The Official Website of Michael Corthell

  What is anything in life compared to peace of the soul? If your goal is to find inner peace it must be accepted that it is impossible without patience. Wisdom also requires patience. Spiritual growth requires the mastery of patience.  Patience allows you to more fully actualize yourself .   Never be in a hurry, because, believe it or not rushing around leads to wasting time. To be efficient, do things quietly with a calm spirit. “We shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.” ― Abraham Lincoln

  Why plant-based? It supports your immune system. Plants have essential nutrients that you cannot get from other foods. The vitamins and minerals, phytochemicals and antioxidants in plants help keep your cells healthy and your body in balance so that your immune system can function at its best. “Plants give your body what it needs to help fight off infection,” says Andrea Murray, MD Anderson health education specialist. “A plant-based diet strengthens your immune system to protect you against germs and microorganisms.” A healthy immune system is essential for reducing your risk for cancer because it can recognize and attack mutations in cells before they can progress to disease.

  “Trust is like a mirror, you can fix it if it's broken,  but you can still see the crack in that mother f**ker's reflection.” ― Lady Gaga (Cynical, or does the above quote reflect reality?) Sometimes, to be be trusted is the greatest compliment, sometimes even better than being loved, depending on the situation. The bottom-line in building trust is to be consistent in your actions. We must either keep our promises or not make any we know we can't keep.

  It began to dawn on me some time ago that having a sad thought, even having a continual succession of sad thoughts, is not the same as being a sad person.  There are situations that demand we be sad, to be normal. Part of becoming a grownup adult is the acceptance of difficulty.  The other part of this acceptance is taking action to make things less difficult. Life is hard, acceptance can be hard, but doing noting makes life harder. But, (there's always a 'but' isn't there?) realize that you can have a happy, successful life if you just take action and do the work before you. Why? Because just being positive and doing nothing will generate nothing. Being negative and fighting everything that crosses your path can still lead to success. Always start, always take action. Bottom-line? Thoughts become things so... Choose The Good Ones!

  “Kiss a lover, Dance a measure, Find your name And buried treasure. Face your life, It's pain, It's pleasure, Leave no path untaken.” ― Neil Gaiman I've found that when the pain of a toothache is over, remembering that pain becomes sort of a pleasure. What does that mean exactly? For one thing it means life is a contrasting experience. I also remember that the passage of time is affected by pleasure and pain: Albert Einstein’s secretary was overwhelmed with inquiries as to the meaning of “relativity” that the professor decided to help her out. He told her to answer these inquiries as follows: “When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it’s only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it’s two hours. That’s relativity.” Time's true worth is reflected only in what we are doing as it is passing by.

 

Bring to the suffering person your holy silence, and just listen. Why deep listening? Listening deeply by being completely focused on what a person is telling you establishes a presence -- a presence not only of mind but of spirit. In the healing process two spirits are better than one. Bottom-line. By listening carefully, purposefully, that is deeply when someone speaks we're telling them that we care about them. That's empathy. That's love. There is no mystery as to why deep listening works. Love heals...  — Solomon And as is almost always the case when we do the right things, we get something good back. Your deep listening is contagious. When we listen to others they will be much more inclined to listen to us!  

Charisma is compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others. Experts in sociology, political science, psychology, and management reserve the term for a type of leadership seen as extraordinary. For some background, in Christian theology, the term appears as charism , an endowment or extraordinary power given by the Holy Spirit . Charisma seems to be inborn but it can also be achieved by building positive self-confidence .  A person who is charismatic is exceptionally engaging, likeable, trustworthy, and, in many cases can seem 'magical'.  Larger-than-life personalities such as Marilyn Monroe, Martin Luther King, Jr., Oprah Winfrey, and Sir Richard Branson are all known by this trait. People with charisma are assertive, confident, inspiring, and warm. They make a point of listening to others, and they have an innate grace that often stops people in their tracks.

by Michael Corthell When you have confidence, you can have a lot of fun. And when you have fun, you can do amazing things. To be successful in your life, you must be willing to stand out and stand apart from the rest. You must act and be yourself.  Success is something that is unfortunately currently achieved by only a small number of people. It is my goal that all people live positive and therefore productive and successful lives. Also, in today's world you will discover, as you become successful, that there are many who, out of jealousy or envy, will belittle your achievements. No matter. When you have the courage of your convictions, nothing can keep you from becoming successful. You will develop confidence in your beliefs by doing your own thinking and by constantly being testing and revising your knowledge. Why Confidence Leads to Success: The Drive to Start Things – Confident people start things. They are not shy about striking out on a new idea e

  The emotion of love is more than a feeling, it is more a state of awareness  —  the realization that all is one .

  Not only is there a right and wrong, but what goes around does come around, Karma is real, chickens do come home to roost, and there is always a day of reckoning. The wise understand that every choice we make adds to the strength or weakness of our spirits. Every unkind act diminishes us, and every kind act lifts us. Karma is how the Universe balances itself . And we are all, along with all there is, one with the Universe.     

by Michael Corthell 'Karma' is a Sanskrit word meaning 'act', 'action', or 'word'. The law of karma teaches us that all of our thoughts, words and actions begin a chain of cause and effect , and that we will personally experience the effects of everything we cause. We may not experience the effect (the returning karma) right away, but you can count on it happening. Karma is a cosmic, immutable law, which means that it applies to everyone, everywhere, all the time. Ralph Waldo Emerson had much to say about this law, and in fact he describes the law of cause and effect as the law of laws . In a narrower sense, Karma is a theological concept found in the Buddhist and Hindu religions. It is the idea that how you live your life will determine the quality of life you will have after reincarnation. If you are unselfish, kind, and holy during this lifetime, you will be rewarded by being reincarnated (reborn into a new earthly body) into a pleasant l

“Enthusiasm is a supernatural serenity.” ― Henry David Thoreau Napoleon Hill, the author of “Think and Grow Rich” said the following: “Enthusiasm is a state of mind that inspires and arouses one to put action into the task at hand . . . Enthusiasm bears the same relationship to a human being that steam does to the locomotive – it is the vital moving force that impels action.”

“Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution the time will come when medicine will organize itself into an undercover dictatorship. To restrict the art of healing to doctors and deny equal privileges to others will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic.” ― Benjamin Rush , a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence and a civic leader in Philadelphia. The American people should be asking why they can't have the same level of healthcare, for the same cost, as other countries that have similar resources. The answer is easy to understand, by the way: it is the absence of the basic public health insurance that citizens of most other countries take for granted.

There is one reason for telling the truth -- it's the right thing to do, but for lying the reasons are infinite, with almost all the reasons self-serving -- that's why lying is a corrupt politician's go-to tactic. “Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.” ― Theodore Roosevelt  

We're all learners, all the time. It's just we're a different kind each day. We think, 'I'm not student today. I've learned my lesson. I was a learner yesterday but not this morning'. Then tomorrow we find out that, yes, we were a learner today too. I think the only way we can grow and get on in this world is to accept the fact we're not perfect and live accordingly...don't you? “Yesterday is but a dream, Tomorrow is only a vision.  But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness,  and every tomorrow a vision of hope.” ― Kālidāsa

  The morning that started out as a complete mess was turned around by....a SMILE. We can’t always control what happens to us, but slapping a smile on our mugs can definitely change our internal and external experiences. "Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile,  but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy." — Thich Nhat Hanh

Let's try this: If you have  never  changed your mind about some fundamental thing in your belief system, if you have never  questioned  it's basics, and if you have  no wish  to do so, then you are very likely ignorant. How about going out and finding someone who,  in your opinion , believes, assumes, or considers certain things very strongly and very differently from what you believe. Then just have a basic honest conversation. That is how we can all build positive tolerance and unify.  

  If you are positive, positive things will find you.  I submit to you again that all futures are created by thoughts. And that the foundation of all happiness is faith. A happy life is also a healthy life. None of us will ever be perfectly healthy, but we can seek our personal  optimal level of health.  If we can accept the premise that our minds can create illness, it would naturally follow that we can also create wellness. And therein lies a most powerful truth about healing.  Have faith, be positive about your future and create it.

We can't escape the idea that, in general, people commonly use false moral standards judge their own behavior. Most people seek success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, but at the same time,  to be wealthy and honored in an unjust society is a moral disgrace.

Yearning to do good, to do better starts with an inspired vision.  When people can see it in their mind’s eye and hold a vision before them of what is possible for the future, it inspires them to take action. It gives them a goal to work towards. It gives meaning to their daily actions. It helps them stay the course, especially when they need it most.  Inspiring a shared vision requires our leaders to be thoughtful visionaries who engage others in creating a shared future. 

Book except from Madeleine K. Albright's Fascism: A Warning We cannot, of course, expect every leader to possess the wisdom of Lincoln or Mandela’s largeness of soul. But when we think about what questions might be most useful to ask, perhaps we should begin by discerning what our prospective leaders believe it worthwhile for us to hear. Do they cater to our prejudices by suggesting that we treat people outside our ethnicity, race, creed or party as unworthy of dignity and respect? Do they want us to nurture our anger toward those who we believe have done us wrong, rub raw our grievances and set our sights on revenge? Do they encourage us to have contempt for our governing institutions and the electoral process? Do they seek to destroy our faith in essential contributors to democracy, such as an independent press, and a professional judiciary? Do they exploit the symbols of patriotism, the flag, the pledge in a conscious effort to turn us against one another? If defeated at the pol

All of us need just three things in life to be truly happy:  Someone to love Something to do  Something to hope for.... let's just do this, shall we?

If you want to achieve your dreams and take steps to achieve your life goals, then commitment is the key to help you get there. If you believe you can reach your goals and have the commitment and self-confidence to expand that belief, anything is possible.

So, you don't like the way your life is going, or you love it so far? Our lives seem to be a series of events and accidents. But if you look back you will see a pattern. Find out what that pattern is, and you can change your future hopefully for the better [or maintain it].