I encourage you to set aside the burgers and dogs and soda and beer for a moment this Fourth of July and contemplate something decidedly different, maybe even as you gaze upward at the flash of fireworks. Here it is: Confirm thy soul in self-control.
what do I mean by that? Let me explain.
Current mood: frustratedEntry tags:muse_playground, prompt response, versecollision
On Perseverance, Self-Doubt and Dutymuse_playground prompt: 1. The truth is that there is nothing noble in being superior to somebody else. The only real nobility is in being superior to your former self. – Whitney Youngversecollision prompt: 001. The biggest myth about me is…The biggest myth about me is that, while I may find fault with others, I find no faults in myself and that criticisms from others simply bounce off of me. that I’ve never had to struggle through anything, and that if I did, I wouldn’t be so pompous. My son seems to think so. I may be many things, but I am not a hypocrite. I have pushed my men and pushed my son; my superiors and my father and my brothers certainly pushed me when I was young, but never any harder than I have pushed myself. when my oldest brother Chris was 15, he decided to make it a habit to run a mile every day before school. I was 9 at the time; I went with him. By the time I was 15, I was running 5 miles every morning. that year, my doctor told me I’d better quit running or I’d ruin my knees. I cut back to 2 miles a day, but I didn’t quit, and I filled the extra time in the morning doing push ups and sit ups. I knew I was going to be a marine, like my father, and I wanted to be ready – more than ready. and I was. and guess what? My knees are fine. you push through that stuff.I played football starting when I was 6 years old. I started regularly being assigned to the position of quarterback when I was 9. when I made the high school varsity football team my freshman year, I was made third string quarterback. Third goddamn string. I wrote my father to tell him that, thinking he’d be disappointed, but he said he was just happy I’d made varsity. I didn’t share his enthusiasm. I spent most of the games warming a bench. But I went to every single one all the same, and I watched and I learned; and when I was home, I practiced like hell until I knew they’d have no choice but to put me on first string next year, after the current quarterback had graduated. I finally made first string, my junior year.I apply the same standards to my ethical responsibilities. I speak up where I think something needs to be said; I tell the truth, always. I take my commitments seriously. I go to church every Sunday with my wife like a Christian man should. I try to respect every person I meet, to be a good neighbor, to reign in my temper. I take care to be punctual, to put effort into my appearance, to uphold the standards of good, mannered society; all of these are signs of respect for the people around you.Academics came after all that, but that didn’t mean they went neglected. I was never a natural at math and reading, but I worked my butt off and I never got below a B- in school. I’m sorry I got below an a. My brother Ricky got all A’s his entire life. he was in the National Honors Society. Me, I made Honors plenty of years, but I didn’t get into NHS. I should have. I studied hard, but I could have studied harder. could have studied as hard as I practiced for football. Think of what I’d have done.Not that I regret my career path – never been a day in my life that I have. I always knew what I was going to be – not a pilot specifically, not until I was about 14, but a marine – I knew that. It’s in my blood. I wanted to be a general like my great Uncle Charles – he was a decorated general from World War I.I didn’t make it to General, but I did become a Colonel.I fought in the Korean War and in Vietnam. I took a piece of shrapnel to the shoulder. I jumped out of a crashing jet with a parachute. I lost men, lost friends… I also killed enemies. I shot down enemy planes, dropped bombs, won battles, won medals. But I could have done better, could have saved more lives, won more battles…I don’t like to voice these kinds of things. Self-doubt can make you stronger when you use it as fuel, when you mold it into a desire to become better – but when you let yourself turn to second-guessing, then it can only hold you back and keep your preoccupied with things that can’t be changed. and lack of confidence can make you hesitate, can open you up to attacks; it’s a weakness. As is self-indulgence. That’s why there’s the myth about me, I guess. Because I don’t let this show. I don’t let myself think on mistakes, only on opportunities. Men aren’t made to dwell upon emotion; they’re made to act. to succeed. to improve. and none of that is to be done for congratulation. On the contrary, you do it because it is your duty as a human being, your duty as a man.I recently made the acquaintance of this man, Command Master Chief John James Urgayle. On his journal, mc_urgayle, he’s got the following poem by D.H. Lawrence displayed. It’s called self Pity:I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. a bird will fall frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.I’m not generally much for poetry myself, but that there strikes a chord. that there is the truth.If I have high standards for people around me, it’s only because I have even higher standards for myself. everyone should have these same sorts of expectations for themselves; if they don’t, then they need someone to do the pushing for them. That’s the only way they’ll become all that they can and should be.Muse: John HouseFandom: House, M.D.Words: 976
The timing couldn’t be better for the publication this year ofU.S. Air Force Col. Walter J. Boyne’s new book, “How the HelicopterChanged Modern Warfare.”
If you look to the skies of Southern California, you might seethe Marine Corps’ new MV-22, tilt-rotor Osprey aircraft, which haverecently been introduced to operational Marine units here. And thedaring use of a helicopter-transported Special Forces unit to aremote walled compound in Pakistan dramatized the key role thehelicopter plays in military operations today, when the unit killedOsama Bin Laden.
It was just a few short years ago that people tuned in to the news and were shocked to hear reports of a murder. Nowadays, people tune in to the daily news and barely bat an eye at murder reports — even when the reality of the national murder count is already at 68 — seven months into the year. The nonchalant attitude towards the soaring murder count, which has the country on pace for another record-breaking year (94 murders took place in 2010) has many ministers of religion thinking that out of all 10 of the sacred commandments that God gave to mankind through Moses, it seems that the sixth commandment found in Exodus 20:13 which reads “Thou shalt not murder”, is one of the most forsaken.
Self-discipline is the chance to have yourself to do this regardless of your emotional state. Imagine what you might accomplish if you could simply get yourself to follow along with through on your best intentions regardless of what. Self-discipline can empower you to definitely overcome any addiction. It becomes an effective teammate when combined with other tools like passion, goal-setting, and planning. Self-discipline can be viewed as a type of selective training, creating new habits of thought, action, and speech toward improving yourself and reaching goals. Self-discipline can also be task oriented and selective. View self-discipline as positive effort, rather than one of denial. we should have self discipline for us to take advantage of getting what we want or if we want to achieve something.
Aboard a motorized wheelchair, Wayne Nickl tends to his garden outside of Fort Scott, Kan. he grows all manner of vegetables. through his determination to stay active, one of his daughters said she has taught her never to give up. FORT SCOTT, Kan. — Every year, Wayne Nickl can be counted on to plant a garden chock-full of seasonal vegetables. But the Fort Scott resident doesn’t do it the conventional way — he uses a power chair.
Nickl has had the Hoveround for almost 11 years, his daughter Deanna Olsen said. With it, he not only gardens — with a Rototiller, but mows his own yard. he has gardened “forever, I guess.”
“I’ve planted a garden every year for a long time,” Nickl said. His garden features potatoes, carrots, beets, squash, tomatoes, radishes and peas. “I don’t grow melons, but I grow everything else,” he said.
Olsen said her dad suffers from hereditary spastic paraplegia. the Spastic Paraplegia Foundation inc. website says hereditary spastic paraplegia is a group of rare, inherited neurological disorders. Primary symptoms are progressive spasticity and weakness of the leg and hip muscles, the site said. Researchers estimate that some 30 different types of HSP exist; the genetic causes are known for 11. the HSP incidence rate in the United States is 20,000 people, it said.
Nickl was on active duty in the National Guard and reserve for 12 years and served as a military policeman in Korea. “I tell everybody the highlight of my military career was getting to shake hands with Dwight Eisenhowever on the main street of Seoul, Korea,” he said.
For 41 years, he worked for Gas Service Company, now Kansas Gas Service as a welder and then got to be a “pressure man,” responsible for gas pressure in Wichita and surrounding towns.
The 84-year-old Canton native and his wife, Catherine, who have four children, seven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, have lived in Fort Scott for almost 21 years. the fresh air is what Nickl enjoys most about gardening. “I love the outdoors,” he said. “I grew up on a farm. I milked cows and fed cattle when it was 110 in the shade and when it was 40 below.”
He also enjoys the fruits of his labor. “I like them fried taters and eggs for breakfast. I grow a lot of green beans. I love them things,” he said.
Olsen said her dad has been an inspiration to her and her siblings. She also has multiple sclerosis. “He never gives up,” she said. “He’ll figure out a way. He’s been an amazing man all his life.”
She said she also has a grandfather afflicted with polio. Both men taught her a valuable lesson.
“They showed me no matter what, there’s a way to do it,” said Olsen, who lives in Bailey, Colo.
Olsen added that all three of her kids think Nickl “is just about it. he never knew a stranger and still doesn’t.”
After all the many releases within the past few weeks, it’s only a matter of time until the schedules slowed down, as that’s the case for the week of July 10. first out from the assembly line is the videogame adaptation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: part 2. Gamers will get to control Harry Potter and his wand-wielding friends to fight against the forces of Voldemort in the final part of the story in the Harry Potter Universe. the game will be out tomorrow to coincide with the movie’s theatrical release this Friday. for more on the series, check out GameSpot’s review of part 1.
It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. if there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.
Home-based businesses are quickly becoming the fastest growing form of business start-ups. Growing your company out of your home allows for flexibility that is difficult when renting or buying office and warehouse space. although working at home requires self-discipline, the benefits can be substantial - especially in the start-up years. (We provide six tips for creating a winning business in a losing economy. Check out Starting A Small Business In Tough Economic Times.)
TUTORIAL: Starting A Small Business
I remember once being told by a former boss that if you could speak Mandarin Chinese, Spanish and English then you could communicate with anyone on the planet. That didn’t seem right to me then and it seems even less correct now. English is definitely the world’s current Lingua Franca but will only get you so far; Mandarin Chinese and Spanish also have hundreds of millions of speakers but seem to be limited to only certain places and contexts. This got me thinking about what languages one would need to know in order to speak to just about anyone on the planet. I think a good place to start is finding out the world’s top 20 languages. I got my information from Ethnologue, Encarta and Nicholas Ostler’s Empires of the Word: a Language History of the World.