SOAPBOX of the week: expiration celebration

Posted on December 20, 2010 by admin

“Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” ~ The Bible, Isaiah 22:13

Check the bottom of your foot. Go ahead, I’ll wait. See anything? A phrase in permanent ink? Something like, “Born on…” or “Good until…” or “Best when used by…” No? No tattooed set of numbers. Nothing, huh? Gee, big surprise there, folks. I think it’s safe to assume that none of us were born with an expiration date, boldly declaring our earthly duration. And even safer to say that all of us know that our tools, toys, and trash (that stuff that really doesn’t matter!) have longer shelf lives than us. And even if you play your proverbial cards right, boldly stated, you never know when you’re gonna go! So, how come you carry on like Father Time is your BFF, and your Bucket List is a hodgepodge of pipedreams you’ll pursue someday just to placate your inner child?

People, read the title: it’s a damn Bucket List! And if I were you, I’d grab a big red marker and add the following: STOP sweating the small stuff, LAUNCH that business idea, VISIT distant friends and family, CASH IN those vacation days, USE the good China, LOVE that person with ALL of your heart, OPEN that bottle of wine, FORGIVE everyone, STAND UP for yourself! The future isn’t going to fire a warning shot when “things” are getting close, so get tangled up in TODAY, forego the judicious forecasts, and reel in real joy, peace, freedom and love. After all, your life is BEST WHEN USED…right now!

(FYI: This is the 2nd-to-last “SOAPBOX of the week” as you know it! The SOAPBOX® mini-motivations videos launch in 2011!)

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SOAPBOX of the week: worldly wavelengths

Posted on December 13, 2010 by admin

“Life is a state of constant radiation and absorption; to exist is to radiate; to exist is to be the recipient of radiations.” ~ William George Jordan, American editor and essayist

Think of some special one who illuminates your world with wisdom, joy, inspiration, beauty, compassion and peace. Who do you envision? Dear old Dad? Grandma Evelyn? How about that favorite fifth grade teacher, hilarious next door neighbor, or person with whom you shared suffering and strife? Distinct from you in myriad ways and yet faced with countless circumstances and crucial choices each day –just like you. The shadows of these exceptional people have been stitched into your virtual cape, perhaps because they exemplify just how to welcome the opacity of opportunity or step into the unknown of change with admirable measures of courage, enthusiasm, and faith. Regardless, you chose to absorb their energy and the fragrance from those metaphorical embraces still lingers in your persona. What a gift to receive! Moreso, what a gift to give. Needless to say, you cannot pretend to be like these people…but you can choose to emulate them. So, how can you mix with the other silent, unconscious, unseen influences of life for the benefit of others? Choose wisdom, joy, inspiration, beauty, compassion and peace as a unified needle in your own moral compass and witness how your “good emissions” indeed make the world a better place to live.

SOAPBOX of the week: fire it up!

Posted on December 6, 2010 by admin

“Education is not filling a bucket but lighting a fire.” – William Butler Yeats, poet & Nobel Prize Winner

As little kids, that wobbly bowling ball atop our growing bodies encased a veritable sponge. Seemingly never saturated, it sought to absorb all the info it could…so sneakers could be tied, sentences could be formed, and its “host” could participate in the game of life. As authority figures of all types and titles traipsed into our paths, learning became a mandatory, monitored (and perhaps once-perceived endless) assignment. Our noggins burgeoned into buckets and our teen-sized personalities flip-flopped from over-filling to rebellious dumping, well into our twenties. And now adulthood has empowered us to choose what happens inside the real estate between our ears. Decades of data and discipline have not only hard-wired us to handle future tides of translating, but teaching, too. Educating yourself is an experience as magnificent and multidimensional as you want to make it. And when the mind, body and spirit are engaged and enlightened in concert, an ignition sequence sparks a fire that has the potential to light a population’s imagination. Trust that you are both the kindling and the bonfire and seek to strike a match for lifetimes of learning.

SOAPBOX of the week: Hang on… I’ll be right back

Posted on December 6, 2010 by admin

…busy on holiday with my pop and Gram. Stay tuned for a ditty later! KD

SOAPBOX of the week: the defiance of imagination

Posted on November 28, 2010 by admin

“Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress.” ~ Thomas Edison, inventor, scientist & businessman

Remember when you were a kiddo and nothing could limit your imagination or abilities? Even when the omnipotent ogres (named Mom and Dad) interrupted your schemes with a booming NO and a list of chores, you’d soon return to your secret homebase and set to saving the world from evil or concocting a magical potion to fly. And even though you never reeaally beat out all the bad guys, touched the clouds, nor became the first fifth grade President of the United States… day after day, with invisible cape in tow, you’d drink a glass of milk, punch your fist to the sky and jump off the front porch to have another go at it! Dreaming and trying went hand-in-hand because you just couldn’t sit still with not knowing “what if…?”

So, what about now? When people, politics and predicaments halt your high-reaching, how do you redeem the cape, deactivate the doubting voice, and once again take to leaping tall buildings? Perhaps an ounce of reverse-psychology might do the trick. Imagine where you might be if you had purposefully lowered your expectations of yourself throughout life. Dropped them right to the bottom rung. Listened to naysayers. Tabled your dreams. Never asked the tough-as-nails questions. Never investigated the what-if’s in life. The results would have been completely unacceptable, if even imaginable in the first place. Right? Well, then trust that this magically unyielding childhood curiosity, which steered you clear of a stalled, unexplored life, is still within you, folks! So, go on! and dig it up, fire it up, and wrap yourself in its power to again move you forward, onward and up, up, and away.

SOAPBOX of the week: thankful for Peanuts

Posted on November 22, 2010 by admin

Peppermint Patty: “What kind of Thanksgiving dinner is this? Where’s the turkey, Chuck? Don’t you know anything about Thanksgiving dinners? Where’s the mashed potatoes? Where’s the cranberry sauce? Where’s the pumpkin pie?”

Marcie: “Don’t feel bad, Chuck. Peppermint Patty didn’t mean all those things she said. “

Charlie Brown: “I don’t feel bad for myself, I just feel bad because I’ve ruined everyone’s Thanksgiving.”

Marcie: “But Thanksgiving is more than eating, Chuck. You heard what Linus was saying out there. Those early Pilgrims were thankful for what had happened to them, and we should be thankful, too. We should just be thankful for being together. I think that’s what they mean by ‘Thanksgiving,’ Charlie Brown.”

As always, we can learn a lot from kids…if we’d only listen.

…

An excerpt from “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” (TV show, 1973) Created and written by Charles M. Schulz. Copyright 2000-2010 by Kimberlie Dykeman. SUBSCRIBE to FREE feed/email HERE! “Pure Soapbox” available nationwide. A portion of the proceeds of all book sales is donated to LIVESTRONG. BOOK KIMBERLIE TO MOTIVATE your peeps! info@puresoapbox.com

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