Always question WHY you are doing something.
Is it a free-will gift or an obligation?
That which is done out of a feeling of obligation
is unworkable as a substitute for a gift.
Obligation creates a feeling of resentment on your part,
and evokes resentment rather than gratitude
on the part of the recipient.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Related topics: Life Human-Nature Psychology Obligation
Expectation (demand) is always a cause of suffering.
Rather than "expecting" to be repaid
when we "loan" something to someone,
consider the "loans" we make to be forward payments
for the "loans" we received from
our ancestors, nurturers and others.
Request that any "loan" that we make be repaid FORWARD,
when the recipient is able,
and then completely forget about the "loan."
It is no longer our business if, when, or how
the "loan" is repaid - or is not repaid.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Truth is not defined by
how many people believe something.
Ask. Question. Think.
Decide - for yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Honor tradition AND question tradition.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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When you ask the wrong question,
you usually get a nonsense answer.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
It is not my place to doubt the sincere beliefs of others.
My job is to question my own beliefs.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our grandchildren's grandchildren will shake their heads in shame
at some of the beliefs that we hold most dear today -
the question is, which ones?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Half of everything you were ever taught is wrong;
the question is which half.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
"It's not that important,
don't worry about it" is the answer,
now what was the question?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Question every assumption and expectation.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
I question my questions.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Do you ever question why our educational system
teaches competition rather than cooperation?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Often, we get stuck on a question
for which we can't find an acceptable answer.
That is a good time to consider asking a different question.
Every question is based on some assumptions -
usually invisible assumptions that we don't see, unless we go looking.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Affirmation:
I question my questions.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The answer is twelve monkeys, what's the question?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Each of us holds a different image of God.
There are as many perspectives on
the nature of God as there are people.
However much any of us may choose to argue,
or to fight and kill, for our point of view,
the nature of God is an unanswerable question.
Perhaps there is a specific answer,
that we will never learn - in this lifetime.
Perhaps the nature of God is so complex and multifaceted
that each view of God describes an aspect of the complex whole.
Or perhaps the nature of God is actually defined by our beliefs.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Identify your assumptions (what you believe).
Question how you feel when you hold those assumptions.
Visualize holding different assumptions.
Ask yourself how it feels to hold a different world-view.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We are all "neighbors."
Our world has gotten too small for us to be anything else.
We can no longer have "us" and "them" - friends and enemies.
A person from Iraq, or Russia, or Columbia is
no more a stranger or enemy than a person from across town.
A few people everywhere are troublemakers.
Every religion provokes a few people to become extremists.
Do we need police around the globe? Unfortunately, we always will.
Do we need war? Does that question even deserve an answer?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our actions are constrained by fear of reprisal,
but our dreams reveal our true character.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
About most subjects, there is not "The Truth;"
there is merely one's personal truth.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Having a personal opinion is great.
Believing that one's personal opinion is absolute truth
leads to most of the world's troubles.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Only good comes from being honest and true.
Only harm and suffering come from falsehood.
It doesn't always feel as if good comes from truth and honesty,
but, in the long run, it does.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Truth is absolute, but only to one person.
My truth is absolute to me, and your truth is absolute to you.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Everyone has an opinion on many subjects
and is ready to share those opinions -
labeling them as "truth."
Sometimes it is relatively easy
to filter out these opinions.
Upon hearing an ad for the latest
weight-loss powder on late-night TV,
our skepticism leaps to our defense.
However, if we have heard the same opinion for years
from our parents, friends,
government officials, or religious leaders,
we are more likely to believe without questioning
than to raise our filter of skepticism
and ask the hard questions.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Time, like life itself, has no inherent meaning.
We give our own meaning to time as to life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Each of us dwells in a cathedral of our own BEing
that is created vast enough to encompass Unity with all creation.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
When the vast cathedral of our being
becomes a sanctuary for all creation,
we become the face of God.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our "Rainbows and Butterflies" are the small miracles of our life -
the little things that are so easy to overlook,
yet so awe inspiring when we take a moment
to notice and to pay attention.
Give thanks for the rainbows, for the butterflies,
for all God's creatures - large and small,
for the bright blue sky and the soft fog and the gentle rain,
for the tree veiled in the season's first frost,
for the baby's laugh,
for the touch of a hand and the whispered "I love you."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our lives are defined not by the challenges we encounter,
but by how we respond to those challenges.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
"Hurry up" ranks right up there with "you need to"
as a destroyer of our humanity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The best cure for our own self-inflicted suffering
is often service to others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our opportunity is to Soar our Spirit.
To see Light and Joy in everything.
To spread our wings and fly boldly.
To give thanks for rainbows and butterflies -
our symbols of renewal and rebirth.
To offer daily Thanksgiving - for ourselves, our family,
our friends, our community, for the whole world.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Life is NOT "Supposed to be Fair."
Know that there is no single way that life is "supposed" to be.
Demanding that life meet our expectations
is a sure fire recipe for a miserable existence.
Life is a game with no rules.
Life just happens to us regardless of our best intentions.
Our only path to happiness lies in being open
to receiving whatever life throws at us -
with Gratitude. Have NO Expectations of life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our Joy comes from living our own lives simply -
never from demanding that others live simply -
or from ever making any demands whatsoever upon others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We all have our thorns. We, and Life, have our moments.
Life occurs before our morning coffee.
Life occurs in our bathrobe with our hair uncombed.
Bless and give thanks for All of Life - the bloom and the thorns.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Miracles are the natural way of the Universe -
our only job is to move our doubting minds aside
and let the miracles flow.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our loved ones -
whether by blood, by marriage, or by choice -
are delicate treasures.
If we hold them too close, they break -
as a butterfly would.
By honoring and enjoying
the freedom of our loved ones,
we gain our own freedom.
Have the courage to trust that
the beautiful butterflies of your life
will return - or not - as life intends.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Whether we allow external events to
shape our lives at a core level
is very much within our own control.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We are powerless to redesign the world,
but we have infinite power to create our appreciation of it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our mettle is tested by storms,
not by calm.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
NECESSITY and URGENCY are twin poisons of our rattlesnake minds.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Much in life can be seen as ugly or beautiful - it's our choice.
Why would we choose to see any part of life as ugly?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Choose to See Beauty and Joy:
Much in life can be seen as ugly or beautiful - it's our choice.
Why would we choose to see any part of life as ugly?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
See life as ugly and painful - if you choose,
or see it as beautiful and joyful.
There is no inherent meaning in life.
We give life its meaning.
It's our Choice.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Action is our greatest weapon against fear.
Left to molder, fear grows upon itself,
but in the face of action,
fear is left in the dust.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
There is a secret wisdom-of-the-ages
that holds the key to breaking
our cycle of self-imposed suffering.
The secret wisdom is,
"Life is not supposed to be fair."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Adversity can crush our spirit -
or strengthen it - it is our choice.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We censor our actions, but
our dreams reveal our true character.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Most everything in life is about our
point-of-view rather than any absolute.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We get to CHOOSE the meaning for our lives.
Our lives mean exactly what we say they do - no more, no less.
Each of us chooses their path in life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Society censors our actions,
but our dreams reveal our true character.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Only when life is difficult,
are we challenged to become our greatest selves.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The River of Life flows - and all else is our drama.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We see Life through the fun-house mirrors of our point-of-view.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our relationships - love and friendship -
are at the core of the meaning of our lives.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our world is magnificent - all of it.
Rejoice and give thanks.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We do not always see what is before our face -
sometimes we see what we hope to see,
or fear we will see.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Each one of us has our own perspective
on everything we see in life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Happiness lies in accepting everyone
in our lives EXACTLY as they are.
We cause ourselves untold misery whenever
we believe others to be imperfect and try to change them.
This is the number one rule for a happy relationship.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
However carefully we plan our future,
we are always climbing the steps to nowhere.
While it is important to our happiness
that we have an intent for our lives,
it is equally crucial to accept in advance
that we truly have no idea how our lives will turn out -
and that is good.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Everything we say, do, think, and feel
is a product of our personal history
and the collective history of humankind.
Our name for these histories is "prejudice."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The inherent nature of God
is not changed by our individual beliefs,
our religious institutions,
or our communal traditions.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Thoughtful people seldom share exactly the same opinion -
the same point-of-view.
The wise ones understand that they know nothing -
for virtually none of our experience is truly factual -
and they graciously honor all other opinions.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
INTENT:
We hold the power to make things happen
through our intent -
to the extent that we use our intention
with compassion and without ego.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Celebrate Rainbows and Butterflies -
the Small Miracles of Our Life
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
SPIRIT is the name we give to
the entirety of everything we can perceive
plus the entirety of everything
that is beyond our perception.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Rainbows and butterflies are themselves beautiful and highly symbolic,
but they are also representative of
all the small miracles of our life -
the little things that are so easy to overlook,
yet so awe inspiring when we take a moment
to notice and to pay attention.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The Principal Causes of Our Suffering
are Our Expectations and Our Assumptions.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our unhappiness is triggered by either
having less than yesterday,
or having less than our neighbor.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our stories are the window to our emotions.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our opportunity is to visualize a kinder world.
To sing glad songs of tomorrow -
imagining a world of love -
of the whole world filled with love.
To offer our hand... often.
To breathe deeply and honor ourselves.
To pause and contemplate... just because.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All materials & writings are copyright © Jonathan Lockwood Huie, except for quotes and other specifically identified material which belong to their respective copyright holders if applicable.
Jonathan Huie jlh(at)jlhuie(dot)com - About & Disclosure