July 15

Understand more

You can never understand it all. That always give you the opportunity to understand more.

Life, existence, and reality are made of complex, interconnected attributes, layers, and dimensions. You can continually improve your understanding of the people, places, situations, ideas and concepts in your world.

The more deeply you understand, the more opportunities you can identify for positive progress. Increase your understanding, and you magnify your effectiveness.

It’s tempting and comfortable to assume you know all there is to know about a particular subject. But such an assumption will eventually lock you in a prison of your own making.

To elevate your understanding requires effort. Yet the exhilaration and benefits you’re likely to achieve are well worth the effort.

Challenge yourself and reward yourself at the same time. Seek to understand, and then to understand more.

— Ralph Marston

July 16

Let life be beautiful

Let life be beautiful. Let your needs be few.

Let clouds drift across the deep blue sky. Allow yourself to know the joy that has no reason or hidden design.

Take breath in, let breath out. Do the best at what you do, see the best in others.

Be slow to lose your patience, and eager to forgive. Offer kindness every time you can, and candor when it’s called for.

Embrace the life that this day brings. Forge new goodness and value from whatever comes your way.

Understand the immense value of everything to which you’re connected. Allow the beauty, and be the beauty.

— Ralph Marston

July 17

Forge ahead

You can think of many things to complain about. But complaining is not going to produce anything of value.

Put less focus on what is wrong. Turn your attention toward new, creative, innovative ways to support and expand what is good, what is right.

Leave behind your complaints and forge ahead. Leave behind the blame, anger, and resentment, and make yourself into a shining example of what a good life encompasses.

There will always be difficulties but they do not have to contaminate your experience of life. There will always be challenges, and you are able to transform those challenges into fulfillment.

Life is not some warm, soft, ultra comfortable refuge where no problems ever intrude. Life is the magnificent opportunity to deal with whatever comes along.

Live well by continuously looking forward. Forge ahead and make life good by virtue of the fact that you are living it.

— Ralph Marston

July 18

Resolving conflict

No one is on the same journey as you. Yet countless people have passed through similar terrain, and continue to do so.

You are very much like others, and at the same time you are very much different. No one knows how it is to be you, yet everyone shares the complex and ineffable experience of being alive.

By your very nature as a unique individual, you cannot avoid conflict. What you can do is resolve conflict and put together ways to successfully live with it.

What is your primary tool in doing so? It is truth.

Be honest about your priorities, understand the conflicting priorities of others, and be mindful of your common interests. Call upon those truths to illuminate the way forward.

The way to win is not to deny, impugn or destroy the differences that exist between you and others. Build success by being clear and supportive toward what you have in common and agreeing to disagree on the rest.

— Ralph Marston

July 19

Something good to do

If you have nothing to do, you have nothing. Fortunately you can always give yourself something good to do.

You can make it interesting, meaningful, challenging, profitable, engaging. It’s up to you, and the possibilities are unbounded.

Often there’s much you need to do, and probably there’s much you’d like to do. Beyond that, you can get creative and explore life in dimensions you may have never imagined before.

Is your expectation to sit and be entertained with no thought or effort on your part? That may suffice for a short time but it’s certainly not going to provide any deep, lasting sense of satisfaction.

You deserve a life that’s rich, a life with days, months, and years that are full. And you are the person primarily responsible for doing the filling.

Fill your time with activities worthy of the unique, creative, caring person you are. Give yourself something good to do.

— Ralph Marston

July 20

How things could be going

When things go wrong, there’s no hard and fast rule that says you have to be dismayed. It’s just as possible, and a whole lot more useful, to be inspired.

You might often adopt an attitude based on what has recently happened. But that doesn’t have to be what drives your attitude and your outlook.

What if instead of being fixated on how things have been going, you direct your focus elsewhere? What if you look instead at how things could be going?

Even on a bad day you still have lots of good possibilities. And when you’re having a bad day that can be a great time to act on some of your most positive possibilities.

Are you dissatisfied and disappointed with the way things are? That enables you to envision precisely what would make life better.

Embrace that vision, feel its positive power. And let it push you, with an optimistic frame of mind, into effective and beneficial action.

— Ralph Marston

July 21

Do the difficult stuff

Do the difficult stuff and do it sooner rather than later. That’s where adventure flourishes, that’s where fulfillment occurs.

You won’t find meaning in life by pondering it from a lofty, comfortable perch. Get up, get out, encounter life’s challenging realities and live the truth that existence is made of.

But isn’t life already difficult enough? Yes, and that’s precisely why you can gain so much by taking on the difficulties.

Identify the biggest challenge you face today and get to work on it as soon as possible. You’ll supply the rest of your day with some powerful, positive momentum.

Do the difficult work and you’ll be rewarded with even more difficult work. Resist the temptation to be resentful about that, and you position yourself for exponential growth.

Do the difficult stuff and do it well. See how much adventure and value you can pour into each day.

— Ralph Marston

July 22

Keep goodness alive

Fulfill the potential of what is now. At the same time, honor and utilize the value of what has gone before.

You stand at the dawning of a malleable and undetermined future. Yet you’ve been brought to this point by a specific, concluded past.

As you persist in your actions, as events continue to unfold, you walk the fertile ground between what was and what’s to be. It is a powerful and sobering place to be.

In this sweet spot of time that is now, you play an essential role. You are responsible for the continuation and expansion of life’s goodness and value.

Every achievement that’s ever been achieved has occurred in the past. You have the ability and the obligation to extend achievement and its benefits far into the future.

Right here, right now, is where everything that matters encounters everything that’s possible. With your effort, with your commitment, with faith, integrity and gratitude, keep the goodness alive and growing.

— Ralph Marston

July 23

Live like it all matters

You can get by in life without caring about anything. But why in the world would you want to live your life that way?

You can get through your work just doing the bare minimum, being sloppy and inattentive. Yet the time you’re wasting on meaningless activity is your own precious time.

You can get through the day being selfish, rude, and inconsiderate. But the person damaged most by your selfishness is you.

Life without caring wears you down and empties you out, even if just for a few hours or minutes. Fortunately, you never have to live that way.

You can always choose to care, to give your best, to be kind, considerate, diligent, purposeful. It’s not always easy, not always convenient, but it’s always available and always your best option.

Give your sincere care to the people, activities, circumstances, and possibilities in your life. Live like it all matters and you’ll know without a doubt how much it all does.

— Ralph Marston

July 24

Wake up to opportunity

Just before you go to sleep, remind yourself that when you wake up you’ll wake up to opportunity. You’ll wake up fully aware of all you have, eager to make good use of it.

Then wake up early to that opportunity. Wake up to energy, enthusiasm, and a willingness to fulfill your best possibilities.

Begin the day focused on the good things you can do with it. Right from the start, before anything has the chance to steal that focus, jump into positive action.

Don’t get bogged down waiting for inspiration to come to you. Make the inspiration happen as a result of your attitude and actions.

Establish your forward momentum as soon as the day begins. Feel the potential achievement that awaits and let yourself be drawn in its direction.

There’s fresh new opportunity in each day that dawns. Wake up with that opportunity at the center of your awareness and transform it into real value.

— Ralph Marston

July 25

You are the magic

Thoughts do not magically become reality. Or do they?

Your thoughts have great influence on you, on the actions you take. And those actions result in changes to the objective world of material reality.

So in a very real sense, your thoughts do indeed become reality through a magical process. And you are the magic.

You are the connection that transforms vague ideas and feelings into specific situations and experiences. You are the vehicle through which thoughts become expressed in reality.

Because of what they lead you to do, and because of what you’re indeed able to do, your thoughts have power. And you are constantly giving that power to whatever you focus your thoughts upon.

Make good use of the influential position you’re in. Choose your thoughts with care, with love, with purpose, ever mindful of where they will lead.

— Ralph Marston

July 26

The obstacle

Within the obstacle is opportunity. Can you see it and act on it?

Are you fearful of what the problem will do to you? Or can you bring forth the courage to understand what you can do with the problem?

You can complain about the unfairness of it all and wish for a more favorable situation. Or you can go to work with exactly what life has handed you.

Don’t stick yourself with the assumption that the obstacle you face will lead to something worse. Decide that it will lead to something better, and then figure out how to make that happen.

The obstacle exists whether you want it to or not. You don’t have the ability to wish it away, but you do have the ability to transform it into a net positive.

Accept that challenge and put the best of yourself into it. See the opportunity and make it into real, lasting value.

— Ralph Marston

July 27

Action is what counts

You’ve spent enough time getting ready. Now is the time to get to work.

Are you unsure of what to do, of how to do it? Start where you are, with what you have, with what you know.

You can’t figure everything out by merely thinking about it. Jump into action and you’ll quickly begin to understand what works and what doesn’t.

Yes, you’re going to make mistakes. And they’ll teach you more than you can possibly imagine.

So move ahead, get the process going. Take the most effective step that comes to mind, learn from it, and keep going.

Action is what counts. Now is the time for it.

— Ralph Marston

July 28

What you find

How do you find the best job, the best partner, a good home, a good community? How do you find good customers, clients, employees, suppliers?

How do you find people who are honest, competent, and intelligent? How do you find friends who are truthful, loyal, and sincere?

How do you find all the many people, places, and things in life that enable you to make a good life? You find them by virtue of the way you live.

What you find is what you are. Live each day with honesty, conduct every interaction with honesty, and you find honesty.

Invest time and effort to build your competence, and others with competence are attracted to you. Place great value on respect, integrity, and peacefulness, and you’ll be surrounded by those qualities in abundance.

What you find is driven by the way you are, most genuinely, most consistently. Take good care of your innermost truth, because it is faithfully echoed throughout your world.

— Ralph Marston

July 29

You can do better

Be honest with yourself, and you’ll realize something powerful. You can do better.

That isn’t a criticism. Indeed, it’s a compliment, an acknowledgment of your highest possibilities.

As much as you’ve succeeded, as much as you’ve failed, now you can do better. You can make full use of all the success, of all the failure, of all the priceless experience.

You can let life challenge you to a new adventure. You can embrace a bigger and more meaningful chunk of your potential.

Show your critics just how right they were, in a good way. Show how much more value, achievement, kindness, and patience you’re capable of bringing into the world.

You can. Do better.

— Ralph Marston