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Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.
-- Marilyn Monroe
 

 

The MONTHLY Motivator - January 2014

Take positive control

At some point, you are always in control of the way you experience life. There are things that happen far beyond your sphere of influence. There are other things that happen closer to home. Your level of control and influence over events in the outer world varies from hardly any at all to a significant amount. However, your level of control over the way you integrate all those things into your experience of life is one hundred percent.

No matter what happens, whether it is near or far, hurtful or beneficial, long term or short term, you decide what meaning to assign to it. There is objective reality, and then there is your own personal interpretation and experience of that reality. By exercising positive and purposeful control of your own internal experience of life, you can create truly magnificent results, both internally and externally.

Does it ever feel like people, events and circumstances are conspiring against you, and that you’re left with no options for moving forward? Do you become hopelessly frustrated by the difficult and outrageous developments in this world over which you seem to have no control? Take a step back from all that. Take a step back and put it all in perspective. What’s making you frustrated is not the situation itself, but your choice to be frustrated by it. What’s truly liberating is realizing that you always make another choice.

Yes, other people do hurtful things that can materially affect your life, and the lives of those you care about, in significant ways. However, no one can do anything to affect the deepest, most authentic part of you unless you allow it. It may seem like you have no choice other than to let something in life get to you. But you do. It may be difficult to maintain a positive outlook when the whole world appears to be following a negative path. Yet it is not only possible, but also a powerful and effective way to live.


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--Ralph Marston

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