Making an issue of little things is one of the surest ways to spoil happiness. One’s personal pride is felt to be vitally injured by surrender, but there is no quality of human nature so nearly royal as the ability to yield gracefully. It shows small confidence in one’s own nature to fear that compromise lessens self-control. To consider constantly the comfort and happiness of another is not a sign of weakness but of strength. – Charles Conrad
If you’re anything like me, when the weather’s warm, you have a hard time staying inside. The past few days, I’ve felt kind of like a cat – I loved the return of sunshine so much, I just wanted to lie down in the yard and sun myself. Two of our outside cats are doing just that right now. One of the younger ones keeps wanting to play with one of the older ones, but she’s only interested in sunning. She just shot him a look that let him know that he wasn’t to disturb her sunny slumber ever again.
Since he just rolled over to face the other way, I’d say he got the message.
Since Old Man Winter has finally packed up his bags and seems to finally be leaving, I thought a sun safety article was in order to remind us all to b careful with something we’ll have for the rest of our lives – our skin. I love winter more than most people. While 9 out of 10 people are dreading a snow storm, I’m hoping for as many inches as possible. But even I was growing tired winter this year – he really overstayed his welcome this time. Now it’s time for glorious spring followed by glorious summer! All I can think about is baseball, bird watching, feeding squirrels, grilling out, planting flowers, homemade lemonade, ice cream, and more baseball.
Let the fun in the sun begin – AFTER we remind ourselves of the importance of our skin and how vital it is that we take care of it.
Realizing the Dangers of Skin Cancer
For some outrageous reason, I’ve noticed that the majority of people seem to think of skin cancer about the same way they think about psoriasis or exzema. “Eh, it’s just a skin condition that you put a little cream on… have it scraped off at the worst. I’ll take my chances for my golden tan.“ Dumb. Then you’ll get the crowd that tells you how addictive the feeling is from baking in the sun or under the heat lamps.
Is the feeling worth dying for? One person dies of melanoma almost every hour…
Skin cancer isn’t a rash, for crying out loud. It’s cancer. C-A-N-C-E-R. And it’s one of the cancers that we can do the most to avoid. I guess that’s the good news and the bad news, all rolled into one, because can is never spelled W.I.L.L.
To keep yourself and your family safe, make sure everyone understands that Skin Cancer is dangerous – even fatal. E-Mail them a link to this article – tell them you’ll buy them lunch if they’ll read it, word for word. Use my oldest cat’s name (Hannah) as a test question to make sure they did! I’m a mother, I know the secrets of staying on top of the game.
Of course, just because you know that you can help protect your skin with a healthy diet – that isn’t an invitation to be a sun goddess or god. Experts agree, we need between 10 and 20 minutes of sunshine each day. It helps our body make Vitamin D and it boost our mood. But between 10 and 20 minutes is all we actually need. An excess is just courting danger… the kind of danger that none of us need or want.
Have fun but be smart and be safe.
Somehow I can’t believe that there are any heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secret of making his dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four C’s. They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of these is confidence. When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way. – Walt Disney
“In these times of development, the whole world runs and is hurried. But there are some who fall down on the way and have no strength to go ahead. These are the ones we must care about.” – Mother Teresa
The powerfully beautiful and beautifully powerful quote above is just one of the gems from Mother Teresa found in In the Heart of the World: Thoughts, Stories and Prayers.
Mother Teresa’s name and image will forever be associated with her kindness, gentleness, and compassion. Her selfless work with the “poorest of the poor” should be an inspiration to all of us. In the Heart of the World, written by Mother Teresa, is filled with her eloquent wisdom, motivation, and inspirational teachings. Below are a few more examples.
Be kind in your actions. Do not think that you are the only one who can do efficient work, work worth showing. This makes you harsh in your judgment of others who may not have the same talents. Do your best and trust that others do their best. And be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength shines.
We too are called to withdraw at certain intervals into deeper silence and aloneness with God, together as a community as well as personally. To be alone with him – not with our books, thoughts, and memories but completely stripped of everything – to dwell lovingly in his presence, silent, empty, expectant, and motionless. We cannot find agitation.
If we were more willing to see the good and beautiful things that surround us, we would be able to transform our families. From there, we would change our next-door neighbors and then others who live in our neighborhood or city. We would be able to bring peace and love to our world, which hungers so much for these things.
As I read this book, I lost myself in the beauty that was and is Mother Teresa. Reading her words was so incredibly peaceful and relaxing – yet, at the same time, an unrest crept up inside of me and stirred around. I realized that there is far more that I can and should do to help others in the world who are far less fortunate. While on the early pages, I kept thinking, “What the world needs right now is another Mother Teresa.” But, as I approached the final pages, I thought, “What the world needs right now if for more men and women to start caring more about people and less about possessions. It needs more hearts that are broken for the suffering of others. And more people refusing to look the other way.”
We don’t need another Mother Teresa as much as we need to learn from the one we were blessed with.
“I must be willing to give whatever it takes to do good to others. This requires that I be willing to give until it hurts. Otherwise, there is no true love in me and I bring injustice, not peace, to those around me.” – Mother Teresa
The Mother Teresa quotes are from In the Heart of the World: Thoughts, Stories and Prayers
I recently read an article in Guideposts written by the beautiful Today Show Anchor Ann Curry. I’ve always been a huge fan of this particular journalist – her grace, compassion, integrity, and intelligence set her apart.
In the article, Ann Curry talks about her parents and her career among other things. There were quite a few things about the article that stood out in my mind – I even wrote a few of them down. Suffice to say, I came away an even bigger fan than I was before. I’ll link to the article below, because I really hope you’ll read it – it’s absolutely beautiful. But I wanted to share one part of Ann Curry’s story with you here on Self Help Daily. I’ve thought about her mother several times since reading her story and I’ve written a new favorite word, colorfully, on a piece of paper that now hangs near my computer desk: Gambaru.
Unless you’re Japanese or fluent in the language, you’re probably not familiar with this word. I’ll tell you in a moment what it means.
Ann Curry’s mother, Hiroe, was the daughter of a Japanese rice farmer. Bob Curry, Ann’s father, was a career Navy man who enlisted in the Navy right out of high school. After World War II, as part of the Allied occupation forces, Bob Curry was stationed in Japan.
The war left Hiroe’s family without seed to grow their crop, which obviously put them in a terrible predicament. At the age of 18 Hiroe had to take a job as a streetcar conductor. Guess who happened to be on her streetcar one day? You got it, the hero of our story, Bob Curry. According to Ann, her dad took that very streetcar every day until he worked up the nerve to ask Hiroe on a date.
His efforts paid off and they went out for noodles. They fell deeply and completely in love, but their road wasn’t paved with rose petals.
During this time, the Navy disapproved of marriages between American servicemen and Japanese women. Sadly, Bob Curry was shipped out of Japan. It took two years, but he managed to get sent back to Japan. You knew he wasn’t going to give up that easily, right?!
He later told his daughter that when he took Hiroe into his arms, he realized how painfully thin she had gotten. As it turned out she had tuberculosis and wasn’t even expected to live.
Bob Curry ingeniously used her healthy sister’s lung X rays to get clearance from Navy doctors, and married her anyway! Now that she was a U.S. military wife, she was able to get the medical care she needed. Hiroe went on to have 5 healthy children, including the oldest, Ann Curry.
Hiroe endured bombing raids and starvation during World War II. With the love of Bob Curry, she survived TB and lived to tell about it. She also had to overcome language barriers and even racism when she came to the United States. All of that is what makes the following (as well as the colorful word on my cork board) so special.
Ann Curry, thanks to financial struggles (five children on a serviceman’s income had to have been a challenge) and coming from a mixed heritage (during a time when that wasn’t very common or smiled upon), knew a few things about adversity. Whenever she felt the sting of the challenges, Ann says that her mom always told her,“Gambaru.”
Gambaru is Japanese for “Never ever give up, even and especially when there’s no chance of winning.”
This story is more than just a love story, it’s a story of perseverance and it’s most definitely a story of Gambaru.
Credit: An Act of Faith by Ann Curry
Silence is a source of great strength. – Lao Tzu
True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment. – William Penn
I have often lamented that we cannot close our ears with as much ease as we can our eyes. – Richard Steele
Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation… tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. – Jean Arp
Silence is the true friend that never betrays. – Confucius
Silence is a fence around wisdom. – German Proverb
To silence another, first be silent yourself. – Latin Proverb
You can hear the footsteps of God when silence reigns in the mind. – Sri Sathya Sai Baba
Yankee legend Mickey Mantle worded it this way: “It’s unbelievable how much you don’t know about the game you’ve been playing all your life.” - Mickey Mantle
Starbucks legend Joi words it this way: “Holy cats. I didn’t know what I thought I knew.“
Funny, isn’t it? You can do something for what seems like your whole life and then suddenly realize that you didn’t know quite as much as you thought you did. It happened to me recently and I’m still reeling. You might think this would be a distressing, sickening feeling but, truth be told, I’m completely invigorated and excited.
Knowledge does that to me. Especially when it comes bearing fruit such as new horizons, fresh opportunities, and unlimited possibilities.
As you know, I’ve been working online for well over 12 years. Currently, I have 14 blogs and websites. When it comes to traffic, generating income, and so on – the majority of them do quite well. They’re like kids. Some are over-achievers, some are under achievers, and some are so quiet, I forget they’re even in the room.
Since I work from home, I”m allowed the luxury of researching seo (search engine optimization), themes, plugins, and so forth. I know (and use) the best themes online and work hard to stay on top of the best plugins, optimization practices, and so on. Quite honestly, I thought I was sitting on a seriously impressive amount of information and skill. Then…..
“Holy cats! I didn’t know what I thought I knew.“
I recently installed the Scribe SEO Copywriting Made Simple plugin on a few of my blogs and have been overjoyed with what I’ve seen so far. I want, not only to make my future posts and articles as SEO-friendly as possible, but to go back to older posts and perk them up as well. You know, the early posts of a blog when you didn’t even know what SEO or Meta Descriptions were. These old posts can still get traffic and they still have a lot to offer – but they’ll never reach their potential if no one knows they’re there.
Originally, I was going to use Scribe SEO for a few weeks, or even a month, and see if the results were impressive enough to recommend to my readers. As you know if you read Self Help Daily regularly, I absolutely, positively am not in the hait of recommending very many products or services. One of the reasons for this is that when I do – I want you to know I flat out mean business. It’s also a personal thing, I hate, loathe, and despise any newsletter or blog that sees me as nothing but a dollar tree with nothing but bracelets and money on its branches. If a product, tool, theme, or service convinces me that it could help some of the people I value the most (my readers) – I’ll share it with them. But I hold these things under a magnifying glass for quite a while first.
The problem with this original “wait and see” plan was that I fell in love with Scribe on the first date. Indeed, it was love at first site.
In the old days, a scribe was a writer entrusted to record the most valuable and important information for kings, nobles, and cities.
These days, Scribe™ helps writers create content that gets found online, and that’s become as valued and important as any old scroll or parchment.
Scribe is an SEO software service for WordPress that analyzes the content of web pages, blog posts, online press releases, you name it… at the click of a button
One of the first blogs I installed Scribe on was my Kentucky blog, Genuine Kentucky. This site does pretty well in search engines and I normally rank pretty well for my keywords. But “pretty well” isn’t a goal I set for anything I do and I’m certain it isn’t one of your’s either.
Because I have a high number of niche sites combined with the fact that I love knowledge, I have been a huge fan of Google News Alerts since day one. I subscribe to a great number of news alerts covering different areas of interest. I use a lot of the different “keywords” and “subjects” that are relevant to my blogs. The Google news alerts come into my e-mail and serve as taps on the shoulder telling me, “You’ll find this interesting…”
After installing and using Scribe on just ONE post on Genuine Kentucky, something happened that had never happened before: My showed up in the Google News Alert for the main keyword. One post. That very day. I have never had this happen before. And I thought I knew so much. Hmph.
This post also showed up better in Google for its keywords than normal – and faster.
Scribe is as easy to use as pouring a cup of coffee. After installing and activating (easy, easy, easy), you simply write your post, article, or page as you normally would. The Scribe Content Optimizer shows up on the right with the other WP-Admin widgets (Post Tags, Categories…). When you think you’re finished, click the button that says Analyze. In a few seconds, Scribe lets you know what you’ve done well and what you could improve upon.
Scribe led me to make a few changes to this particular post and basically slapped it on the backside and sent it in Google’s direction. Something that I want to see happen again and again and again.
Before installing Scribe, I knew it was going to be fantastic. Brian Clark (Copyblogger) is behind it and he would never put his name on anything that wasn’t 100 percent golden. Because of this, he has a reputation online that few attain and all desire. However, over the years I’ve seen a lot of tools and services come around the bend. Most of the time, you get either what you expected or less than you expected. This is one of the few times when I got far more than I expected.
Okay, let’s get down to the heart of the matter. I know a lot of my readers are bloggers. I know a lot of you are very talented and successful authors with blogs and websites of your own. I also have quite a few publicist friends who follow Self Help Daily. While all of you are, no doubt, happy for me and my little Kentucky blog, you’re no doubt wondering, “What can Scribe do for me?”
I work online all day. Everyday. I also am an avid cook who isn’t quite happy if she can’t spend at least a couple of hours each day cooking. Add to this a house that refuses to clean itself, cats that think it’s always the right time to play, movies that must be watched, shopping that must be done, articles to write, daily exercise, and a host of other things that fall under the category LIFE. Because of the blissful business, I’ve often thought, “How cool would it be to have an assistant?!“ Because I’m not trained in the ways of search engine optimization, the assistant in my fantasies always was an SEO genius. And worked for free. Well, I’d give her all the coffee she could drink.
Now I have my assistant and I don’t have to share my coffee. The Scribe Content Optimizer is a virtual SEO assistant – sitting right beside you as you work, giving you advice and coaching you in the ways of SEO. What’s more, Scribe is very inexpensive. I know for a fact that it could be priced higher than it is. The opportunities that this service will open up are nothing short of outstanding.
When I first saw all that Scribe SEO entails and saw, firsthand, what it can do for my blogs/sites, I felt a little bit ill. I couldn’t help wondering where my sites would be right now if I’d been utilizing these simple techniques all along. I couldn’t help wondering how much more traffic my sites could have, how much better they’d rank in Google, how many more advertisers I could have generated, and so on.
Then it occurred to me, the game isn’t over. I can create search engine friendly posts forevermore AND go back and tweak all of my older posts. After all, it’s a never-ending game. The sweet thing is Scribe just put Albert Pujols in my starting line up.
Batter up!
I strongly urge you to go immediately to Scribe SEO Copywriting Made Simple and give yourself the edge you need – not just to compete in the competitive world of blogging – but to win.
We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Bonus: Change is often rejuvenating, invigorating, fun….and necessary. – Lynn Povich
After I hit a home run I had a habit of running the bases with my head down. I figured the pitcher already felt bad enough without me showing him up rounding the bases. – Mickey Mantle
If there’s a better illustration of character, than the quote above gives, I’d love to see it. In an era where most athletes love nothing more than gloating and showboating, Mickey Mantle could teach everyone a thing or two (or a gazillion) about what it really means to have character as well as talent. After all, the talent will fade eventually whereas character never has to go anywhere.
As we lead up to Baseball season (I’m as big a baseball fan as you’ll ever find – whether it’s my St. Louis Cardinals or any random team, if there’s a baseball game on tv or the radio, you’ll know where to find me), I thought it’d be fun to look at a different baseball player each week and learn a little more about them. I’ve pulled out some fantastic quotes and stories from some of these men and I know you’ll enjoy them, whether you’re a baseball fan or not. (If you aren’t a baseball fan, please don’t tell me. I… I… don’t want to see you like that.)
Mickey Mantle was born in 1931 in Spavinaw, Oklahoma – a small town put on the map by the baseball giant. Mickey’s parents were Elvin Charles Mantle and Lovell Mantle. Mickey’s dad, a huge baseball fan, named his son after Mickey Cochrane, a Hall of Fame catcher for the, then, Philadelphia Athletics.
Mickey Mantle always spoke very highly and lovingly of his father, calling him the bravest man he ever knew. “No boy ever loved his father more,” he said. Tragically, his father died of cancer in 1952 at the ridiculously young age of 39. To compound the tragedy, he died just as his son’s amazing career was just getting started.
“A team is where a boy can prove his courage on his own. A gang is where a coward goes to hide.” – Mickey Mantle
Mickey Mantle was called up to the majors on April 7, 1951. How’s this for high praise? – Joe DiMaggio, in his final season, called Mantle, “the greatest prospect I can remember.”
After a bit of a slump, Mantle was sent down to the Yankees’ top farm team, the Kansas City Blues. Possibly due to frustrations and putting too much pressure on himself, Mickey struggled and became so overwhelmed that he was ready to throw in the proverbial towel. He even called his father one day and told him, “I don’t think I can play baseball anymore.” Like any good father would, his dad drove up to Kansas City that very day. When he arrived, Mickey remembered that he said, “I thought I raised a man. I see I raised a coward instead. You can come back to Oklahoma and work the mines with me.”
The mines never saw the younger Mantle.
Mickey immediately broke out of his slump and after 40 games, he was called back to New York. For good.
The great number 7 was retired by the New York Yankees in Mickey Mantle’s honor and he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974, as soon as he was eligible.
“I hated to bat against (Don) Drysdale. After he hit you he’d come around, look at the bruise on your arm and say, ‘Do you want me to sign it?’” – Mickey Mantle
Unfortunately, even great baseball players have their demons and Mickey’s was alcoholism. He sought treatment and got the upper hand on the demon. Sportscaster Pat Summerall was one of the main people who urged him to go to The Betty Ford Clinic.
Mickey Mantle spoke with great, deep-seeded remorse and heartache about his alcoholism in a 1994 Sports Illustrated story. He said that he was telling the same old stories, and realizing how much of them involved himself and others being drunk, and he decided they weren’t funny anymore.
“It was all I lived for, to play baseball.” – Mickey Mantle
He acknowledged that alcohol had caused him to often be hurtful or neglectful to his family, friends, and fans, and that he wanted to make things right.
Mickey Mantle became a born-again Christian thanks, in part, to his former teammate Bobby Richardson, an ordained Baptist minister who shared his faith with him.
Mickey died in Dallas on August 13, 1995. During the first Yankee home game after his death, Eddie Layton played “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” on the organ because Mickey had once told him it was his favorite song.
In his eulogy, sportscaster Bob Costas described Mickey Mantle as “a fragile hero to whom we had an emotional attachment so strong and lasting that it defied logic.” He added: “In the last year of his life, Mickey Mantle, always so hard on himself, finally came to accept and appreciate the distinction between a role model and a hero. The first, he often was not. The second, he always will be. And, in the end, people got it.”
“Somebody once asked me if I ever went up to the plate trying to hit a home run. I said, ‘Sure, every time.’” – Mickey Mantle
See Also: Quotes by Mickey Mantle
The game of life is a game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds, and words return to us sooner or later with astounding accuracy. - Anonymous
Image Credit: Plus Magazine Living Mathematics (Bless them, they’re trying to make sense of math….)
