Inspiration

I was looking at the blog of a woman that focuses on scrapbooking. She even sends out a newsletter focusing on her life and being a "life artist," and I was intrigued by her idea of choosing ONE word for a year to focus on and direct her life.

I think that I likely won't record it on her blog, but I do think that I'm going to have my word be Create.

There are so many things that I always want to get done! I think that they are all things that I can make happen if I just work at it and make time for it. I'm going to make some sort of art or frame or letters to embody the word create and I'll post photos of it later.

In choosing my word, I also came across some quotes that match how I see things, or how I would LIKE to see things. I hope one of them inspires you as well. If you would like to choose a word to work at with me, I'd love to hear about it from you.

• "Keep away from small people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."- Mark Twain
• "Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around."- Leo Buscaglia
  
• "Man's greatest actions are performed in minor struggles. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment and poverty are battlefields which have their heroes - obscure heroes who are at times greater than illustrious heroes."- Victor Hugo
  
• "I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom."- Gen. George Patton
  
• "Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong."- Ella Fitzgerald
  
• "Shun idleness. It is a rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant of metals." - Voltaire
  
• "Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolutions."- Kahlil Gibran
  
• "Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it. " - Rabindranath Tagore
  
• "In things pertaining to enthusiasm, no man is sane who does not know how to be insane on proper occasions."- Henry Ward Beecher
  
• "My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said that achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is within you. Success is being praised by others. That is nice but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success."- Helen Hayes
  
• "An inexhaustible good nature is one of the most precious gifts of heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather."- Washington Irving