gives you significantly more information to help you identity all that you truly enjoy doing and what types of occupations might involve doing those types of task.

Park ranger career
Park Ranger Tom Kneipp

The process for learning more about ourselves and connecting that to how we engage the world involves several skills, techniques and tools. The better you are at using these and the more frequently you use these, the more likely you are to discover what you should be doing with your life. That discovery might not occur today or tomorrow. It might be a month from now, a year from now or a decade from now. If you use what you learn to make new choices, try new things, and experiment with new pursuits, you will speed up your discovery of what you like and don’t like and what you’re good at and what you’re not. This journey will help you to continue editing the path you follow as you move more toward what is best for you.

Expand awareness

Creative thinking

Analytical and critical thinking

Reflection

Openness and listening

Experimentation

Patience

Persistence

Following our inner wisdom

Faith

The best career choice is not normally a big dramatic decision that is made at a single point in time and then set in stone. It is a series of choices big and small made over a long period of time using all these skills, techniques and tools. Life is a journey, not a destination.

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The Power of True Love Comes from It Not Being an Emotion https://lifeisaforkintheroad.com/the-power-of-true-love/ https://lifeisaforkintheroad.com/the-power-of-true-love/#comments Sun, 16 Feb 2014 05:50:52 +0000 http://lifeisaforkintheroad.com/?p=1165 The Power of True Love Can Only Be Understood Once We Realize It’s Not an Emotion Our world is filled with human attachment. We connect with others, develop relationship with others and, over time, the emotional connections deepen. Some of these relationships work out, others don’t. Some can last decades and a few last a […]

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The Power of True Love Can Only Be Understood Once We Realize It’s Not an Emotion

Our world is filled with human attachment. We connect with others, develop relationship with others and, over time, the emotional connections deepen. Some of these relationships work out, others don’t. Some can last decades and a few last a lifetime while others last only weeks or a few years.

We can experience so much joy, wonder, happiness and pleasure in these relationships. And then we can also experience hurt, pain, disappointment, anger and more. All that we go through both good and bad grows out of a complex and intricate attempt by two people to align the nature of who they are with one another. Once we move past the initial attraction, we embark on a journey of discovery in which we learn more and more about the other person and how they make us feel.

where is the loveWhen relationships don’t work out or get into serious trouble, it all comes back to the human side of the equation. Something in the attempt to mix the personality, temperament, likes, dislikes, ego and more didn’t quite mesh right. This can lead to some severe emotional reactions depending on the length and nature of the conflict. Let’s be clear about this. All that goes on is about the fragile nature of the human condition and human emotions.

In the world’s quest for simplicity, the word love is used to describe any human relationship with some type of a deeper bond. We hear about love everywhere. It’s in our songs, movies, books and permeates all aspects of our life. It may be one of the most frequently used and misunderstood words in existence. So when a relationship doesn’t work, we will often hear the term “love gone bad.”

Love Is a Spiritual State, Not an Emotion

While this author isn’t going to change everyone’s use of the word love, it may be helpful to understand what love actually is and how it differs from human emotional attachment and the misalignment that occurs between people. Love is a spiritual state, not an emotion. It is not actually a part of the human condition. It resides in our spirit. Our spirit is pure love and nothing more. This love never changes. It doesn’t increase or decrease. It doesn’t think ill of anything or anyone ever. It simply exists as pure, unconditional love. All spirits or souls exist in this state.

What goes wrong in relationships is not love but two humans who don’t quite mesh well enough which leads to a break in their emotional attachment. It is our emotions that cause all the problems. At no point is love ever a part of this conflict.

In fact, when you see people become so emotionally distraught that they become mean and vengeful, this is a case where they have become totally disconnected from their spirit which is love. The love that is who they really are has been blocked by their own human frailty allowing their emotions to run amuck without any greater force to guide them.

This may be a very difficult message for some people to hear. Severely negative, vengeful, controlling and mean actions toward someone are a clear sign a person has lost their connection to their soul. It’s just that simple. We are going to feel pain and hurt over what has happened. This is normal and natural as we deal with the long journey back to emotional stability.

The Love from Our Soul Balances Our Emotions

When we strongly connect with our soul and its guiding force, the power of love balances our emotions and helps us keep our perspective. Love allows us to let someone go because they would be happier elsewhere even if they cheated and lied. Unconditional love is the foundation for forgiveness. While we will still feel the hurt and pain, through the power of love we can work through these emotions without turning to the dark side of humanity.true love

Let’s be clear. Forgiveness is not acceptance. Forgiving doesn’t condone what someone did. It doesn’t make it okay. It simple allows love to guide us to a better place over time and prevents us from diving into the depths of a spiritually depraved existence. From my observations, people who are conditional in their acceptance of others and judgmental tend to have the most difficult time forgiving others. They are not sufficiently connected to their spirit to be guided by the unconditional love it offers.

You Are Love

When we embrace the spirit or soul that we are, we allow a continual stream of unconditional love to permeate our being all the time. This affects how we see the world and how we deal with our emotional reactions to life. Without the loving guidance from our soul, we can too easily sink into the lower levels of human behavior causing way more hurt, pain and mayhem than is necessary.

You are love and have always been love. You are a spirit or soul in a human body. This unconditional love exists right now within you and is there to help you through any crisis in your life. Embrace who you really are and allow your inner wisdom to always guide you through the emotional roller coaster of life.

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Inspirational Quotes About Life https://lifeisaforkintheroad.com/inspirational-quotes-about-life/ https://lifeisaforkintheroad.com/inspirational-quotes-about-life/#comments Sat, 19 Oct 2013 23:47:47 +0000 http://lifeisaforkintheroad.com/?p=1093 The 10 Most Popular Inspirational Quotes About Life by Don Shapiro These are the 10 most popular inspirational quotes about life from the Life Is A Fork In The Road page on Facebook. Time is the great healer “Time is the great healer. No matter how difficult the circumstances that cross our path, it takes […]

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The 10 Most Popular Inspirational Quotes About Life by Don Shapiro

These are the 10 most popular inspirational quotes about life from the Life Is A Fork In The Road page on Facebook.

Time is the great healer

Inspirational quotes about life - Time is a the great healer“Time is the great healer. No matter how difficult the circumstances that cross our path, it takes time for our emotions, minds and spirit to process what’s happened. Rushing to make choices too quickly can send us down the wrong fork in the road. It’s normal and natural to feel overwhelmed, out of sorts and confused when a major change knocks on our door. While you may be forced to make some choices quickly, delay as many choices as possible until time has worked its magic. When you feel on solid ground again, you will be ready to make better choices about the future.”

 

It takes courage to live as your authentic self

Inspirational quotes about life - It takes courage to live as your authentic self“It takes courage to live as your authentic self. Some people, even family members, may not want to accept the real you. But if you don’t live that way, you become less of yourself and limit what you can do. Walking to the beat of your own drum allows you to use all your gifts and be there for others. Every choice you make contains the choice to be authentic. When you choose to live as who you really are, you become your best self.”

 

We are not our past

Inspirational quotes about life - We are not our past“We are not our past. Our past reflects experiences good and bad that gave us feelings, abilities and wisdom. While those experiences shaped our journey and some could be hurtful, they do not define who we are, what we can be or limit where we can go. We can grow our tree of life in new directions with new branches and transform in amazing ways. When we release the hold of the past over us, we free ourselves to embrace the wonder of all we can be.”

 

Move one pebble on the beat and you change history

Inspirational quotes about life - Move one pebble on the beach and you change history“Move one pebble on the beach and you change history. No matter how much you have thought through a choice, you cannot know what the future holds. The moment you make that choice it changes things around you in unforeseen ways. Moving even a few small pebbles can set in motion changes that create new forks, new paths and new options which were hidden from view. While reflecting and investigating are good things, sometimes we just need to take an action that will alter our situation enough to find the path that’s right for us.”

 

It’s not the situation you’re in that matters but how you see the situation

Inspirational quotes about life - It not the situation you're in that matters but how you see the situation“It’s not the situation you’re in that matters but how you see the situation. That determines the choices and forks you find. Everyone goes through struggles and difficulties during their life. Sometimes we find ourselves in a room without windows or doors. That is an illusion created in our own mind. A new window, new perspective and new awareness await us when we go beyond our emotions to the place of inner wisdom. The path to a better place patiently waits for us.”

 

Your life’s journey begins beyond your comfort zone

Inspirational quotes about life - Your life begins beyond your comfort zone“Your life’s journey begins beyond your comfort zone. Sometimes, we feel there is no way out, nowhere to go, no path beyond our current circumstance. We can too easily enter a comfort zone that blinds us to all the forks in the road patiently waiting to be found. There are also times where we would rather stay in an undesirable situation we know rather than venture into the unknown. Break out of your comfort zone, do something different to create a new view and the next path on your journey may unfold before your eyes.”

 

Awareness unlocks our potential

Inspirational quotes about life - As our awareness grows so we grow“Awareness unlocks our potential. As our awareness grows, so we grow. Whether you face a major crisis or just want to make things better, new awareness makes all the difference. Re-frame, restate and reform how you look at your current situation to reveal something new that might have been hidden. As we change our view of the situation, we can discover new forks in the road.”

 

Change happens whether you want it to or not

Inspirational quotes about life - Change happens whether you want it to or not“Change happens whether you want it to or not. This is the way of the universe. Either you make the change or something is going to make the change for you. You can’t prevent surprising events in your life but you can improve your journey by becoming the force of change instead of a roadblock to change. Allow your true inner wisdom to guide you toward the changes that are best for you.”

 

When you change yourself, the world starts changing with you

Inspirational quotes about life - When you change yourself the world starts changing with you“When you change yourself, the world starts changing with you. Don’t wait for someone or something else to make the change first. The situation you face will remain the same until something changes. Why not become the force of change in your life. Like ripples moving through the water, your world and everyone in it start changing the moment you change yourself.”

 

What you do counts more than what you say you do

Inspirational quotes about life - What you do counts more than what you say you do

“What you do counts more than what you say you do. Your actions tell everyone who you really are. If you want respect, then show respect for others. If you want to be a person of action, then take action. If you want to be successful, act successful in all you do. If you want other people to help you on your way, help them on their way first. If you want love, then show that you are a loving person. Your actions grow the forest that becomes your life’s journey.”

 

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Inspirational quotes about life by Don Shapiro

These are just a few of the quotes about life Don Shapiro has written on Facebook as he works on finishing his book Life Is A Fork In The Road. Please sign up for the email update in the right hand column so you will be notified when the book is published.

Please visit the Life Is A Fork In The Road Facebook page to join the discussion and read Don’s latest writings.

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Change Happens whether You Want It to or Not https://lifeisaforkintheroad.com/change-happens/ https://lifeisaforkintheroad.com/change-happens/#comments Mon, 09 Sep 2013 00:55:14 +0000 http://lifeisaforkintheroad.com/?p=932 Change is inevitable. How you deal with change can pave the road to a better life Change happens whether you want it to or not. This is the way of the universe. Either you make the change or something is going to make the change for you. To find a better life, learn how to […]

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Change is inevitable. How you deal with change can pave the road to a better life
When you change yourself the world starts changing with you
When you change yourself, the world starts changing with you

Change happens whether you want it to or not. This is the way of the universe. Either you make the change or something is going to make the change for you. To find a better life, learn how to deal with the forces of change.

Yes, change is inevitable. The cherry tree turns green with leaves, then buds form, then the cherry blossoms bloom into vibrant color, then the flowers and leaves fall off and the cycle repeats itself. The cherry tree cannot prevent this change from occurring.

Sometimes change is thrust upon us by outside events and other people that we had no control over. In other cases, the choices we have made put us in a situation that cries out for change though we may resist it. In either case, the force of change relentlessly moves forward.

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While we can’t prevent change in our life, we can control how we respond to those changes and the choices we make following them. We can find a better life by becoming the force of change instead of the roadblock to change.

It all starts with how we see the situations unfolding in our life. We can either look at change as something to avoid at all cost or an opportunity to flow with the currents and move forward with our life.

Our Barriers To Change

We have several human barriers to change that we need to become aware of to get in that flow.

First, we have our comfort zone.

This where things are good enough that we don’t want to spend the time or effort to change them. We can live with what we have.

Comfort zones are also about our attachment to the way things are now. We can become emotionally attached to everything about our current life, the way it works, the people in it and more. Changing any of this can feel like a loss to us. We don’t want to give up what we have to begin something new and different.

Yet the force of change continues to beat its drum. The longer we hold onto these attachments, the longer we stay within our comfort zone, the more difficult the change will be for us. The world continues to change around us. As we hold onto this place longer and longer, it begins to fray at the edges and then starts falling apart. There is no way to stop the change. If we learn to embrace change and let go quicker, life works better at all levels. Now we are in the flow and can move toward a better life.

Second, we have a fear about the unknown

We may prefer a less than ideal situation we know than a new situation that we don’t.  What surprises lurk around the corner? Will it really be better? Once again, if we hold onto our current situation for too long, it will deteriorate and we won’t be able to keep what we did like about it. The earlier you can move on the better because you’re going to have to move on at some point anyway. Change just keeps coming at us. Don’t let the unknown stop from your finding a better life for yourself and your loved ones.

Third, we may not be aware of all the changes around us and how they might affect us in the future

We can hold onto what we have for too long out of ignorance. Whatever we don’t know can hold us back and hurt us. Either out of comfort, fear or denial, we can too easily turn off to all the signs around us that change is about to break through our front door.

Keep creating new windows from which to look at your world. Never accept your current view of the world as the only view. Let new awareness help you to alter your view and motivate you to be the force of change in your life.

As our awareness grows, so we grow. Growing awareness can help us find a better life

Let’s return to our cherry tree. The level of air and nutrients in the soil, how well the tree is watered and pruned and how much sunlight it receives will all affect the quality of its bloom. The same is true for us.

♦ Prepare yourself to become the force of change in your life.
♦ Expand your knowledge about yourself, your life and your world.
♦ Build new windows so you can see your world in a new way.
♦ Engage in new experiences that further expand your awareness.
♦ Keep taking in new information, ideas and experiences.

All of this will give you perspective to help you see all your options, move away from the past and take new forks in the road with more confidence.  This shows us why we can’t stay attached to the past or hold back out of fear of the unknown.

While we can’t know what will happen in the future, we do know that the world we are trying to hold onto is changing faster than we realize. Moving into the unknown may be safer than staying with the past. The better life you seek lies in the future so that’s where you need to go.

When you change yourself, the world starts changing with you.

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