AN AWESOME VIDEO: WHY I AM NO LONGER A CHRISTIAN

This video is very empathetic towards both Christianity and atheism, but rests upon the theoretical foundation of ethics. It is candid but quite respectful. It is objectively rather than subjectively presented. IT IS BY FAR THE BEST VIDEO THAT I'VE SEEN THAT EXPLAINS A RATIONAL TRANSITION FROM THEISM TO ATHEISM. It is well worth the time it takes to watch every bit of it at least twice.

Click on the following link:

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/why-i-am-no-longer-a-christian/

IT ALL ADDS UP

"A hand up is better than a hand out." ~ Sybil Mobley

Most of us normally perform far below our capabilities simply because we lack faith in ourselves.

Realistic self-confidence and wholesome self-esteem are your keys to unlock your doors to your success.

Or, the lack of self-confidence and self-esteem are the locks that imprison and keep you from experiencing your success and achievement.

Self-confidence and self-esteem gives us courage to persist, persevere, and progress in the present as we prepare for the future.

But how do we build self-confidence and self-esteem?

Well, they don't come all at once; they build up as one learns by endeavoring to become successful. Every successful attempt (and even unsuccessful attempts from which one learns) adds up. So, you gain self-confidence by both learning and trying--even if you experience temporary failure.

REMEMBER: Nothing overcomes losses but persistence.

So, as Jim Valvano said: "Don't give up. Never give up!"

Everything you learn (even in losses) eventually add up to successes.

LOVE MAKES US HAPPY

To love others makes us happy. ~ Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds

Love is the glue that holds friendship together. ~ Antonio "L.A." Reid

Friendship is built upon love. You can say that a true and loyal friendship is an exceedingly rare and wonderful thing--like a happy marriage or a successful partnership. It needs attention, care, guarding, and above all, it needs to be needed. ~ Dennis Kimbro

Like all other emotions, love attracts love.
If you love all people, you will never be without a wealth of love.
With love, you get in the act of giving.
And, it is love that creates and sustains happiness.
~ Perman Wilson

TEN LIFE LESSONS (from Albert Einstein)

1.  Follow your curiosity.
2.  Perseverance is priceless.
3.  Focus on the present.
4.  The imagination is powerful.
5.  Make mistakes.
6.  Live in the moment.
7.  Create value.
8.  Don't expect different results.
9.  Knowledge comes from experience.
10. Learn the rules and then play better.

TWELVE THINGS TO DO TO BE HAPPY

EXPRESS GRATITUDE:

·         When you appreciate what you have, what you have appreciates in value.

·         If we aren't thankful for what we already have we will have a hard time ever being happy.

BE OPTIMISTIC:

·         People who think optimistically see the world as a place packed with endless opportunities, especially in trying times.

AVOID OVER-THINKING AND SOCIAL COMPARISON:

·         Comparing yourself to someone else can be poisonous

·         The only person you should compare to yourself is yourself before now.

PRACTICE ACTS OF KINDNESS:

·         Selfless helping someone is a super powerful way to feel good inside.

NURTURE SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS:

·         The happiest people on the planet are the ones who have deep, meaningful relationships.

DEVELOP STRATEGIES FOR COPING:

·         It helps to have healthy strategies for coping pre-rehearsed, on-call, and in your arsenal at your disposal.

FORGIVE:

·         Harboring feelings of hatred is horrible for your well-being.

INCREASE FLOW EXPERIENCES:

·         Flow is a state in which it feels like time stands still.

SAVOR LIFE’S JOYS:

·         Deep happiness cannot exist without slowing down to enjoy the joy.

COMMIT TO YOUR GOALS:

·         Magical things start happening when we commit ourselves to doing whatever it takes to get somewhere.

BE HUMANE:

·         When we are humane we have empathy for others.

·         When we have empathy for others we are neither excessively proud nor lacking in self-esteem.

TAKE CARE OF YOUR BODY:

·         Taking care of your body is crucial to being the happiest person you can be.

SUCCESS

The secret to success is to learn to do what you cannot do,

practice doing what you have to do even if you don't want to,

and stubbornly, patiently, and adequately complete the necessary tasks

that will achieve objectives that will eventually lead to the successful achievement
of YOUR PREDETERMINED, WORTHWHILE GOALS. 

~ Perman Wilson

There is an old saying that goes, "It is impossible to succeed without suffering."

Thus, failure becomes the final test of persistence. 

He who has never failed has also never succeeded.

It is impossible for success to be easy.

Success is difficult; it is gut-wrenching, it is pain-inducing;

and it is built upon inconvenience.

Success is a marathon, not a sprint.

Success seems to follow a kind of NATURAL SELECTION process.

Only those individuals who are willing to repeatedly try after repeatedly failing,

those who refuse to let defeat keep them down,

those who seem to know that success can be theirs if they just stay with it long enough,

finally win the fruits of life.

After failing many times in her bid for political office, former Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm 

gave a clue to her secret of success: "The thing to try when all else fails is AGAIN."

Most men and women who have hit their mark will admit that just as they felt they were finally reaching

the point in life on which they had set their hearts, the rug was pulled out from under them

and they found themselves back at the beginning.

Only those who can hang in there long after the crowd has left will drink from the victor's cup. 

REPEATED VICTORIES OVER YOUR PROBLEMS ARE THE RUNGS ON YOUR LADDER OF SUCCESS. 

MAKE YOUR BREAKING POINT YOUR TURNING POINT.

~ Dennis Kimbro

COOPERATION IS A KEY TO SUCCESS

If we cooperate for mutual benefit, WE become more powerful.

According to an old Eastern parable, two beggars formed a symbiotic relationship:
one was blind and the other was born without legs.
the blind man was strong enough to carry the legless man on his back.
He became the legs for the lame man.
In return, the lame man became the eyes for the blind one.

MAKE WISE DECISIONS

"It's pretty hard for the Lord to guide you if you haven't made up your mind which way you want to go."       ~ Madame C. Walker

YOUR GREATEST GIFT IS THE POWER OF CHOICE.

We must continue to make choices--choices that will eventually determine our destiny.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT ATTITUDE IS THE BEST CHOICE WE CAN MAKE.

NO EXCUSES, NO FAULT, CONSENSUS, & COLLABORATION

"There aren't really enough crutches in the world for all the lame excuses."
~ Bill Demby, physically challenged athlete and motivational speaker

Excuses don't help; results are the only things that matter.

Don't blame anyone--not even yourself; instead, discover the shortcoming and foster improvements.

Don't manipulate or boss people; instead, seek fair and mutual agreement.

Don't compete with your teammates; instead, harmoniously cooperate with all members of your team and work together to achieve the primary objectives that will mutually benefit all stakeholders.

LAW OF CORRESPONDENCE

The law of correspondence acknowledges the correspondence (or connection) between your ideality (your mental world) and your reality (your physical world). Each one affects the other.

Your thinking affects your body, which may also cause your body to affect your  physical environment.

On the other hand, your bodily sensations and observations affect your thinking.

THE UNIVERSAL LAW CALLED: 'USE IT OR LOSE IT'

'USE IT OR LOSE IT' means that if you don't continue to practice or use an ability, you might lose the ability. For example, if a person doesn't exercise his or her physical body, he or she will likely lose strength, endurance, and stamina. Similarly, if a person doesn't practice a new skill, such as driving a car or speaking a foreign language, he or she may forget or lose that skill. The same is true for the ability to learn and remember new information, do well with problem-solving, etc. Practicing, that is "using" these abilities helps improve them. Not using them often leads to less ability.

SUMMARY CHECKLIST OF THE USES OF RATIONAL THOUGHT (By Maxwell Maltz, M.D., F.I.C.S.)

1. It is the job of rational, conscious thought to examine and analyze incoming messages, to accept those that are true and reject those that are untrue.

2.  It is the job of the conscious rational mind to form logical and correct conclusions.

3.  It is the job of conscious rational thought to decide what you want, select the goals you wish to achieve, and concentrate on these rather than on what you do not want.

4.  It is the job of your conscious mind to pay strict attention to the task at hand, to what your are doing and what is going on around you, so that these incoming sensory messages can keep your automatic mechanism currently advised of the environment and allow it to respond spontaneously.

LAW OF HABIT

Thought is the force underlying all acts; repeated actions formulate habits; a system of habits constitutes a character; and, one’s character largely determines one’s destiny.

And what is meant by this? Simply this: Every conscious act is preceded by a thought. Your dominating thoughts determine your dominating actions. Repeated acts crystallize themselves into a habit. The aggregate of your habits is your character.

Whatever, then, you would want to be your character you must look well to the character of every thought you entertain. If there is an act that is not in your best interest to do or a habit that you would not wish to acquire, you must guard against thinking about such.

In other words, guard your mind from negative thoughts; and, whenever one gets into it, displace it with positive thinking. Don’t let a negative thought give birth to some negative act. It is a simple psychological law that any type of thought, if entertained for a sufficient length of time, will, by and by, reach the motor tracks of the brain, and finally burst forth into action. And, repeated actions build strongly resistant habits.

LAW OF BELIEF

The universal law of belief states that we do not believe what we see, we rather see what we have already decided to believe.

LAW OF SUBSTITUTION

Brian Tracy, in his book Maximum Achievement, explains the Law of Substitution this way:

“It states that your conscious mind can hold only one thought at a time, and that you can substitute one thought for another. The ‘crowding out’ principle allows you to deliberately replace a negative thought with a positive thought.”

It is virtually impossible to eradicate a thought from your mind unless you fill the space with something else. 

The more you try not to think about something, the more you think about it.

And, according to Sigmund Freud, when a thought is deliberately forgotten it just recedes into the subconscious mind where it can cause havoc without the person ever knowing the cause.

So, rather than trying to forget negative thoughts it is better to replace them with positive thoughts. 

LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT

Things that you think, say, and do will be causes that have effects on something or somebody even if on nothing or no one but your own mind and your own body.

LAW OF ATTRACTION

For me, the law of attraction works in this way:

You tend to attract or are attracted to that which you think about.

NATURE IS OUR CREATOR

Humans are the helpers and interpreters of nature. Humans have only acted rationally and comprehensively in so far as we have learned about and adapted to nature. By experimenting with nature or observing nature humans have come to perceive nature’s order and learn nature's laws.  Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another. Thus the knowledge of nature’s laws and order is power. There is no strength that can break the causal chain of nature, and nature cannot be conquered but by being obeyed.  Accordingly the twin goals—human science and human power—come in the end to be one. To be ignorant of the related causes and effects is to be frustrated in actions.

Our creator has clearly defined mental guidelines to direct our path: The laws of attraction, cause and effect, substitution, belief, habit, use or lose, and correspondence are only a few. Each guideline leads us to the safest and most fruitful path to travel. There is law and order in the universe. These rules for the road plant our feet on firm ground. They are words of reality that can provide light and uplift for our immediate pathways, and they can offer a beam of light down the corridors of our uncertain tomorrows.

Thus knowledge of nature’s laws and order is power, but mere knowledge is insufficient to keep an individual from acting like a fool. Nevertheless, obey these laws and prosper, disregard them and fail.