Thought for today:
"Never give up if you want to get ahead. Never give in if what you want out of your life is important to you, however great or small. Before I was five-years-old, my mother would tell me to never give up on things that mattered and to always believe in my dreams; and follow them! She taught me that people with dreams were more powerful than the ones without because a dream can take you to the end of the earth and back.
I learned early on in life that it lessened expectation if one believed that the sky was the limit when we know there are footprints on the moon. My mother told me never to let the opportunity slip from my hands for the lack of grit and determination. One of her pieces of Irish spun wisdom was, 'When you get to the end of the rope, Billy, just tie a knot in it and hang on. Wait long enough and another life-line will be thrown to you!'
Growing up in a family where love was ample but the food was often scarce, provided one with sufficient incentive to get ahead. When you are one of seven hungry children coming downstairs for breakfast on a morning and there is only food enough on the table for three or four, one soon learns to push ahead, share or go without.
In our household growing up, both Mum and Dad provided their seven children with their most loving examples. I cannot count the number of times in my growing up years when the family might be short of food to go around and my mother chose to do without so that there would be more to share out between her children and husband. My dad made sacrifices also, as did all working-class men and women of the times. He never caught a bus to work in his entire life and would walk the two or three miles there and back daily to save the bus fare for more important family things, and that was after working overtime and Saturday mornings when he could persuade the foreman to give him it. As for holidays, I can count on the fingers of one hand how many holidays he had in his whole life, as he would work through them so that Mum could take the children camping for a week in the summer months. If ever Dad could not get overtime or Saturday mornings extra work, he would consider that his holiday! And just in case you think that my Mum and Dad were any different to the vast majority of mums and dads during the 1950s, they weren't!
Getting by and surviving in life involves making the right choices for your situation; knowing when to push ahead and when to hang back, when to resist and when to surrender to forces greater than oneself. There is no right way for all occasions, and often the best we can achieve is to rely on the way that we know best suits us and were brought up with.
I'm not the most cutting knife in the cutlery drawer; there are many far sharper than me. I am fortunate to have had a mother who taught me the importance of dreams and a father who would rather go to prison than not keep his word after giving it! My father was the most stubborn/independent/pig-headed man I ever knew. He just didn't know when to give up and take a beating. The one lesson he impressed upon all his children was never to consider any type of work beneath you and whatever job you have or task you do, even if is sweeping the floor of a factory, always do it to the best of your ability!
As I said earlier, I'm not the sharpest knife in the cutlery drawer, I just don't get discouraged or downhearted easily. I learned to stay with my problems a bit longer than most and found that a positive disposition and patient application helps me solve them easier.
So do not to be easily discouraged because you find yourself one of many wanting the same thing out of life. The longer you stand in the queue, the closer you will get to your goal. The wise among us will pray for the patience to succeed and the grace to accept second best when second best is the best on offer. Never forget that it is often the last key on the bunch that is found to open the lock.
So never give up in life and life will never give up on you; for the day you give up on your dreams is the day you give up on yourself. If you find yourself stuck in a hole that you cannot get out of, don't let pride keep you trapped; ask others for a little help. Nothing was ever achieved without earnest effort, and though difficult things often take a long time to accomplish; impossible things can take a bit longer." William Forde: February 8th, 2018.
"Never give up if you want to get ahead. Never give in if what you want out of your life is important to you, however great or small. Before I was five-years-old, my mother would tell me to never give up on things that mattered and to always believe in my dreams; and follow them! She taught me that people with dreams were more powerful than the ones without because a dream can take you to the end of the earth and back.
I learned early on in life that it lessened expectation if one believed that the sky was the limit when we know there are footprints on the moon. My mother told me never to let the opportunity slip from my hands for the lack of grit and determination. One of her pieces of Irish spun wisdom was, 'When you get to the end of the rope, Billy, just tie a knot in it and hang on. Wait long enough and another life-line will be thrown to you!'
Growing up in a family where love was ample but the food was often scarce, provided one with sufficient incentive to get ahead. When you are one of seven hungry children coming downstairs for breakfast on a morning and there is only food enough on the table for three or four, one soon learns to push ahead, share or go without.
In our household growing up, both Mum and Dad provided their seven children with their most loving examples. I cannot count the number of times in my growing up years when the family might be short of food to go around and my mother chose to do without so that there would be more to share out between her children and husband. My dad made sacrifices also, as did all working-class men and women of the times. He never caught a bus to work in his entire life and would walk the two or three miles there and back daily to save the bus fare for more important family things, and that was after working overtime and Saturday mornings when he could persuade the foreman to give him it. As for holidays, I can count on the fingers of one hand how many holidays he had in his whole life, as he would work through them so that Mum could take the children camping for a week in the summer months. If ever Dad could not get overtime or Saturday mornings extra work, he would consider that his holiday! And just in case you think that my Mum and Dad were any different to the vast majority of mums and dads during the 1950s, they weren't!
Getting by and surviving in life involves making the right choices for your situation; knowing when to push ahead and when to hang back, when to resist and when to surrender to forces greater than oneself. There is no right way for all occasions, and often the best we can achieve is to rely on the way that we know best suits us and were brought up with.
I'm not the most cutting knife in the cutlery drawer; there are many far sharper than me. I am fortunate to have had a mother who taught me the importance of dreams and a father who would rather go to prison than not keep his word after giving it! My father was the most stubborn/independent/pig-headed man I ever knew. He just didn't know when to give up and take a beating. The one lesson he impressed upon all his children was never to consider any type of work beneath you and whatever job you have or task you do, even if is sweeping the floor of a factory, always do it to the best of your ability!
As I said earlier, I'm not the sharpest knife in the cutlery drawer, I just don't get discouraged or downhearted easily. I learned to stay with my problems a bit longer than most and found that a positive disposition and patient application helps me solve them easier.
So do not to be easily discouraged because you find yourself one of many wanting the same thing out of life. The longer you stand in the queue, the closer you will get to your goal. The wise among us will pray for the patience to succeed and the grace to accept second best when second best is the best on offer. Never forget that it is often the last key on the bunch that is found to open the lock.
So never give up in life and life will never give up on you; for the day you give up on your dreams is the day you give up on yourself. If you find yourself stuck in a hole that you cannot get out of, don't let pride keep you trapped; ask others for a little help. Nothing was ever achieved without earnest effort, and though difficult things often take a long time to accomplish; impossible things can take a bit longer." William Forde: February 8th, 2018.
