Quote Motion 10:

Control your destiny or somebody else will. – Anonymous

It is difficult for people to believe that somebody other than they could manipulate events leading to destiny. This happens, but only when the individual as relinquished control of himself to something or someone else.

People cherish the idea of being masters of their fate. But in a world of too many influences, people are not always in control of their destinies. Something or someone somewhere could impress control upon the individual and influence him to make turns in life that sets him off in another direction other than where he may be bound if he had been the one setting the pace of his journey in life.

Destiny is the journey and destination of our individual lives through the choices, decisions, and actions made in the context of maturity, experiences, knowledge, and other influences upon our lives. These influences may be personal or impersonal. Impersonal refers to things, situations and circumstances which have a direct bearing upon our decisions and actions. Personal influences also have these same consequences, but they come upon us directly from persons or extra-physical beings. These may be from members of our household, community, or influential figures of society. Their words, actions, and general lifestyle can influence how we live ours. Often we do not realize our lives are being tailored by these influences, resulting in the loss of our own uniqueness. It is not impossible to know whether your life is being controlled by you or someone else.

If you control your destiny the signs are that you think your own thoughts, make your own decisions, carry out your own actions and initiatives, and are not over-influenced by externals, though aware of their influences, and you take responsibility for all of these. If you are not in control of your destiny the opposite of these signs will manifest themselves. Question is: are you controlling your life or is someone else doing it for you?

Quote Motion #9

          Jealousy consists of revealing our little we think of ourselves and how much we think of
          the other person. - Anonymous

                             

 

Aside anger, jealousy is the next demon of mind which plagues and torments. It resides right in the unhealthy perception of self by one in relation to the rest of the world. Jealousy is inferiority complex 'emotionalized'. It is a perception of self lacking in the knowledge of the noble qualities of which every individual is composed, of those attributes of uniqueness, talents, skills, and virtues. These attributes inform men of their identity and then conditions their understanding of their station in life and the nature of their vocation in relation to the principles and laws governing life.

Men lose sense of who they are the moment they begin and constantly try to measure up themselves with other individuals. A man jealous another man when he measures himself with the other and then tells himself what he does not possess which the other possesses and, thereby, grieves and becomes envious of the one which has what he has not. And often, the obvious fact that we cannot meet up or become like those we envy and jealous make the emotion of jealousy more deadly....to us! We refuse to realize that the other person is,  and must be, different from us, and that we are likewise different from the other. Where he is, is the result of his effort at becoming, at reaching a point higher than where the others lie. When we jealous a successful man, it is not he that we display jealousy to, it is to his successes and the principles that got him there!

Understand: by the conscious or unconscious application of certain principles and laws of the universe certain few men rise above the many. What these few now possess which the many will not fret and strain and work hard to get now becomes a source of envy against them.

The understanding of life and the laws which govern existence lays hope on the breasts of all men that by the same application of these principles those things which incite the jealousy of one against another can be attained, and well at that. But if men lack this understanding and look upon themselves as unfortunate, deprived or unprivileged - if they think little of themselves - it is of all certainty that they would wallow under the evil of jealousy.  And only they can help themselves.

    

Quote Motion #8

                                       Anger is a short madness.
                                                                                             - Horace

There is a thin line between sanity and insanity. This line is called anger, and has a
propensity towards insanity. Anger is the deadliest emotion man can throw up. Noble
character, lofty accomplishments, great civilizations have all been brought down to ruins
through outbursts of anger. Anger is an emotion, and no human who ever lived upon Earth
never displayed it. Anger constitutes the human personality alongside other emotions as
love, empathy, jealousy, hate, and so on. Anger is deadlier and can set the individual, and
those connected with him at the point of the outburst, on fire. And on the extreme, anger
is most horrible if it subjugates the reasoning capacity of men, thus obstructing access to
intelligible and amicable settlement of disputes and contentions. In such case, anger
becomes the fire which causes an inferno. And if you have felt anger, you know it burns
like fire. Play into the pages of history and you will find individuals and nations who
reduced themselves to ruin through he careless tampering of the emotion of anger.

Psychologically, during bursts of anger the human is worse that a ravenous beast and needs
only an opportunity to destroy everything that stands around him. In such condition he is
insane! The quicker he helps himself out of the border of insanity the better. If he
lingers too long he causes injury to his own emotions, to his faculty of reasoning, and the
now habitual madness of insanity warps his perception, distorts his judgement. No one likes
to be seen as insane, therefore no one wants to be brought under the whip of the demon of
anger.

Anger is an ugly emotion. Aside the psychological ailments it causes, anger may bring upon
the angry one what is called psychosomatic disorders. A lot of the diseases people pay
so much to cure have their origin in wrong mental states of which anger is chief. Anger
also causes 'tearing' on the fabric of spirit, opening holes for other-worldly entities to
find their way in, and only moments of calmness and solitude can repair the damage which
anger wrought on spirit, mind and body.

Control your anger!

Quote Motion 7

Man has risen above the survival instinct of the common animal to a level where he requires a purpose in life.  -  Kenneth Idiodi

In the animal world, existence is competitive. The strong, the furious and the fast is always the master of the realm. To survive, the animal must beat its way through oppositions, preying on some so as not to be preyed upon, that is, to exist. Within every beast of nature is the survival instinct, fixed in by the design of Mother Nature. Every beast must fight its ways through the jungle of life with claw and tooth, fang and venom, speed and alacrity, with the mightiest roar and the loudest flutter, in strength and in weakness, to have food, to secure space and to survive. This survive-or-be-survived-upon regime has continued up till this day right since creation came into being. Man, understood as an animal himself, has had to fight his way through the jungle of life, first surviving on other animals and also being survived upon, and then, second, by surviving upon his fellow men. The animal nature still characterize many individuals today both in the advanced and the less-advanced nations. Man's animal nature is not merely characteristic of salvage tribes, it is the very nature of man, wherever he may be found. But over the years man has risen, through the development of spirit, above the survival instinct of the common animal to a level where he requires a purpose in life.

With his increase in knowledge and the growth of his cosmic knowledge, man now seeks to emancipate himself out of the loop of insignificance to a position where he becomes significant, useful and indispensable to the human family. To stand in this position, he must embrace a PURPOSE, that personal definition which gives him a clear sense of himself and his responsibilities. A man without purpose equates himself with the animal who must employ tooth and claw to survive. Purpose gives meaning to life, in the grand scheme of life beyond Earth. The opposition to the man of purpose is less of his fellow men and more and more less of the wild beast in the field, but more of himself. He must live or die....by his own hand!

Quote Motion #6

                                        Using a dull axe requires strength, so sharpen the blade.
                                           That is the value of wisdom; it helps you succeed.
                                                                  Ecclesiastes 10:10

Once upon a time, a very strong woodcutter asked for a job in a timber merchant and he got it. The pay was really good and so was the work condition. For those reasons, the woodcutter was determined to do his best. His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he supposed to work. The first day, the woodcutter brought 18 trees. “Congratulations,” the boss said. “Go on that way!” Very motivated by the boss words, the woodcutter tried harder the next day, but he could only bring 15 trees. The third day he tried even harder, but he could only bring 10 trees. Day after day he was bringing less and less trees. “I must be losing my strength”, the woodcutter thought. He went to the boss and apologized, saying that he could not understand what was going on. “When was the last time you sharpened your axe?” the boss asked. “Sharpen? I had no time to sharpen my axe. I have been very busy trying to cut trees…” 

Reflection: Our lives are like that. We sometimes get so busy that we don’t take time to sharpen the “axe”. In today’s world, it seems that everyone is busier than ever, but less happy that ever. Why is that? Could it be that we have forgotten how to stay “sharp”? There’s nothing wrong with activity and hard work. But we should not get so busy that we neglect the truly important things in life, like our personal life, taking time to get close to our Creator, giving more time for our family, taking time to read etc. We all need time to relax, to think and meditate, to learn and grow. If we don’t take the time to sharpen the “axe”, we will become dull and lose our effectiveness.

.....................
This story was shared by E. Teboselu on a group on Facebook 
Scriptural quotation added by Victor Negro

Quote Motion #5

“Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have is not permanent”.   - Jean Kerr

Hope. Small word with mighty power. Hope has given flesh to bones when everything about carries the image of death. The power of hope has brought back life to many destroyed gifts and dreams which unfair circumstances have denied realization. It has resurrected dead visions because the heart of the visionary refuses to give up hope in the face of contrariness.

When the future is bleak and uncertain, when the light of tomorrow is faint, when your resources are depleted but still you keep on keeping on, you have hope. When in the midst of the toughest challenges you stand firm on the rock of hope, you demonstrate belief that what the challenges present are only temporal. When in the turbulence of the fiercest wind of affliction you hold on strong to the staff of hope and would not let that faint light of hope dim out, what your mind is set on would eventually be realized. You know that what you are going through, which is a source of pain and frustration, is not meant to consume you. You do not know how you know, but you just know. Hope is the feeling you have that the feelings of uncertainty is not permanent!

Situations around us oftentimes tend to dazzle us not into ecstatic states, but into conditions of fear, doubt, and apprehension. Negative situations which come about in the natural working order, that is, those odd situations which pop up naturally without being a direct effect of causes from us, do weaken the resolve to keep on hope of a number of people, not because the spark of hope is absent, but because they appear powerless and unable to handle these situations. In cases like these the best thing to do is to hold on to hope. Hope should be the motivator for every move aimed at righting the wrongs.

Hoping for change in any situation has the power to weaken the foundation of the problem and to hasten change. Hope is a force. A power of the human spirit. Backed with actions and words, however insignificant they may seem, the force of hope can break through concrete challenges and bring about positive results.

The ultimate test of the power of hope is time. Can it stand circumstances and situations that seem to last forever? Can it endure affliction, strife, suffering, hunger and persecution? Can it hope against all hope? Hope is the resolve to hold on, to keep on, and to keep holding on even in the face of terrible contradictions. Hope is the knowledge that nothing is impossibly permanent. It is the power to see the light before coming out of the tunnel.

Quote Motion #4

“It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it”.                 -Albert Einstein

I take this insightful quote as a law – a spiritual law. If all the billionaires of the world could give the equivalent of all they have earned, at least on the local communities they find themselves, the world would inch everyday to paradise. But as simple as this statement is, performing it is one of the hardest things in life, reason why many wealthy folks are aversive to charity, and die in obscurity with little or contribution in whatever measure they could. Their families are the only beneficiaries of their wealth; the neighbour is a stranger.

Why should a man give into the world? Every man should give into the world because he owes it his or her subsistence. The world gave every man what he is, where he is, and what he has. He comes into it with nothing to find in abundance material and immaterial substance which make his life worthwhile.

And then what is the equivalent of what a man takes out of the world? It means, simply, the equal measure of whatever he has collected and benefited from the world – material and immaterial. Though not everyman in his lifetime acquired great wealth, but many have gotten real love, happiness, connections, knowledge and information, a crowd of meaningful relationships, and lots of opportunities to play out personal gifts and talents and be successful. Therefore, to give the equivalent of whether material or immaterial possessions would be to give the exact measure of, or at least something close to, the things life has given us. It also connotes giving things that produce an even greater measure of joy we derive from opportunities which the world has offered us.  A billionaire may not be able to share his money to people on the streets, but he can spend a deal on creating wonderful resorts or parks where the common people could have fun and tune in to the beauties of nature without charge. A music star, who has become wealthy by the people’s purchases of his or her albums, could make free works to be distributed freely to his fans. Such endeavour could be conceptualized so that it goes beyond just giving them music to listen, but offering life tips within the pages of the compact disc jacket. In like manner, an industrialist could find a way to provide jobs for the unqualified of society! 

We all, in one way or another, can give back to the world the same measure of joy, happiness, and prosperity we get from it. This way our world becomes better than we met it, and the important eternal virtue of giving and service would become constant features of the character of mankind.