Space

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The three dimensions:

distance, area and volume,

can be used when discussing

the word space,

but more important than these

is the dimension of time.

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The Dash Poem, by Linda Ellis

"I read of a man who stood to speak
At the funeral of a friend
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
From the beginning to the end
He noted that first came the date of birth
And spoke the following date with tears,
But he said what mattered most of all
Was the dash between those years..."


The complete poem, "The Dash", tells the story of the most important space that exists,
the duration of our lives. Today is the most important time in that space. What we do
in the space of the next 24 hours may be all that we will be remembered by.
Will we be remembered as a good guy or a bad guy, or just as a person who did the
best they could within the space they occupied.

God will give us the chance, we must make the choice.

Hope, faith and good habits will place us in a dimension where we can be of service
to self, others and our Higher Power.

Hope is the thought, the wishes of our mind.

Faith is the belief, the heart of our desires.

Good habits are the soul that puts into action the doing of the will of a Higher Power.

The Spirit of the Universe is in control of the dimension beyond our comprehension,
our space needs to be occupied by doing the best we can to carry the message of a
loving God. Be kind, the space between making a good choice and a selfish one is
very small. Be loving, the space you fill in the hearts of others is directly proportional
to what you give. Be patient and tolerant of those whose time and space may be out of
control. Do not teach, do not preach, just be a good example to those who do not know
how to use their space wisely.

"As long as you don't forgive, who and whatever it is
will occupy rent-free space in your mind."                       ~ Isabelle Holland


Have a friend, learn from those who make good choices, time and space are too valuable
to spend on the losers. Losers are those who refuse to change for the better. Do the best
you can within the space that you live, life is not a practice run, today is it, do the next
right thing and become a good habit, one that will have improved the world for all.

"Don't ever believe that you have nothing to contribute.
The world is an incredible unfulfilled tapestry,
And only you can fulfill that tiny space that is yours."               ~ Leo Buscaglia

Laugh, love and make sure your space is well occupied.

Happiness is helping someone help themselves.

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ME and the Boss

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Distractions

. You create your own distractions

so that you do not have to face reality.

Do not like to do this, so you'll do this,

drink alcohol to forget.

Do not like to do this, so you'll do this,

gamble away the paycheck.

Do not like to do this, so you'll do this,

engage with strange people.

Do not like to do this, so you'll do this,

go shopping and buy things you do not need.

Do not like this, so you'll do this,

become obsessive compulsive with a hobby.

And the list of distractions goes on and on. There are times when we do the distracting habit

without thinking. There are times when the distraction becomes an addiction and you have

no control over where or when the distraction will take you.

Eventually you even forget the reason you sought out the distraction.

Maybe everything begins with hope, but it usually ends without it. It all ends in reality,

as you perceive reality to be. The perception of reality becomes so distorted by the

distraction you may not know what is real and what is a figment of your imagination.

Find a friend, someone from your family, someone you may have just met, someone

you trust, someone you do not mistrust, anyone who can listen, because when you begin

to honestly tell others of your woes, you will answer your own question of ,

"why am I so distracted from reality?"

"By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions,
one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination." ~ Christopher Columbus

You may fear reality if you have been distracted for too long. Fear is not knowing.

Learning is the first step to change. Pray to your Higher Power to give you the courage

to change. Have faith that your Higher Power wants only good for you.

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen"
(Hebrews 11:1).

Today, avoid the distractions. Today, face reality along with the help of a friend

and your Higher Power. Today, select a goal or destination that is fun and exciting.

Today, do not be distracted from doing the will of your Higher Power.

Be kind, be loving, be patient and tolerant, be forgiving and be the person

God wants you to be.

May your troubles be less, your blessings more,
and may nothing but happiness come through your door.

Happiness is helping someone help themselves.

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ME and the Boss

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On Laughing

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Every day I ask God

to help me stop taking

myself too seriously.

Research on laughter

suggest the following:

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  ON LAUGHING!

  1. Laughing 100 times roughly equals 15 minutes on an exercise bike?
Vigorous laughter increases the heart rate deepens the breathing rate,
and uses muscles in the face, stomach, and diaphragm.

2. Aside from improving our moods, laughter can reduce stress,
help fight infection, and reduce pain.

3. The levels of two stress hormones, cortisol and epinephrine
which suppress the body's immune system, will actually drop after
a dose of laughter.

4. Laughter causes positive changes in brain chemistry by releasing endorphins,
and it brings more oxygen into the body with the deeper inhalations.

5. Laughter releases anger, fear, guilt, anxiety and tension.

6. Laughter encourages concentration on "right" attitudes
rather than "wrong" attitudes.

7. Higher levels of an antibody (salivary immunoglobulin A) that fights
infectious organisms entering the respiratory tract were found in the saliva
of people who watched humorous videos or experienced good moods.

  8. Researchers found after watching an hour-long video of slapstick comedy
that the "natural killer cells," which seek out and destroy malignant cells,
more actively attacked tumor cells in test tubes. And these effects lasted up to 12 hours.

9. The 1998 movie Patch Adams told the real-life story of a nonconformist
doctor convinced that fun, play, and clowns are important in improving patients'
quality of life in a grim hospital atmosphere.

10. Planning enjoyable activities for the future will reduce the stressor hormones
such as cortisol and epinephrine.

So a scientist walks into a shopping mall to watch people laugh. There's no punchline.
Laughter is a serious scientific subject, one that researchers are still trying to figure out.
Laughing is primal, our first way of communicating. Apes laugh. So do dogs and rats.
Babies laugh long before they speak. No one teaches you how to laugh.

You just do.

And often you laugh involuntarily, in a specific rhythm and in certain spots in conversation.
You may laugh at a prank on April Fool's Day. But surprisingly, only 10 to 15 per cent
of laughter is the result of someone making a joke, said Baltimore neuroscientist
Robert Provine, who has studied laughter for decades. Laughter is mostly about social
responses rather than reaction to a joke.

"Laughter above all else is a social thing," Provine said.
"The requirement for laughter is another person."

Over the years, Provine, a professor with the University of Maryland Baltimore County,
 has boiled laughter down to its basics.

"All language groups laugh 'ha-ha-ha' basically the same way," he said.
"Whether you speak Mandarin, French or English, everyone will understand laughter...
There's a pattern generator in our brain that produces this sound."

Each "ha" is about 1/15th of a second, repeated every fifth of a second, he said.
Laugh faster or slower than that and it sounds more like panting or something else.
Deaf people laugh without hearing, and people on cellphones laugh without seeing,
illustrating that laughter isn't dependent on a single sense but on social interactions,
said Provine, author of the book : Laughter: A Scientific Investigation.

Article prepared by Joe Mc Fadden

Joe McFadden
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ME and the Boss

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Time and Time Again

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If you stand in one spot for 24 hours,

1,440 minutes, 86,400 seconds,

the Earth will rotate on it's axis

360 degrees, and you will have

completed what we call a day.

Time is time, no more and no less.

You or others, time will be the

same for all.

What you do with the time is your choice.

Sleeping and eating are required by most people.

Working to earn food, grow food, gather food, kill for food, or however you get what you eat,

is time that is necessarily spent. Man is a social animal so time must be spent with others.

You may choose your friends, but your family is yours.

Hopefully your family has taught you the appropriate social skills. School, church,

tribal meetings, extended family or whatever your cultural or ethnic traditions dictate,

are all social learning experiences.

If Dad took you to the bar a few days a week to hang out with him and the guys and gals,

your social education is probably very lacking.

Fortunately, social skills may be learned or relearned at any age.

Move to a different country on a different continent and you will learn to adapt to your

new social surroundings if you chose to eat and sleep.

Now, back to the time that is left over in your day.

"Life is not lost by dying;
life is lost minute by minute,
day by dragging day,
in all the thousand small uncaring ways."       ~ Stephen Vincent Benet

Yesterday is gone, history, time spent, and can now be used only as a reference for what 

you want to do today.

Tomorrow never comes.

Today is the day that must be the focus of your intentions.

Develop some personal habits and exercise some regular social interaction in your daily

schedule so that you may live a fulfilled life. A fulfilled life is one that completes the

will of a Higher Power. Today, put your attitude in a positive gear and enjoy life.

Practice your daily mantra of goodness; be kind, be loving, be patient and tolerant,

be forgiving and try to be the person God wants you to be.

Be kind to yourself, sleep, eat, and be healthy because if you are not physically and

mentally up to par, you may have just wasted another day.

Be kind to others.

Negative feelings are unproductive and waste valuable time. Resentments, anger, worry,

fear, envy, nagging and complaining, hate, regrets and other negative thoughts are

exercises in time wasting. Trying to drown or stuff your feelings with alcohol or drugs

is a day wasted and memories lost.

Time is the most valuable commodity anyone can have, learn to spend it wisely.

Be happy, joyous and free, enjoy life, time is short and it is always fleeing.

In your day there is no time for could have, should have, would have done this or that,

only the time which you spent doing what you did.

You may start your day over anytime you wish, but remember time will eventually

make the ultimate decision when the day is over.

Do not pass on the opportunity to do the pleasant little things in life, you may one day

look back and realize that they were the big things in your life.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

Happiness is helping someone help themselves.

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ME and the Boss

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