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Dreams Are a Part of Life
Author: Linda Weaver Clarke  | Posted: 05-12-2006 | Comments: 0 | Views: 109 | Rating: (53)  (?) 
Dreams can come true, no matter what age you are. Dreams are a part of life and they come straight from the heart. Mack David wrote, "A dream is a wish your heart makes." In fact, dreams eventually become our goals. If you work hard enough, you can accomplish anything you put your mind to. It's all a state of mind. If you believe in yourself, then nothing else matters. You have to first decide if it's worth it and then put your whole heart and soul into it. Sidney Harris wrote, "A winner makes commitments; a loser makes promises."
Remember: if you don't do your best, a job that's half done isn't worth the effort. Go for your goal and never give up! It's all up to you to make a difference in the world, whether it is large or small. Perhaps your contribution won't be as dramatic as Alexander Graham Bell and the invention of the telephone, but still, your contribution to society is important. Ned Washington wrote, "If your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme, when you wish upon a star as dreamers do." He is right when he says that "no request is too extreme." It's up to you how hard you must work for your dream.
You are the one who has to decide
Whether you'll do it or toss it aside.
You are the one who makes up your mind
Whether you'll lead or linger behind.
Kindly or selfish, gentle or strong,
Keeping the right or taking the wrong.
Careless of honor or guarding your pride,
All these are things you must decide.
Yours the selection whatever you do,
Remember the things men call character
And testimony; it's all up to you.
----anonymous
Dreams can come true. It's all up to you. A few years ago, I decided it was about time to finish something I had begun when I was young. I decided to go back to college and get a degree. It was one of the most difficult challenges I had ever come upon. Here I was in my late 40s and I was going back to college. On the first day of school, I had butterflies in my stomach, I was feeling nausea from the stress, and I was wondering if I had made the right decision in my life. Was I crazy to take upon myself this feat at my age? After getting through the first month, I realized it wasn't so bad after all. The only thing I struggled with was algebra and studying for tests. I just took one day at a time, knowing that I had committed myself to this task of getting a degree. I trekked across campus as fast as I could, trying to get to class on time. The young college students were sweet and let me know they were happy to have me in class, making me feel accepted. After four long years, I received my Bachelor of Arts degree and the Outstanding Non-Traditional Student Award for the College of Performing Arts in 2002. With that behind me, I decided to be brave and try something I hadn't done before. I submitted my first novel to several publishers. It was called "Melinda and the Wild West," a family saga with three more books to follow. After a while, American Book Publishing, a traditional publishing company, accepted my work. I was elated. All of this happened because I believed in myself, because I worked hard, because I had a dream. I knew that if I didn't believe in myself, then no one else would. Yes, dreams can come true if you work hard and never give up.
Each of us has something to contribute to this world and hopefully build up and uplift others. We can do this by educating and improving ourselves. James E. Faust expressed it in a different way. He said, "The Lord has a great work for each of us to do. You may wonder how this can be. You may feel that there is nothing special or superior about you or your ability... The Lord can do remarkable miracles with a person of ordinary ability who is humble, faithful, and diligent in serving the Lord and seeks to improve himself."
Faith is the secret of success. I believe what Mack David wrote: "Have faith in your dreams and someday your rainbow will come smiling through...if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true."
Copyright 2006
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By: Bharath | 24-08-2008
hii my sister of age 26 years, loved a guy 3 years back, my parents were not supportive to this, later because of this she lost her academics for 1 year after that sith struggle she managed co pass out, she is still loving him but he is not..now she lost her job.my sister doesnot respect my parents daily there will be quarell between my mom and my sister. my mom will be crying always. now i dono what to do please help me to correct the situation in my family.
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My Wacko Life
By: crystalclear | 23-08-2008
Oh my gosh, where do I start? I need help in the worst sort of way. I am 48 years old. Life started out fine, up until I was 5 years old. Then my brother was born. He nearly died at birth and it was months before he could come home. He is mildly mentally retarded. From the time my brother was born, me and my sister ceased to exist. Everything revolved around my brother. When I was seven, I was sexually molested by a neighbor. It was never talked about. I never had any counseling afterwards, it was 1967 after all. Then a couple years after that, my dad started beating me and my sister. And it was over the stupidest things, like once I forgot to put bannanas in his cereal and he knocked me to the ground and kicked me in the stomach and back until I think I went unconscious. He would whip me and my sister so bad with a belt, that we'd lock ourselves in the bathroom, putting cold cloths on our welts and plot how to kill him. But my brother was never touched, because my Mother protected him like a she-bear. She would set me and my sister up for beatings too. She'd wait till Daddy came home and tattle every single thing we'd done wrong during the day and he'd beat the crap out of us. Then he started cheating on her and she found out and one day, she just packed us all up and took off to Texas.....as a punishment to my dad. It wasn't a year after that, that she threw me out of the house, at age 15. I met my first husband, who carried on the beating tradition, but he was wealthy and I had everything I wanted materially. I never had to worry about money. I stuck it out for 28 years...26 year of marriage, 2 years of living together.....only to have him get a much younger woman pregnant and divorce me to marry her. I was fortunate because right at that time, my grandparents died and I inherited part of a family farm. So I moved back to the town I was born in. At first, it was like paradise. The farm was split between my Aunt...she got 50%, my sister got 16 1/3 percent, my brother got 16 1/3 percent and I got 16 1/3 percent thereabouts. I should go back to my Mother at this point. She never forgave my dad for cheating on her and harrangued him and his parents until the day he died for money. They were wealthy, her family was poor. She felt that they should fully support my brother, even though dad was on his third wife. My dad's parents bought everything for my brother, land, a nice home, a garage, a barn, a vehicle. When they died they left us all money and the farm. It was not enough though. It is never enough when it comes to my brother. They stipulated that the farm should never be sold, that we would start a corporation together and the land and everything is all under all our names in deed and title. My Mother was mentally unstable. She was always threatening suicide. One time I had to call her Mother over to help me because she was sticking her head in the oven, trying to commit suicide. I was 14 then. Once my dad came to visit and they got into a fist fight and she was screaming for me to call the police and I had to have the police come and drag my dad away, crying. I lived through horrors that nobody should ever have to live through. I became an alcoholic and drug addict, until at 28 I overdosed and nearly died, I had a mild stroke. That was enough and I've been clean and sober ever since. Flash forward to today. My Mother has gotten even worse. She's now 74 years old and has craziness going on that makes her younger days seem sane. It started when land prices skyrocketed down here. She decided she was going to make us all sellout, so she could have my brother's share of the farm to take care of him. We're talking probably $750,000 a piece but taxes would come out of that. I don't want to sell, my Aunt doesn't want to sell..my sister is wishy-washy sometimes she wants to hang onto the farm, sometimes she wants to sell, my brother doesn't want to sell. Mother had my brother declared legally incompetent, just to take his inheritence away from him. When I refused to go along with her plot....that's where it all got crazy. She's tried to hire a lawyer to sue me, she sends me hate mail, she sends me hate e-mail, she leaves nasty messages on my phone. She's sent letters to all my neighbors, to my church, telling people what a sorry, crappy daughter I am. My Grandmother (her mother) and I have always written to each other. My grandma is 97 years old and still spry. My Mother threw a fit with my grandmother and told her she couldn't write me anymore because I was sending subliminal messages to my Mother in my letters (I didn't even know Mother was reading my letters to my grandmother, she doesn't live with her). My Mother has harranged and harrassed me for over 3 years now. I haven't spoken to her or replied to any of what she is doing to me other than one letter, telling her to get psychiatric help as soon as possible. That made it even worse, as I've heard she carries that letter around like a cross, telling everybody what a crappy daughter I am. My attitude is that my happiness is just as valuable as my brother's well-being and I shouldn't have to sell my shares of the farm if I don't want to. I don't know what to do about my Mother. Why won't she leave me alone? I'm not bothering anybody. Next problem, I married again. My husband and I don't fight or argue. All the same, we've got a bizarre relationship. All of our money is separate. I don't even know how much he's got in the bank, but at one point I saw a savings statement for over $100,000. I work, 10 hour days. I'm poor as a church mouse. Sometimes, I don't have money for food. He buys his groceries, I buy mine. We split the bills. We split the taxes. We split the insurance. Everything 50/50. Except he makes 3 times what I make. If I run out of money before payday, well, that's just too bad. I get a lecture on how I need to manage my money better. I constantly get reminded of how I "never have any money" when it comes to something we want to do together and I say "I don't have the money". And since I married him nearly 5 years ago, I've gone through the change of life and it was bad. I still have not gotten my weight under control, no matter what I have tried. I've been to doctors, I've been to dieticians, I've followed STRICT diets to the letter and I'm still 50 pounds overweight. My hair fell out until I was bald in patches. My skin is so dry and itchy that it just peels. It's miserable. I could not sleep more than 20 or 30 minutes at a time for waking up sweating. I have managed to correct that by going to a sleep specialist. But I have to sleep with the air conditioning going full blast and the ceiling fan and a box fan blowing on me at night, it's like an icebox in our room. My husband has been merciless about my menopause weight gain. He's made no bones about the fact that he finds me repulsive now. I am lucky if I can get a hug out of him. He won't touch me, not to rub my back, no sex, no kissing, no nothing. It's like I've got leprosy. As you can imagine, my self esteem is shot. I was always thin. I'm 5'11. I was never waif like but a healthy and weight for me was about 150. Now I weigh 208. I was a beautiful woman. My husband's comment is that I "Hit the brick wall". That's his saying for a pretty woman that got fat and ugly. Sometimes I fire back with ugly insults to him but that doesn't make me feel better. Mostly, I just retreat, leave the room. I don't like to fight. I never have. Mostly, now, he just ignores me. I've become nothing. And it's not like I can put him out of the house and kick him out, though I OWN this house. I can't afford to be without him because at least he pays half the bills. But that's the problem. We are like roommates. Really, that's all we are. And I feel like I'm so ugly now, that I'd never find another husband. I have no friends. In fact, I've NEVER had a single friend in my entire life. Even my Koo-Koo mother has friends, lifelong friends that she goes and does stuff with. I have trouble trusting anyone. I don't trust their motives, I don't trust them not to be talking about me behind my back, I don't trust them not to be stealing my spouse, I don't trust anyone period. I had one wonderful love affair one time. The love of my life. One day, out of the blue, he said "I don't love you anymore...in fact, I don't even think I know what love is." and just like that, it was over. I thought I was going to die. That was one I didn't see coming. I still don't understand what happened. I'll never know. I'm sure by now, you think I am a pretty pathetic person. It's not like I haven't done my "time on the couch". I've had years of therapy. It's like it never gets better. I'll think that finally, I'm going to get to be happy. Then something else happens. There is so much drama in my life, it could easily become a Lifetime Movie. People have even told me that I should write a book. Especially about my Mama Drama. I tell them I couldn't write a movie about her...she'd SUE ME. I mean seriously, how many people have Mother's that try to sue them. And she still hasn't given that up. She just hasn't found an attorney that will sue me to MAKE me sell my land. I expect anytime for her to put on a Pamper and drive the thousand miles down here to try to assault me or kidnap me and hold me hostage till I sell. It wouldn't surprise me at all. She's that nuts. So does anybody have anything to say that might at least make me feel better. My nerves are shot...menopause doesn't help in these situations. I think I've done really well not to hit the bottle again. Believe me, there are times that I've thought about going down and buying some booze and just getting stinking drunk. But I realize that that won't solve the problems. Thank you.
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Help! what should i do!!
By: pinkylove | 23-08-2008
My bf is exchanging mails and pictures with girls he meet online,they are all overseas but they all have the same kind of work(including my bf) so theres a chance they can meet someday and i think this girls are desperate coz most of them are divorced and have kids and older than my bf.When i told my bf i know what he was doing we got into a big argument and almost broke up but he said he will change and he will never do it again blah blah....the thing is hes been doing it over and over again and the mails are getting intimate and the pictures naked but he told me that they are nothing and they dont mean anything to him just internet thing but its been going on for almost 2 years now and im really getting tired,i told him im really leaving him but once again hes begging me to stay,he said im the only one he wants and that if i want hes going to a counseling to help him deal with this coz i told him hes sick.what if he really do counseling should i give him a chance again? or should i really just leave and not waste my time anymore?Weve been together and living in for 2 years now and weve been dependent on eachother,its hard to let go thats why so many times i tried but ended staying.Do you think hes just saying those things to me(im the only one he wants,he will go to counselling,begging me to stay) just so ill stay? Please help im really really confused.....
Can anyone help me find psyciartric care?
By: Karen | 23-08-2008
How can I find information on finding free psyciatric care? I have a friend I believe is severley depressed and he needs attention. Can anyone out there help me?
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