The Noticer Returns: Sometimes You Find Perspective, and Sometimes Perspective Finds You

Everybody wants to make a difference, but nobody wants to be different. And you simply cannot have one without the other.

Your choices, your words, and every move you make are permanent. Life is lived in indelible ink, boy. Wake up. You’re making little bitty brushstrokes every minute you walk around on this earth. And with those tiny brushstrokes, you are creating the painting that your life will ultimately become—a masterpiece or a disaster.

Light always trumps darkness. It always has, and it always will. Therefore... if you believe that your world is darkening...if you believe that the culture of your nation is growing dimmer by the year...don't blame it on the dark! Darkness is only doing what darkness does. "If darkness is winning the battles, my friend, it is because light is not doing it's job. You are light. So wake up. Wake up.

Little things do matter. Sometimes, little things matter the most. Everybody pays a lot of attention to big things, but nobody seems to understand that big things are almost always made up of little things. When you ignore little things, they often turn into big things that have become a lot harder to handle.

If you do not want an average life, you must be on guard against, and quietly suspicious of, conclusions made by conventional thinking.

If you are doing what everyone else is doing, you are doing something wrong. Why? Because most people are not obtaining results that are considered extraordinary. "If your thinking is causing you to do what everyone else is doing, you are only contributing to the average. Even if you are contributing to the average at a high level, it is still...average. "Do you want to be average? Do you want an average life span or an average lifestyle? Do you want an average marriage? Do you want to raise average children? Do you want an average spiritual life? Do you want average financial results? Do you want an average amount of influence for good in your community? "...to produce results that are extraordinary - you cannot afford to think like average people think. You cannot act like average people act. You cannot be what average people are...which is normal.

Every single day for the rest of your life, somebody is going to push you in the pool. And you’d better decide now how you’re going to act when it happens.” Jones squinted and leaned toward me. “Are you gonna come out of the water whining? Maybe crying or complaining? Will you come up mad and defiant, threatening everybody? Will you throw fists or worse? “Or will you come out of the water with a smile on your face? Looking to see what you can learn . . . who you might help? Will you act happy though you feel uncertain?

We all feel better when we are grateful. There is great wisdom in understanding that no matter the situation, there is always something for which we can choose to be grateful.

If you can understand and believe that you have made choices that took you to a place you don't like, doesn't it make logical sense thatyou can now make choices that will take you to a place you do like?" ..."So now your game becomes one of seeking wisdom and harnessing the power of that wisdom in order to make better choices.

The way a person thinks is the key to everything that follows -- good or bad, success or failure. A person's thinking -- the way he thinks -- is the foundation structure upon which a life is built. Thinking guides decisions. Thinking -- how a person thinks -- determines every choice.

Most people live under the misconception that it takes a long time to change. This is not true. It can take a long time to prepare to change or to decide to change or even to want to change. Change itself, however, happens in a heartbeat.

To avoid regret, you do and say and express every good thing you can possibly do and say and express to those you love. ’Cause you’re going to find there isn’t always time to whisper good-bye.

Wisdom could not be diminished. It can be silenced, it can be ignored, but it cannot be diminished. Wisdom will grow, as you seek it and add it into your life, but if you really want to see wisdom flourish... if you desire to see wisdom grow and bloom... you must plant a seed of it into the life of another.

While a culture may be defined by the customs and accepted practices of its people, it is critical to understand that it is the thinking of its people that creates a culture in the first place.

If you do not choose, you’ll end up like everyone else in the world who has never chosen. The people who do not actively choose a road to travel always default to the road everyone else is already on.

Every decision you ever made — the best ones and the worst ones — were, at their base, merely a product of your thinking at that time.

Never give in to a feeling of despair, fear, or defeat. Lead your negative emotion. Never allow those emotions to lead you. Always lead them by quickly moving in the opposite direction those emotions insist you should go!

A standard is an agreed-upon level of quality or attainment. One. One level of quality or attainment that is agreed upon. In other words, when a society grows comfortable with the idea that there can be many standards, the people have, in effect, accepted the reality that there will be no standard. Anything goes. And that, my friends, is exactly what happened to a once great, once wealthy, once undefeatable world power.

If your situtation is the fault of anything or anyone else...there is very little hope and absolutely zero power over your own life. "Responsibility is about hope and control. And...who doesn't want hope for a greater future that their choices control? ...Most folks look for their car keys with more energy than they search for the wisdom that can change their lives.

Darkness commands an inordinate amount of attention from a person who is unprepared and unprotected. Attention to darkness produces doubt. When a person is distracted and weakened by struggles, doubt whispers a message logically urging surrender; and soon, that person’s focus is on his own discomfort, his fear and anger, regret and resentment.

Learning’s purest form is realized by the individual who continues a quest beyond the classroom, fueled by a passion to discern wisdom. Wisdom — genuine truth — holds the key to refining one’s thinking. One seed, carefully tended, contains within it the power to change the world, for that single seed can yield an uncountable and ever-increasing number of seeds just as valuable

A culture is chosen by its people, either by deliberate decisions or acquiescence to how everyone feels at the time. The culture you live in today is the culture you have allowed. That is true of your family, and it is true of your country.

The correct definition of the word standard is "a required or agreed-upon level of quality or attainment." If that is true, and the definition of the word says that it is, then what today’s society has done by agreeing to disagree is to virtually announce that there are many standards. Society has proclaimed that a standard is whatever you decide it is. When a society grows comfortable with the idea that there can be many standards, the people have, in effect, accepted the reality that there will be no standard. Anything goes.

I am choosing to think differently. I am choosing to see my situation with perspective. When I find perspective, I establish power over my current circumstances.

Most folks greet confusion with surrender. Most people, when they don’t know what to do, do nothing. The average person meets an obstacle and tells himself, "This is not for me," or "I am not the kind of person who does things like this." Average people respond to confusion in an average way. They stop. But people who achieve extraordinary results think differently. They understand something very significant about confusion. Confusion precedes learning. The anxious thoughts that seem so puzzling or discouraging are actually your very gateway to understanding. Only by persistently doing battle with the things you cannot yet do or that which you do not yet understand can you ever hope to achieve what average people never accomplish. A sign of a person’s maturity is his ability to live with — even in — confusion. The average person meets the edge of confusion and turns away. He runs from confusion at its beginning, at its first appearance. He will not live with or even near confusion and seeks an easier path. The mature person—the high achiever — will understand that life’s grand prizes are guarded by confusion. The mature person senses the victory that exists beyond confusion and says, "I cannot do this... yet. I am not good at this yet, but I will work and learn and become better until I am competent, then excellent, then great! I will struggle and persist through confusion until I break through to the understanding or greater skill required for victory." It's a thought process. It opens up new possibilities for almost everything. The whole concept of "confusion before learning" means that confusion guards the answers we seek. You've got to be willing to enter into and do battle with the confusion in order to reach the victory on the other side... to take your life in a new and incredible direction.

What a person thinks is determined by how a person thinks. This is true whether the conclusion at which a person arrives is accurate, safe, and profitable — or stupid and vicious.

When we set out to accomplish something without a specific, agreed upon result, that lack of a common target yields results that are unpredictable at best.

Despite the ebb and flow of our feelings, we can control the way we act. Patience, for instance, is not a feeling. Patience is the description of a behavior. One can choose to act patiently even while the feeling of frustration tempts him to choose inappropriate behavior. It is impossible to feel frustrated and feel patient at the same time, but one can be inundated with feelings of frustration and still display patience. Patience is a discipline. It is an action. Patience is a chosen response.