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“Tell them about the Dream, Martin!” #MahaliaJackson …28all. Eya. *AJ, JV* The Warm-Up: “The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals… …We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character–that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.” ~Dr. Martin Luther King, January-February 1947. The Purpose of Education ~Atlanta, Ga. The Core: “When the tree falls, the monkeys scatter.” ~Chinese saying “All men are created equal…some work harder in preseason.” ~Emmitt Smith “What you fear you lack…is actually what you come equipped with.” ~Matt Gottesman “The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.” ~Emile Zola “Surround yourself with people strong enough to change your mind.” ~John Wooden “Sometimes God would rather teach you through your smiles than to always have to heal you after your tears.” ~Rob Hill Sr. “Just because I invited you in, don’t think we’re eating the lies you’re trying to spoon. Here’s the thing about the truth: it’s always served hot at my house and no one gets up from my table until our bellies are full.” ~Nicole Lyons “It’s not about living a life free of pain, heartache, or struggle. It’s about cultivating a deep-rooted sense of peace that extends beyond what happens from day to day. It’s about remembering that no storm lasts forever.” ~Michell C Clark “ ‘If you don’t ask, you don’t get.’ That’s problematic advice. Taken to an extreme, it turns us into hustlers. The alternative is to realize that the best asks are actually offers. When we offer to help someone get to where they were going, we’re approaching the relationship with generosity, not selfishness. What work would we need to do to have sufficient skill, insight and reputation to be able to offer someone else a chance to reach their goals? That’s how we get. Not by asking, but by offering.” ~Seth Godin, The generous ask “Even on the bad days, in the hard moments, in the pain, the crisis, or disappointment, the diagnosis, the grief over all the ways life is less than what it could or should be, even then, I think of AA’s wonderful line: ‘Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace; taking, as [Jesus] did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it. Our days of pain are the building blocks of our character. Our crucible of Christlikeness. I rarely welcome them—I’m not that far down from the path, not yet—but I accept them. Because my Rabbi teaches that happiness isn’t the result of circumstances but of character and communion.” ~John Mark Comer, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry Last Set: “The best kind of people: they don’t take themselves too seriously, they smile often, they don’t get offended for no reason, they are confident about who they are, they say what they think, they mean what they say, they mind their own business, they are a blessing to be around.” ~Orange Book Food For Thought: “We live in an incredibly isolated and rigid time. People are deracinated from any sense of history, they lack true coming of age challenges, and are allowed to choose from only a handful of insipid predetermined identities in life…A few of the blessings of being raised in a hot house include you constantly self-examining your actions and motives (am I just damaged goods?, what is causing me to act/say/do this?), you seeking out challenges and frontiers to prove you have inherent worthiness, and you juxtaposing yourself against the great chain of being of humanity - attempting to decipher if your shortcomings are truly just an accident of your own existence, or something innate to man’s fallenness…If you’re fortunate enough to come out of all of that and manage to be halfway well-adjusted, you experience a bit of the world and those could-have-beens of your life, turn into definite should-have-beens. And then you meet someone you love, begin to dream of a family, and they cement into will-be’s.” ~Zay_Ugh, On Raising a Child/Raising Yourself
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