MIND

"Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch – or build a cyclotron – without a knowledge of his aim and of the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think. But to think is an act of choice."  ~ From John Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

The Brevity Of Life

"It's not at all that we have too short a time to live, but that we squander a great deal of it. Life is long enough, and it's given in sufficient measure to do many great things if we spend it well. But when it's poured down the drain of luxury and neglect, when it's employed to no good end, we're finally driven to see that it has passed by before we even recognised it passing. And so it is - we don't receive a short life, we make it so."
~ Seneca the Younger, a Roman Stoic philosopher, Statesman and dramatist.

  

Happy Labour Day

An industrialist whose production line inexplicably broke down, costing him millions per day finally tracked down an expert. The expert arrived, pulled off his coat, brought out a screwdriver and turned one screw. The factory came back to life. Then, he presented a bill for £10,000. Outraged, the factory owner demanded an itemised version. The expert was happy to oblige. He wrote: "For turning a screw: £1. For knowing which screw to turn: £9,999." 

Adapted from an article titled, "Knowing which screw to turn" dated May 27, 2007 by Calvin Conaway

SUCCESS THROUGH DIFFICULTIES

If you can travel through life without difficulty, the journey would be meaningless, uninteresting and uninspiring. Out of difficulty, men have built the greatest strength of characters. We only see their successes but not what they went through. Otherwise, how did Bill Gates survive after his first business failure? What did Albert Einstein do to overcome his childhood emotional pain of not being able to speak until he was four years old? How did Jim Carrey cope with the effect of homelessness? What can Bethany Hamilton's experience, of having her arm bitten off by a shark, teach us about setbacks? Who would have thought Benjamin Franklin could amount to anything in life when he dropped out of school at age ten? Richard Branson has dyslexia, and so what? Having Stephen King's first novel rejected 30 times only added more value to his chance of success in life. The list is endless. The reality is that not everyone of us will ever become a 'Bill Gates' or an 'Albert Einstein' or 'Jim Carrey' or 'Bethany Hamilton' or 'Benjamin Franklin' or 'Richard Branson.' But everyone of us can achieve our full potential if we have the will. No one can stop you without your cooperation. The requirement is....never giving up. Some people achieve their greatest breakthrough the moment they hit the hardest rock in their lives. Unfortunately, this is when some people give up. A man or a woman with a purpose and determination, no matter how poor his or her chance in life, you will hear from them. A purpose-driven life is unstoppable, no matter the obstacles or difficulties.

CHANGE

You can perceive change either as a threat that sets you backward or as an opportunity that propels you forward. It's all about attitude. The very nature of life is change. As succinctly put by Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, "To resist change is to resist the essence of our existence." When you embrace change, you can survive any circumstance life throws at you.

Epictetus quote

You are only as strong as the people around you.        "The key is to keep company only with people who
 uplift you, whose presence calls forth your   
 best."   - Epictetus

Social Distancing

RANDOM MUSINGS
I am envisioning that "Social Distancing" will succeed in adding a new right to the existing body of human rights as defined by the United Nations Human Rights. The new right I have in mind is the right to "Personal Space and Boundaries."
Wikipedia has described "Personal Space" as the, "Physical space immediately surrounding someone, into which encroachment can feel threatening or uncomfortable." The online encyclopedia has also defined "Personal Boundaries"  as the "guidelines, rules or limits that a person creates to identify reasonable, safe and permissible ways for other people to behave towards them and how they will respond when someone passes those limits." I can also envision how the new right could impact on the way we live and relate with one another in the workplace, at home and in social environments.
What would such right mean to our relationships with one another?