"It is required of every man," the ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death." ~ Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol" How abundantly has your spirit within you …
Category: Ideas Worth Spreading
Ernest the Earnest
"Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do it well; whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself completely; in great aims and in small I have always thoroughly been in earnest." ~ Charles Dickens We recently celebrated my father-in-law's 70th birthday. His middle …
Divergent Thinking and Holistic Perspective
"Collaboration is the stuff of growth." ~ Sir Ken Robinson Anyone concerned about the future of the world should spend time considering how we educate our children. I have friends who have children in different educational programs - public schools, private schools, Montessori programs, home schools, international schools. religious schools and so on and I …
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Worry and Choice
"Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight." ~Benjamin Franklin Talking somebody down from the wall of worry is not an easy task. To do so you must deftly skirt accusations like "you just don't understand" and "you're not hearing me" while reassuring, distracting and refocusing attention on …
Truth and Goodness
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." ~ Albert Einstein I've often marveled at the ingenuity of those standouts in history who dedicated their lives to the restoration of goodness and truth to their rightful place at the apex human understanding and function. It hasn't been easy. Human beings …
In Retrospect
"Righteousness is easy in retrospect." ~Arthur Schlesinger Jr. How true is that?!? More often than not the right thing to do is the least popular thing to do. Politicians find themselves between a rock and a hard place on this point as reelection concerns are often pitted against the need to support unpopular but clearly …
The Fountain of Life
"A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up." ~ Albert Schweitzer Man's obsession with the discovery of the fountain of youth reaches deep into early history. Whether driven by the desire to overcome his mortality or by the quest to rediscover the key to …
The Spirit of the Age
"The spirit of the age is filled with the disdain for thinking." ~ Albert Schweitzer Learning to think is one of the most underrated and overlooked of the steps that lead to living a purposeful, meaningful and fulfilling life. Far more than developing the ability to ingest, digest and retain information, learning to think involves …
Reverence for Life
The holidays are fast upon us and I had the good pleasure of watching A Charlie Brown Christmas with my sons after dinner last evening. At one point in the show, Linus mentioned that Albert Schweitzer's dislike of Christmas stemmed from the fact that he did not take kindly to writing thank you notes. I …
A Converging World
The last two hundred years were particularly transformative for humanity. Dramatic increases in both longevity and wealth swept across the globe, affecting the industrialized nations first and the developing nations second. While a wide gap remains between the richest and the poorest nations, just about every nation is better off no than they were two …
Gregory Hake 