There are 1,013,913 words in the English language.  New words are added at a rate of approximately 15 words per day.  The millionth word added to the language happened to be “Web 2.0”.  And of those million plus words, what do you think is the most frequently used?

Aside from the definitive and indefinite articles ‘the’ and ‘a’ as well as the conjunctive ‘and’ and similar such words – the most popular word is … ‘I’.

Does that surprise you?

When you see a group photograph that you are in, whose face do you look for first? Continue reading →

Many years ago, a young boy was in a very dark place.  His father was in prison, and his mother had sent the boy away to try and make money for the family.  The only job the boy could find was in a dingy, rat-infested warehouse pasting labels onto bottles of shoe coloring.  The working conditions were terrible and the boy struggled mightily. 

He had dreamed of being a writer, but had so little confidence in his ability to write that he was ashamed to let others know of his ambitions.  When he finally completed his first manuscript, his insecurity was so great that he snuck out in the middle of the night to mail it so that no one would make fun of him. Continue reading →

But thinking makes it so.  Act 2, Scene 2 – the immortal words of Shakespeare channeled through Hamlet.  There is perhaps no more insightful line in literature, written right around 1600.  What Hamlet was implying – a good 370 years before A Course in Miracles – was that the mind of the perceiver determines one’s reality, not some objective truth.  Said another way, our thoughts determine the reality we experience.  Not the other way around!

Think about the consequences of such an extraordinary revelation: the outside world does not determine our experience.  Rather, our thoughts dictate our experience.  We have been so conditioned to believe that things happen “out there”, and consequently our sense of well-being or happiness is based on whether those things that “happened” are what we would label as good or bad.  Instead, our thoughts directly lead to our experience of joy or sadness. Continue reading →

In 1999, Kent Nerburn published a book called Make Me An Instrument Of Your Peace in which he shares this moving story from his days as a cab driver:

Several years ago, I drove a taxi cab for a living. One time I arrived in the middle of the night for a pick up at a building that was dark except for a single light in a ground floor window.

Under these circumstances, many drivers would just honk once or twice, wait a minute, then drive away. But I had seen too many impoverished people who depended on taxis as their only means of transportation. Unless a situation smelled of danger, I always went to the door. This passenger might be someone who needs my assistance, I reasoned to myself. So I walked to the door and knocked. Continue reading →

The traveler arrived at the airport eager to get home yet lamenting the long wait prior to boarding.  To help pass the time, she purchased a short mystery novel and a bag of cookies from the mini bookstore.  Upon returning to the crowded boarding area, she found an open seat next to a middle-aged man.  She placed the bag of cookies under the arm of her seat, propped the book open on her lap, settled in for the wait, and began reading.

Within a few minutes, the man next to her reached into her bag of cookies, took one out, and ate it.  The woman was a bit surprised at the man’s poor manners, but decided to let it go and went back to her novel.  She ate a few cookies herself, rather loudly, just in case the man didn’t realize they were her cookies.

But the inconsiderate fellow did it again.  He reached right in, took a cookie, gave the woman a curt smile, and began chewing.  Once again, she reached in and ate several more, audibly clearing her throat and making it known she wasn’t happy. Continue reading →