Weekly Photo Challenge: Happy

The folks at WordPress.com issued a multi-photo challenge on the theme of "Happy." I hope that these "left seat photos" (taken from my airplane) of nature's constantly changing display make you as happy to be alive as they did me!

Consent to Concede

Consent to Concede by Gregg Hake We are too much of this world, then and now, Trading birthrights for a mess of pottage; Forsaking true intercourse for frottage, Dominion lost in domination's dow! The sea of glass churned by earth-tiller's plough, Crystal no more but occluded by flotage; Vision enclosed by walls of man's plottage, …

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Managing Pressure

Peter Drucker once said that "The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager." While I am not totally in agreement with this statement as I feel that everyone in an organization can be held responsible for productivity, I do see it as a valuable concept in the process …

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Unmitigated Adoration

Song at Sunset by Walt Whitman Splendor of ended day, floating and filling me!  Hour prophetic—hour resuming the past!  Inflating my throat—you, divine average!  You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing.  Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness, Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection,  Natural life of me, faithfully praising things;  …

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How Much Is Enough?

The industrial age had a great many effects, but perhaps the most startling is the rise in the consumption of energy per capita it unleashed. Humanity up until then functioned much like the rest of the natural kingdoms, making judicious use of energy and demanding little more than what was required to satisfy basic needs. …

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The Marrow of the Matter

"A good many young men excuse themselves from ever becoming anything or doing anything by the fact that they always live where it is low tide. Perhaps that is because it is always low tide where they live. At any rate, the more I learn of the history of the men who have succeeded the …

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Your Magnificent Purpose

"To have a magnificent purpose, and to be thoroughly wedded to that purpose, is three quarters of salvation. It is sad to reflect how much motiveless insipidity there is among us that is steadily resolving itself into ethical rot, for no other reason than that it has never been awakened into vigor and electrified into effect by the touch of a supreme …

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Your True Purpose

"Still more apparent does the working of this principle become when for the word 'idea' I substitute the word 'purpose.' Purpose at once suggests the notion that the person whom it actuates is in motion toward an end; and a person moving toward an end, like a rifle-ball toward a target, is less easily managed and directed than when he is standing …

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Held by the Truth

"There are a great many meaningless men in the community, and what that means is that, while they have the intelligence to understand an idea and the heart to feel it, yet the idea never gets so close to them as to have its reality tremendously experienced by them. We do not win our strength …

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Truth Incarnate

"When calculating the prospects of a young man, and the likelihood of his being able to go through life without being taken off his feet, I always want to know whether he stands for anything in particular. A written sentence may be mere words or it may mean something. So a young man may be only …

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