Tolerant of others, strict on yourself.

“In others, look for virtue.  In yourself, look for vice” – Ben Franklin

Look for the good in others, and look for areas you can get better in your own life.

If you do this, you will have many friends who are happy to see you, and you will be humble.  And after years of trying to fix or neutralize your flaws and improve your strengths, you’ll be pretty damn good.

It’s easy to see how living this the other way around can get you in trouble. 

If you “Looked for the flaws in others and the virtue in yourself”.  That’s not going to work out too well.  People will hate you as you think you are better than them (you aren’t) and you won’t be trying to get better.

In looking for virtue in others and vice in yourself, what you are doing is holding yourself to a higher standard than everybody else.

Meeting a higher standard than others is a good way to become better than average.

Don’t you think?

To be a success, self-discipline is necessary

You know what the right thing to do is to move yourself toward your goals, to be a good citizen and neighbor, to be healthy, and to advance your career.  But who is making you do those things?

As a grown adult – nobody.  You want to drive your life/health/career/relationships into the ground? Go ahead.  Nobody is there to tell you to eat your vegetables and take the garbage out.  

Only you can do that.

Some of us do the right thing when we feel motivated.  But motivation comes and goes.  Most days we do NOT feel motivated.  We want to do things that are pleasurable and that take the least energy.  

This is where self-discipline comes in.  Self-discipline is doing the things you know you should do, even when you don’t want to.

It’s called SELF-Discipline because only you can do it.  From the inner…comes your outer results.

You can look at someone’s life and tell the amount of self-control and self-discipline they have in various areas of their life.  You can tell what they value and a lot about their character.

“If you do not have the ability to discipline yourself, the seeds of greatness are not within you.”  W. Clement Stone 

Can you do the right thing day after day even when you don’t feel like it?

What are you good at?

When people are not good at anything, they do not feel good about themselves.

For example, we can be average at work, and not great at some things, but when we step on the basketball court, we are good, and we know it.  Guess what we find ourselves doing a lot? Playing basketball.  And we get even better.

When we are good at things, we feel good about ourselves.

What are you good at?

That is probably the source of a good deal of our self-esteem.

We all have the talent and capacity to be good at something. 

Find it.

Heal ourselves, heal everything around us

This is something I found true.

If I am troubled, I live in a troubled world.

If I am unclear, the world is too.

If I am hurting, sick, heartbroken, angry, or bitter, the world will reflect my ailments and be ugly or cruel or cloudy.

When I get well, the world does too.

As we heal ourselves, we heal each other.

As we heal each other, we heal the world.

After all, nobody talks to me more than I do.

I am my world.  You are yours.

When you heal, your world does.

When you come together, your world does too.

You go first.

Fear and faith

Both fear and faith ask you to believe in something you can’t see. 

You choose.

This is an important choice.  It could mean everything, and probably will.

Fear or faith?