Diamonds are made under pressure!

"Self-acceptance comes from meeting life's challenges vigorously. Don't numb yourself to your trials and difficulties, nor build mental walls to exclude pain from your life. You will find peace not by trying to escape your problems, but by confronting them courageously. You will find peace not in denial, but in victory." -- J. Donald Walters

"Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew. They’re what make the instrument stretch—what makes you go beyond the norm." -- Cicely Tyson

"When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure." -- Peter Marshal

"You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it." -- Margaret Thatcher

The Right Direction!

If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.

-Yogi Berra

Unveiled Heroes

Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or we grow weak, and at last some crisis shows us what we have become.

-Bishop Westcott

Marriage: The Aphrodisiac For The Mature

Marriage is: an aphrodisiac for the mature; a great yoga; a discipline of incarnate love; a task that stretches a man and a woman to the fullest; a drama in which a man and woman must gradually divest themselves of their archetypes and stereotypes and come to love each other as perfectly flawed individuals. The health, vitality, and happiness of the family is the yardstick by which a man, a woman, a society should measure success and failure...For better and for worse, the family is the first line of defense against dehumanization and misplaced loyalty.

- Sam Keen

Men: Enter Into A Deeper Relationship With Yourself

The crisis in a man's life comes when he is separated, or suddenly perceives himself as separated, from the encompassing but limiting perspective of the normal world of adulthood. Then, he must enter into a deeper relationship with himself, become an authority in the nuances of his own experience, define manhood for himself...In the Grail legend, the classical tale of male heroism, we are told that when the Knights of the Round Table set out on their quest, each one entered the forest at the place it was darkest and forged a path where none had been before. The inner, psychological meaning of this myth is that full manhood is to be found only when we commit ourselves to a life of questioning.

- Sam Keen

It Is Up To You!

"A positive attitude is perhaps more important at home than anywhere else. As spouses and parents, one of our most vital roles is to help those we love feel good about themselves." -- Keith Harrell

"We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of these assumptions." -- Stephen Covey

"…look at that word blame. It's just a coincidence that the last two letters spell the word me. But that coincidence is worth thinking about. Other people or unfortunate circumstances may have caused you to feel pain, but only you control whether you allow that pain to go on. If you want those feelings to go away, you have to say: 'It's up to me.'" -- Arthur Freeman

"Optimists are right. So are pessimists. It's up to you to choose which you will be." -- Harvey Mackay

Adventure: A Supreme Joy

"Are there not... Two points in the adventure of the diver: One -- when a beggar, he prepares to plunge? Two -- when a prince, he rises with his pearl? I plunge!" -- Robert Browning

"To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world. An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." -- G.K. Chesterton

"Bringing up a family should be an adventure, not an anxious discipline in which everybody is constantly graded for performance." -- Milton R. Saperstein

"It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action, that man finds his supreme joys." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Do More Than Your Duty

"Accept the challenges, so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory." -- General George S. Patton

"Winners are people with a definite purpose in life." -- Denis Waitley

"It seems to me that it's actually harder to invent excuses than it is to be successful." -- Jeffrey Gitomer

"Don’t be content with doing only your duty. Do more than your duty. It’s the horse that finishes a neck ahead that wins the race." -- Andrew Carnegie

Years Of Real Life

And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

-Abraham Lincoln