Thank Goodness It's Monday #443

HOW TO BREAK OUT OF THE BOX

 

I recently bought a major piece of equipment that came – disassembled – in a box that just barely squeezed into the vehicle I borrowed to transport it.

 

Although I’m tempted, I’m not going to recount the personal “lessons learned” from the purchase, loading, transportation, unloading, and assembly process. (It would be more like griping than finding some good universal TGIM Takeaways.) 

So let’s fast forward to the end of that part of the process and recognize –

The Great Big Empty Box

 

The 10-or-so pounds of recyclable industrial-strength cardboard I was left with brought to mind a recollection penned years ago by a friend and fellow writer/editor, Diane Cody. I remembered the item warmly and, upon rereading it for the first time in over a decade, found it was as touching and motivational as I recalled.

So, without further ado, I’m going to share the original with you now. Then let’s explore the 2014 TGIM Takeaway possibilities:

 

Here’s Diane’s original piece.

*****

When I was a kid, any neighbor who bought a new appliance became a hero for a day. Why? Because the great big empty box that appeared at the curb after the appliance was installed meant PARTY TIME!

 

Like a magnet, that box would attract kids from all over the neighborhood. We’d drag it onto someone’s lawn and pile in as many kids as the box would hold. Then we’d tip it over, spin it around, jump on top of it, or make a fort out of it.

Soon the closed end would open up, and then the real fun started. The box became a tank-like vehicle that mowed down anything in its path when powered by two kids crawling on their hands and knees. Forward we’d go, rolling over lawn, bushes, other kids, tumbling, crashing, laughing.

 

Eventually the box would tear, and we’d drag the flat pieces of cardboard back to the curb of the original owner. The fun was over for the day, but for days afterward whoever had participated in the “box day” felt a camaraderie; a closeness. We would just look at each other and giggle; no one had to say a word to start it off. The whole group would walk down the street together, in step, in harmony, as one.

 

Now I’m grown up with a home of my own. I recently purchased a new appliance. The great big empty box sits in my garage waiting to be recycled. Every morning on my way out the door, I pass the box. I pause to look at it, remembering, and I smile.

 

I’m tempted to transport the box to the office, invite my coworkers to hop inside, and see what happens. But I think I’ll just put the box to the curb and become the neighborhood hero for a day.

*****

I hope those 300 or so words leave you with the same inspired feeling I get. 

 

With them in mind, I’m motivated to invite you to -- if not literally, then at least in your imagination –

• Find a Great Big Empty Box …
• Hop inside …
• And see what happens.

TGIM ACTION IDEA: Hop in to break out of the box.

The phrase “think outside the box” slips too easily and meaninglessly from our lips these days. In many ways I suppose we have little idea how to do this; break away from the daily routine and rules and conventions that confine us and our thinking to achieve the accomplishments we’re really capable of.

 

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION: Play is a great way to escape the mind-narrowing confines of daily routine.

The same intense, focused pace day after day invites burnout, not creativity. If you can’t actually find a Great Big Empty Box and “playmates” to share it with –

 

Make up your own game.

Take a major break. If your ability to reclaim a sense of I-don’t-wanna-grow-up play and wonder seems beyond  recall, one way to initiate the process is to ask: 

What do you most enjoy? Do it, with childlike abandon.

That means, unless you can really let go and enjoy every moment and every aspect of the “game,” playtime DOES NOT include a frustrating round of business-deal golf or a country club tennis match or the competitive company softball league.

However –

• If golf is your game, you might take a bunch of kids for a round of miniature golf.
• Or play some tennis with a right-minded buddy, each using your non-dominate hand. That would be interesting.
• Or get the most-easy-going members of the softball team together to play stoopball or Jersey-style stick ball with a broken broom handle and a pink spaldeen hi-bounce. (If you don’t know what a “spaldeen” is, look it up. You missed something nearly as good as The Great Big Empty Box in your childhood.)

► Or do the goofiest (legal) thing you can conceive of.

 

► Or maybe: Do nothing.

Give yourself a sabbatical. As the tongue-in-cheek observation goes, “Even God rested on the seventh day” – thus the biblical origin of the concept that in recent times has come to mean “any extended absence in the career of an individual in order to achieve something.”

 

Break out of the box to achieve your something. Don’t allow yourself to be perpetually caught up in the purchase, loading, transportation, unloading, and assembly processes of life.

TGIM Takeaway: Unload all that from your box and put it aside so you may take real advantage of the Great Big Empty Box that’s available to you if only you appreciate its power.

Celebrate its emptiness with a joyful heart. Share that delight with other right-minded “kids.” Play until you break the box or break out of the box and find camaraderie, closeness and the liberty of unbounded thinking.

 

So, now that I’ve been there in my mind --

 

I’m going to hang on to my box, intact, until the warmer weather arrives. Then I’m considering putting it at the curb the day after the weekly recycling pickup.

I’ll be interested in seeing if hero status is still achievable in a time and neighborhood of highly structured team sports, arranged playdates and after school activities, and privileged children sitting alone, head down, absorbed in some electronic gadget.

 

Embracing my inner Peter Pan in 2014.

 

You do the same. Teach the children well.

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373
tgimguy@gmail.com

P.S.  “Don’t keep forever on the pubic road. Leave the beaten track occasionally or dive into the woods. You will be certain to find something that you have never seen before. One discovery will lead to another, and before you know it, you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All the really big discoveries are the results of thought.” The great discoverer, inventor, and thinker Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) said that.

Thank Goodness It's Monday #442

RESOLUTIONS ALONE ARE BUPKIS

(OH, AND WELCOME TO 2014)

“Bupkis” – if, by chance, you’re not familiar with the word – is a dictionary-accepted English language word more often spoken than written.


The etymology of "bupkis"

 -- if you care to delve deeper --

finds the origins in a Yiddish phrase

concerning goat droppings.

It’s defined as “absolutely nothing; nothing of value, significance, or substance.” 

It’s use in today’s TGIM headline is to both attract your attention and to emphasize an important idea that, I hope, will help us all better keep our newly made resolutions and achieve our 2014 goals as we perceive them in these early days of the year.

So let’s get started: Six-and-a-bit days ago on New Year’s Eve a fellow celebrator said to me –

“This year I’m not making resolutions,

but finding solutions.”

Hmmm. Interesting idea. And on reflection, I agree.

Now exactly what the shorthand “solutions/no resolutions” means for him was not revealed in our passing exchange.

But we can figure out the spirit of it.

For starters, the firmly and soberly resolved “In 2014 I’m going to …

·         Lose weight

·         Learn a new language

·         Add a customer each week

·         Get that in-ground pool

·         Have a weekly date night with my significant other

·         Coach my kids’ teams to a championship season

… is just lip service until you’ve assessed the situation, assessed your level of commitment and, with that insight, sorted out just how you will make it so.

TGIM Takeaway: As my New-Year’s-Eve reveling friend suggests, it’s the solution-creating process we devise and act on that will have the most impact on our goal-achievement outcome.

Perhaps just declaring New Year’s resolutions and goals can provide direction and even push you forward in the short-term. But when they are only stand-alone expressions of intent, the outcome’s bound to be discouraging and disappointing. 

Take that weight loss resolution. It’s #1, year-in, year-out. 

And 2014’s no different. Once again millions of folks will resolve and fret and place unnecessary stress on themselves to lose weight. 

But in our instant-gratification world, stating a goal carries some expectation that the sincere intention alone will bring results.

Of course, some may have success in the short term. 

But most will soon be setting their year-end resolve by the roadside and, in 359 days, will regretfully be making their #1 resolution their #1 resolution one more time. 

TGIM ACTION IDEA: In 2014 -- rather than fretting about big, life-changing goals -- we can keep things simple and reduce stress by focusing on the daily process and sticking to a well-thought-out schedule plotted with an honest assessment of our ability and commitment to sticking to it.

Here’s proof: Take away a stated lofty goal, while leaving in place the commitment to the process or system you envision, and what happens?

Yup. You’d still get results. Maybe even great results.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand and endorse the travel-planning metaphor that usually accompanies goal-setting discussions:

You can’t even begin to think about making a trip

until you have a destination.

Goals – like final destinations -- are for planning. And eventually a well-designed system will be the prime mover in accomplishing what you desire most fervently. 

The point is: By focusing on the practice and step-by-step performance instead of the big end result, you can enjoy the present moment and improve at the same time. It’s in the assessment and forecasting and development and scheduling and preparing and setting up and execution and adapting to change that we make progress.

TGIM ACTION IDEA: Correctly assessing your ability and commitment is the starting point. Having a system and routinely reviewing, evaluating, tweaking and finely honing that is what matters in the long run. Then committing to that process is what makes the difference.

Although we can agree you, too, are awesome --
please dig deeper than Garfield does in this 2013 year-end Jim Davis strip.

So are you buying this argument?

Are you ready for some solution-finding input?

Here’s some perhaps-fresh insight:

1. Individuals change best when the motivation comes from within rather from the outside. For example, perhaps you think, “There’s not much I can do about my career until my boss shapes up and does something.” Or you might say, “Things would be different for me if only my spouse were to behave differently.”

In these cases you are relying on an external force to make change happen. But any mentor worth his or her salt is quick to point out, “Nothing will change until you change.” The truth is, you are 100% responsible for you! Any questions?

2014 ACTION IDEA: Take responsibility. Rely on yourself. Set your own priorities. Change occurs more effectively when you say, in essence, “Things must be changed and I am the one who must initiate the change. I must, in fact, change myself first.  There are things only I can do which will have the desired payoff for me.” Motivate yourself by getting excited about your goal quest.

2. Individuals change best when their objectives are specific. Maybe this is stating the obvious but let’s be clear: We do more when we have a purposeful direction. Once we have a specific goal, we see change occurring more readily. 

Why? Because specific objectives permit us to seek specific feedback on how we’re doing. General objectives such as “I want to get ahead” or “I want to be somebody” keep you from knowing whether you’re succeeding or failing because they set no goal criterion.

2014 ACTION IDEA: Putting performance measurements, time limits, real milestones and actual rewards in each goal makes it specific and easier to determine whether it’s being achieved or not. And knowing that a desired change is taking place can feed your personal satisfaction.

3. Individuals change best when there is personal commitment. “Oh, I’m committed to making the changes necessary to reach my goals” you tell yourself. 

But face it: It’s more difficult to change in a vacuum. It helps to have feedback.

2014 ACTION IDEA: Tell others. Share your hopes, your dreams and your goals. Other people will be glad to give you feedback, support and ideas. And the more specific you are in detailing your aspirations, the more specific and informative that feedback can be. And by making the commitment “public,” you become more emotionally involved and that also helps you stick to it.

4. Individuals change best when changes are timely and gradual. While the idea that revolutionary change comes dramatically in a flash of brilliance is appealing, life seldom happens like that.

Change takes time. Individual change takes patience and time. Achieving the kind of 2014 goals I hope you’re setting these days won’t be finished tomorrow. (If it is I’d like to hear about it.)

2014 ACTION IDEA: Be patient. Most changes require a series of events to occur in some evolving way. Granted, we can help some or all of those events to occur, but even then the magnitude and complexity of great goals demand shifts in attitude, values, policies and procedures – and that takes time and careful planning.

 

There’s more … much more. Obviously. Whole books been written, entire careers have been build upon goal-setting and outcome-achieving strategies. 

But that’s plenty enough for right now. My short-term TGIM goal for today was to put in your hands some proven-in-action solutions you might implement immediately to keep your 2014 Resolution/Goals process on track. 

Hope you found them, at least, worthy of consideration

 

– NOT bupkis. 

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373

tgimguy@gmail.com

 

P.S.  “A good system shortens the road to the goal” That old-timey publisher of motivational and inspirational wisdom in his Success magazine, Orison Swett Marden (1850-1924) propounded that bit of rousing opinion.

Thank Goodness It's Monday #441

“TIME FLIES LIKE AN ARROW …”

This penultimate day of 2013, it sure seems as if “Time flies like an arrow.” 

The one, the only Groucho (Marx) made the observation that I’ve repurposed as a perhaps painfully appropriate day-before-New Year’s Eve TGIM headline.

And, being Groucho, after a pause he added:

“… Fruit flies like a banana.”

 

I’ve always liked that quip. I particularly like the wordplay. It catches you off guard.

·         The first line sets a contemplative tone then, just when you figure the funny guy’s about to wax philosophic –

·         It flips the whole thing on its head and gives you a split-second “What???” moment until you process the changed-up meaning of the words.

·         And then it makes you (or at least me) smile.

TGIM ACTION IDEA: I like to repeat it and close with it after saying a few perhaps serious, heartfelt words at someone’s birthday or anniversary celebration or such. 

TGIM END-OF-2013 ACTION IDEA: And I think it’s a useful wrap up when it comes to year-end reminiscences.

How about you? Will you be among the midnight revelers tomorrow evening who mark the passage to 2014 with a raised glass, a rendition of Auld Lang Synge, an affectionate hug and possibly kiss, and perhaps a few appropriate words?

What will you be thinking?

What will you say?

Here are some additional seasonably suitable quotable quotes – a few thoughtfully witty in the spirit of Groucho’s -- that might prove useful as idea starters or for “borrowing” as your big finish tomorrow evening:

“An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in.

A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.”

Folksy columnist Bill Vaughan (1915-1977) came to that conclusion.

“New Year's Day - Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”

The ever-quotable Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain (1835-1910) added his cynical twist to resolution setting.

“Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account."

Irish writer and poet Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) quipped that.

“I think in terms of the day's resolutions, not the year's.”

Sculptor Henry Moore (1898-1986) shaped that not-so-abstract idea.

 “I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.

Diarist and free spirit Anaïs Nin (1903-1977) shared that personal truth, similar to Henry Moore’s.

 

“But can one still make resolutions when one is over forty? I live according to twenty-year-old habits.”

Nobel Prize winner Andre Gide (1869-1951) set forth this query and observation.

“New Year's Day is every man's birthday.”

English critic, poet and essayist, Charles Lamb (1775-1834) gave this reason to celebrate the passage of the old year.

“It wouldn't be New Year's if I didn't have regrets.”

Former pro football player William Thomas is supposed to have made that glum seasonal observation.

"We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential."

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and columnist Ellen Goodman suggested this.

"Time has no divisions to mark its passage; there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols."

Nobel laureate Thomas Mann (1875-1955) noted this phenomenon. 

“New Year's Eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights.”

Collector and re-teller of children’s stories and fairy tales, Hamilton Wright Mabie, (1846–1916) said this.

 “Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning, but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.”

Journalist and appreciative author about the outdoors, Hal Borland (1900-1978) said that. 

“Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.”

That’s courtesy of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, (1809–1892) in 1850.

“The new year begins in a snow-storm of white vows.”

Speaking of snow at about the same time as Tennyson, social reformer, author and editor, George William Curtis (1824-1892) held this view.

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.”

Poet and pacifist Edith Lovejoy Pierce (1904-1983) added that thought to one of her blank pages.

“Be at War with your Vices,

at Peace with your Neighbours,

and let every New-Year find you a better Man.”

This was the counsel in Benjamin Franklin's December 1755 Poor Richard's Almanac.

For last year's words belong to last year's language

And next year's words await another voice.

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

Poet T.S. Eliot, (1888-1965) made that clear in "Little Gidding,” the fourth and final poem of his Four Quartets.

Wishing you a peaceful finish to 2013 and thoughtful beginning to 2014.

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373

tgimguy@gmail.com

P.S.  As I noted here last year about this time (TGIM#389) on New Year’s Eve I’m not so much a fan of Auld Lang Syne as I am of the Pete Seeger’s music and 1959 adaptation of the words from Ecclesiastes.

Here’s one version of the lyrics.

TO EVERYTHING THERE IS A SEASON

(TURN, TURN, TURN)

Chorus:

To everything (turn, turn, turn)

There is a season (turn, turn, turn)

And a time for every purpose under heaven.

A time to be born, a time to die

A time to plant, a time to reap

A time to kill, a time to heal

A time to laugh, a time to weep.

A time to build up, a time to break down

A time to dance, a time to mourn

A time to cast away stones

A time to gather stones together.

A time of war, a time of peace

A time of love, a time of hate

A time you may embrace

A time to refrain from embracing.

A time to gain, a time to lose

A time to rend, a time to sew

A time of love, a time of hate

A time of peace

 

… I swear it's not too late.

 

And one of my favorite versions of Pete singing, HERE.

Thank Goodness It's Monday #440

GIFT ENCLOSED!

OPEN TODAY!

DO NOT SAVE UNTIL CHRISTMAS

 

Have you seen the Christmastime social-media-distributed “prank” I’m about to describe?

Upon scanning their boarding passes at a special kiosk at the gate, airline travelers are interrogated by a live-but-video-connected blue-suited Santa who smooth talks them into naming a “gift” they would like for themselves for the holiday.

We see some highlights of these conversations and --

 

►   The adult answers run the gamut from “socks and underwear” to the seemingly outrageous giant flat screen TV.

►   The kid answers are, well, typical kid answers, sometimes given with a charming reluctance.

 

Then the video production cuts to great dashing around while, unbeknownst to the high-flying travelers, the gift wishes of the plane full of passengers are acquired by the airline …cheerily wrapped  … ultimately delivered at the flights destination via luggage carousel … to the surprise and delight of the travelers (especially the guy who wanted the flat screen).

 

Bah! Humbug! While the comments of many viewers suggest they find this scenario delightful and full of seasonal brio, the whole thing –

Really ticks me off. At many levels.

To catalog just a few:

·         It’s a commercial, dammit, not much more and intended as such.

·         And I find the whole idea crass.

·         Imagine the cost.

·         Why such generosity for presumably more-affluent-than-many airline travelers?

·         Imagine how, if the airline wanted to endorse the gift-giving spirit of Christmas, that expense might have been more charitably dispersed.

·         And why didn’t we see the Christmas wishes of those who asked for world peace, or for a cure for little Jimmy’s cancer, or to be reunited with absent loved ones, or … 

I think you get the idea.

 

I DO NOT “Like.” While I probably do like a substantive, tangible, material holiday gift as much as the next person, you can’t win my admiration and respect with that kind of twisted representation of holiday goodwill. 

So why this rant, under the guise of a headline about gift giving?

 

Years ago Eric Taylor and I started a business conversation that has evolved into a friendship and more-than-a-few frank discussions of better ways to set and accomplish one’s goals, manage time, interact with others – generally how to live in a fulfilling and meaningful way.

It’s a continuing and evolving conversation. We respectfully sort through positions and points of contention … try to convince and influence one another … keep an open mind … accommodate new input … agree to disagree about some strongly held but not objectionable positions.

And while we are two distinct and different people, there are a number of positions we hold steadfastly in common, one which we find is most easily conveyed at this time of year, using the language of the season:

 

It Is A Season For Giving

 

But unlike the tangible, material, commercial “gifts” featured in the makes-me-angry airline-commercial-in-the-guise-of-holiday-cheer, we agree that one of the best gifts any one can give at this or any time of the year is –

The Gift Of Yourself

 Your love.

Your time.

Your thoughtful involvement.

 

A number of years ago when we shared a holiday message about this gift that keeps on giving Eric pointed out that –

 

This enlightened and enlightening present is –

 

        … something that everyone wants

        … one size fits all

        … requires no last minute shopping or trips to the mall

        ...  is essentially free, and

        … no wrapping is required.

It’s that simple. This “gift” is what those you care most about really want.

TGIM Takeaway: And, when you ponder and understand the fullness of the concept, you’ll know that it’s the only gift of lasting value that you alone can give.

 

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION: ‘Tis the season. Give the enlightened and enlightening gift of yourself, your love and your time and your involvement, unconditionally, now and throughout the New Year. You’ll soon realize this cost-free present will yield an abundance of riches for the giver and the receiver far greater than you could ever imagine.

One last cool thing about this gift:

 

It’s a gift that’s sure to be “returned” to you in so many ways.

What more could a giver ask for?

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373

tgimguy@gmail.com

P.S.  Just in case you considered giving us a gift this holiday season … here’s –

HOW TO DO IT:

Re-gift this message.

Thank Goodness It's Monday #439

SEASONS GREETINGS,

HAPPY HOLIDAY

-- AND, PLEASE: LIGHTEN UP

Does that sound– Bah! Humbug! – unseasonably vague and cranky?

TGIM Guy with the Big Guy
 circa 1949
Hey! He knows if you've
been bad or good.
You'd be apprehensive, too.

Perhaps it is.
So let me clear the air by saying upfront --


I’m a Christmas celebrator. Have been for as long as I can remember and expect to continue keeping the season and many of its traditions, especially the English/German ones that are part of my family history.

 

But I also try to “observe” and appreciate and enjoy experiences beyond my roots.

And I’m also more than a bit weary with the increasingly escalating broadcast, print and social media “fuss” over forcing the most doctrinal parts of Christmas front and center in the tangible, material world, especially to the exclusion of others.

In this day and age I can’t help but wonder at the failure to recognize the connectedness of all the belief systems that find reasons to celebrate at this time of the year. 

And I’m pretty confident that, in the best interpretations of those sacred observances, even the most orthodox adherent could find at least one secular, non-dogmatic connection that binds us in celebration to this –

Universal Truth: ‘Tis the season, in the northern hemisphere, of the Winter Solstice.



Actually ... it's NOT
precisely Christmas.
This frequently shared
social media image
from recent days
underlies a bit
of my adamant tone.

It’s science, folks (not just Stonehenge mumbo jumbo). This year December 21 will be the day with the least hours of daylight and, therefore, the longest stretch of night.

Historically solstice celebrations have influenced the lives of many over the centuries, through art, literature, mythology and religion. So, whether you officially “celebrate” or not, you probably will (or recently have) observed the Winter Solstice in some way.

If you care to, you can find doctrine-neutral recaps at sites such as ReligiousTolerance.org/ or Beliefnet.com. There, and elsewhere, you can learn more about the wide range of solstice-related observances across time and cultures both extinct and extant around the globe.

 

Wikipedia lists 40+ that range from contemporary observances at science stations in Antarctica to references in Western Hemisphere cultures that date back to 1800 BCE and further back to Neolithic and Bronze Age practices in Europe.

So, for 12,000 years and maybe longer, the return of the sun and the lengthening days, represent –

The return of hope. Perhaps prehistoric man feared that the sun would keep on sinking until it went away forever.

I'm sure they knew it wouldn't. They were as intelligent as we. (They just didn't know as much.) But it’s only human to fear the darkness. When the sun came back, fear receded and hope returned.

In our bit of the globe the December solstice occurs during the coldest season of the year. Although winter was regarded as the season of dormancy, darkness and cold, the coming of brighter days after the Winter Solstice brought on a more festive mood. To many people, this return of the light was a reason to celebrate that nature’s cycle was continuing.

At this time of the Winter Solstice we all – without confronting the conflicting tenets of particular spiritual or secular beliefs -- can trace the evolution of our seasonal celebrations to origins in ancient nature rituals. We can acknowledge the primeval link to today’s widely practiced religions, monotheistic and otherwise.

And in this 21^st Century we can use all the tech and gathered wisdom and best thinking at our disposal to come to one inevitable –

TGIM TAKEAWAY: It’s still about the light.

►   Beacons of hope.

►   Moments of illumination.

►   Glimmers of insight.

►   The promise of brighter tomorrows.

Miracles of light and enlightenment. Whatever your traditions hold dear and celebrate and commemorate at this time of the year, we are all very much one in spirit.

It IS a very small and very interconnected world after all. Daily it becomes closer still.

 

TGIM ACTION IDEA: Lighten up and be enlightened. Know what you believe and why. Your core beliefs need to be your own, arrived at freely. 

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION: Like exploring the history of solstice celebrations, look for evidence yourself. Dig down. Get back to the source as you gather facts. Make your decisions based on your informed research and insight. Decide what works for you and use it.

Lighten up. You don’t even have to wait for an “official” holiday to begin.

We wish you an Enlightened Solstice … (belated) Happy Hanukkah … Merry Christmas … Joyous Kwanzaa … 

“Peace toward men of good will.” 

Happy holidays, one and all.

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373

tgimguy@gmail.com

P.S.  Deep peace of the winter solstice to you.

        Deep peace of the falling snow to you.

        Deep peace of the love of friends to you.

        Deep peace of the gentle deer to you.

        Deep peace of the moon and stars to you.

 

       Deep peace of the running wave to you.

       Deep peace of the flowing air to you.

       Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.

       Deep peace of the shining stars to you.

       Deep peace of the gentle night to you.

 

       Moon and stars pour their healing light on you.

       Deep peace to you.

       Deep peace to you.

              -- source(s) unknown