Banish uncertainty.
Affirm strength.
Hold resolve.
Expect death.
Make your stand today. On this spot. On this day. Make your actions count; do not falter in your determination to fulfill your destiny. Don’t follow the destiny outlined in some mystical book: Create your own.
Your resolve to tread the path of life is your best asset. Without it, you die. Death is unavoidable, but let it not be from loss of will but because your time is over. As long as you can keep going, use your imagination to cope with the travails of life. Overcome your obstacles and realize what you envision.
You will know unexpected happiness. You will know the sorrow of seeing what is dearest to you cut down before your eyes. Accept that. That is the nature of human existence, and you have no time to buffer this fact with fairy tales and illogical explanations.
Each day, your life grows shorter by twenty-four hours. The time to make achievements become more precious. You must fulfill everything you want in life and then release your will upon the moment of death. Your life is a creation that dies when you die. Release it, give up your individuality, and in so doing, finally merge completely with Tao.
Until that moment, create the poetry of your life with toughness and determination.
“There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul.”
— Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from The Poem Will”
“Resolve to find thyself; and to know that he who finds himself, loses his misery.”
— Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
“Resolve and thou art free.”
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?”
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God! Your playing small doesn’t serve the world! There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you! We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; It’s in everyone!! And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
— Nelson Mandela, Inaugural Speech 1994
One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires … causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these — to be fierce and to show mercy toward others — both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D. 2003
Resolve that whatever you do, you will bring the whole man to it; that you will fling the whole weight of your being into it. — Orison Swett Marden
“Never act without purpose and resolve, or without the means to finish the job.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.2
One Response
This post was exactly what I needed to read today, Donna. Thanks so much. I have the Buddhist Evening Prayer from the Zen Center L.A. taped to my computer: “Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken! Take heed–do not squander your life.”