英语读文

Let now be good

Let now be goodLet now be good. Let now bring its unique fulfillment and richness.Those days in the past that you remember as perfect had their problems and shortcomings. Those future times you imagine as ideal will not be flawless.Be thankful for what has been, for all that will be. And experience each joy as its time arrives.Now is everything you have. It is far from perfect, yet it is more than enough.Do the good you can do, now when you can. Be the authentic person you are, now when it matters.Let go of any longing for what might have been, or what was, or what could be, and just let now be good. Now is here for you, so be fully here for now.— Ralph Marston

New beauty

Listen to what life tells you. Act on it.Open yourself to truth, no matter how painful or demanding. Stick with that truth.Feel your own desires, your own fears, your potential for joy, your ability. Feel the love you have for all you care about.Be thankful for all you’ve been through, for all you have, for all that’s possible. Express that gratitude by making use of it, by pointing it in a positive and beneficial direction.Watch as the sun appears over the horizon. Stand in amazement at the opportunity contained in just a single day.Then do something about it, do something with it. Create the new beauty that is waiting for you to bring it to life.— Ralph Marston

Give to yourself

Give to yourself some goodness. Give to yourself some love.Give yourself some time, attention, patience, and care. Give yourself understanding and acceptance.Know how good it feels when you are genuinely good to yourself. Then realize how easily and naturally you can expand that good feeling to others.Be good to yourself not out of selfishness, but to gain skill and experience. Create within yourself a source and a supply of goodness that you can share with all of life.The more generously you give to yourself the more effectively you can give to those around you. Accept and understand yourself, and you’ll further your acceptance and understanding of others.What you have to give is what you have first given yourself. Give generously, and let that generosity expand far and wide.— Ralph Marston

Now is the hour

If you want to get ahead, today is the day to work on it. If you wish to make progress, now is the time to act.The past can give you a frame of reference. Yet your past can’t push you forward and you must not let it hold you back.Today is your opportunity to do what you’ve been meaning to do. The conditions are not perfect yet they are sufficient.Go ahead with what you have and utilize what’s available. Use today or you will lose today and its opportunities.The difficulties feel disheartening and the challenges seem overwhelming. Yet the moment you act you begin to put yourself in control and to change all that.So exercise your best option and do the good, useful, effective things you can do. This is the day, now is the hour.— Ralph Marston

Day by day

Your health, your wealth, your relationships, your self esteem are occasionally influenced by the big, dramatic things you do. Yet these areas of your life, and many more, are mostly determined by the little things you do, again and again, day by day.You can’t brush your teeth just once a month and expect to have a healthy mouth, even if you brush really, really well. You can’t make a big push to earn lots of money every six months, and do nothing the rest of the time, and expect to be financially secure.Ongoing, disciplined attention supports and advances the good things you care about. There is no substitute.Those good things that benefit you are inseparable from the diligence with which you enable them and attend to them. Day by day is the way.Make the best choices today, then make them again tomorrow, the next day, and the next. That’s what progress looks like, that is how success feels.Get in the habit of getting in the habit. You can do anything day by day, and it will take you wherever you decide to go.— Ralph Marston

Richness that endures

Richness that enduresPlenty of choices can bring you pleasure in the moment. Yet when the moment is over the pleasure is gone and you’re left with nothing to show for it.You can do better. You can choose other ways to spend your time, to invest your effort, attention, and resources.You don’t have to settle for cheap, meaningless, instant gratification. You always have the option to devote your time and energy to activities that bring lasting fulfillment.What can you do today that you’ll still be thankful for doing a week from now? What can you do with your time to create value that grows more meaningful as the months and years go by?The instant thrills and sensations will fade before the next instant. You deserve to experience richness that endures a whole lot longer than that.Live in the moment, but don’t live merely for the moment. Use today to enrich your world in ways that continue long after the day is over.— Ralph Marston

Do you really need it?

Give love

If your experience of love depends solely on being loved, you are sure to be disappointed. The power of love is in giving it.Waves crashing on a sandy beach are wholly incapable of loving you. Yet you can have great love for them, and that love can bring much beauty and fulfillment into your life.By letting go of your expectations about receiving love, you open yourself up to give more love. From that perspective you can fill your life and your world with the power of love.Love inspires you to do what you would otherwise be reluctant to do. Love brings you courage, confidence, competence, as well as the energy and focus to apply them well.You are always able to experience love because there is always some way for you to give it. It is in giving love that you find the wherewithal to live with meaning and fulfillment.Give love and expand its beneficial power into every corner of your existence, of your world. Give love, and live at your most purposeful, authentic, and effective level.— Ralph Marston

Give it a go

It might work out and it might not. The only way you’ll find out is to give it a go.It’s comfortable and convenient to sit and do nothing. Yet it’s a whole lot more interesting and fulfilling to get up and explore some unknown territory.Don’t just talk about what you might do, or wonder what it would be like. Take the steps, make the efforts, find a way, and make it happen.Life is here right now to be lived. And right now is when you must live to the fullest, not someday, not when things are perfect, but right now as it is.Though you’re certain to run into some problems, go ahead and give it a go. Though you’re often not sure what to expect, with each passing day you grow more capable at dealing with whatever arises.There’s no end to the possibilities for achievement and discovery. Step forward today and give it a go.— Ralph Marston

Raising your expectations

Raising your expectationsWhat you get comes from what you expect. If you’re not getting what you desire, raise your expectations.Raising your expectations does not mean merely increasing their size and scope. It means more accurately aligning them with what’s true, what’s real and what’s possible.For example, expecting to get something for nothing is a low level expectation. Expecting an opportunity to earn what you desire is a more realistic, higher level expectation.Though their influence does extend beyond you, your expectations are primarily centered on what you expect from yourself. When you raise your expectations you challenge yourself to live more purposefully, more richly.You embrace responsibility for your own outcomes. You position yourself in accordance with your expectations and then act to fulfill them.Much more than just a wish list, your expectations embed themselves deeply in all you do, in all you are. Raise those expectations, and then rise to the challenges those new expectations set forth.— Ralph Marston

Tell yourself

Tell yourself why you must do it, and why you can do it. Tell yourself you will.Tell yourself you are starting now. And then do as you have told yourself.In the past, you’ve told yourself about all the excuses you have for not taking action. And indeed those excuses have been effective at preventing your actions.Going forward, tell yourself why, tell yourself you must, tell yourself you are doing it. You’ll be just as effective at getting yourself into action.You might pay attention to others and you might not. Yet you always pay attention to yourself.So give yourself some positive direction and give yourself the confidence, along with a little push, to move in that direction. Tell yourself you’re doing it, and you’ll realize that you are.— Ralph Marston

Meet the demands

Avoiding effort is itself an effort and a burden on you. Perhaps you’re better off just going ahead and doing what must be done.Putting off an unpleasant task until later does not make it any more pleasant. What will make your life more pleasant is to put forth the necessary effort and get the work finished.You cannot get around the fact that life places certain demands on you. What you can do is meet those demands in ways that create value and fulfillment.Look from the perspective of opportunity, of possibility. See what the situation offers you alongside what it demands of you.After all, the necessity of meeting life’s demands is what it is. Your thoughts are what can make it into a burden, yet you’re entirely able to choose different thoughts.When life’s demands arise, promptly acknowledge them and go about dealing with them. Life demands much of you, so activate your beautiful ability to transform those demands into value.— Ralph Marston

Sufficient time

Sometimes it’s necessary to rush through a task or an experience. Most of the time it’s not, and your excessive haste can be counterproductive.You deserve the experience of savoring whatever you do. Your work benefits when you can focus on it without the constant pressure to get it finished quickly.No, that’s not always possible. Yet there are often ways for you to make it possible.Do what you can to give the important things in your life sufficient time. Time is highly valuable and confers its value to those endeavors upon which it is generously bestowed.Life unfolds at a certain pace. If you race too far ahead of that pace, you miss out on much of life’s richness.Give your work, your relationships, your dreams, adventures, and advancements the time they require. Let your life benefit from those treasures that only sufficient time can bring forth.— Ralph Marston

Strength to move forward

Every fault you admit can challenge you to improve yourself. Every weakness you embrace you can proceed to transform into a strength.The failures you acknowledge illuminate opportunities for success. Your mistakes and their consequences teach you how to make better choices.Any regret you have, as painful as it may be, serves a positive purpose. It’s an effective reminder not to create more regrets.Certainly you don’t want to wallow in the negative aspects of your past or present. But you don’t want to completely ignore them either.Whatever you’ve done or failed to do that has held you back can now point you in a more positive direction going forward. The costly price you’ve paid for your experience can now be transformed into useful value.Never does your past have to be an excuse for a dismal future. For right now you can choose, you can act, you can improve, transforming whatever has held you back into new strength to move forward.— Ralph Marston

Offer encouragement

Give encouragement and it expands. When you encourage someone else the person who ends up with the most profound encouragement is very often you.Every life is filled with unused potential. Encouragement breaks that potential loose, activates it, transforms it into all kinds of good things.Even just a little bit of encouragement can create a shift to a whole new perspective. Knowing that someone cares, feeling the reality of that caring, changes the world.Encouragement is contagious. One person who is encouraged will encourage many others who will themselves pass encouragement along.All around you are people who can benefit from your encouragement, including you. If you seek to make a difference, that’s a potent opportunity for doing so.Offer encouragement. Be a positive, encouraging force in the lives of those around you, and in your own life as well.— Ralph Marston

Treasure today

Life is filled with potential treasure. What can you treasure today?Treasure is not an objective reality. The treasure in your life is what you consider it to be, what you make it to be.Treasure is both a noun and a verb, the object of your love and the giving of that love. It requires no precondition, and can be applied to anything.Consider all you can improve by choosing to treasure it. Think of the unique treasure that you can add to life.What you treasure becomes your treasure. And many others are able to treasure it as well.One of your greatest treasures is your ability to treasure. With it you can spread life’s treasures far and wide.— Ralph Marston

Embrace today

Today will give you things you need, and many of them you won’t like. Take them anyway and be thankful, because you’re sure to eventually find great use for them.Today will ask you to put forth some effort, make some sacrifices, and suffer a little unpleasantness. Eagerly do what’s asked of you and tomorrow you’ll thank yourself for the trouble.If you let it, today will build your skills and increase your strength. Today will drop challenges on top of you, and in those challenges you can find great value.Today is potential, promise, possibility. Today is tedious, frustrating, confusing.Today is precisely where you’ll find life, your life. And today is where you can add new levels of richness to life by the way you choose to live it.Today is not perfect, yet it is filled with everything you have and all you can be. Embrace today and all it encompasses as if it’s the most important thing you can do, because it is.— Ralph Marston

Positive and passionate purpose

Airing your grievances can feel good. But then what?Finding new ways to complain about the same old things is not doing anyone any good. Don’t let yourself get stuck in that trap.You’re passionate about the problems. Now do something positive and useful with that passion.Yes, acknowledge those problems, and also choose not to let your life be defined by them. Do the work to create a positive and realistic vision of what you can live for.See how much of your time, energy, focus, and awareness you can put into following that vision. See if you can get yourself to a place where your default feeling is one of hope rather than angst, and keep yourself there.Your urge to complain about what’s wrong is pushing you to find new ways of doing what’s right. Accept the challenge, and give life the benefit of your positive and passionate purpose.

Set sail at sunset

Do what enables and encourages you to be delighted with the world. It is no less a necessity than breathing, eating, sleeping.See that which is beyond what you have a reason to see. Experience what you could not ever expect to experience.Make sure all your planning and striving have a purpose beyond merely more planning and striving. If you can make sense of all that calls to you, you’re not listening intently enough.In this particular time and place you’re connected to all that has ever been and all that can possibly be. Gaze through those windows of beauty and mystery that permit you to see that reality.Many things limit and constrain you, while some things set you free. Pay attention to them all.Set sail at sunset, fly to the moon. Remind yourself how beautiful and amazing it is, to be.— Ralph Marston

Ideal choice

On very rare occasions you can make the perfect choice. At all other times the perfect choice is not available to you, so you must make the best choice.None of the alternatives you have to choose from may be ideal. Yet at least one of those alternatives is likely preferable to avoiding a choice altogether.Or it could be that all of the alternatives are highly desirable, and you don’t want to miss out on any of them. Even in that case, choosing one and excluding all the rest is better than not choosing at all.You can’t have everything, and you don’t want to have nothing. So you must choose, and make a commitment to your choice.Value, success, and fulfillment are general, all-encompassing terms. Yet for each of these good things to be present in your life, it must exist in a specific form.Your choices give life to your vision, to your ideals, even when what you have to choose from is not ideal. Choose the best that you can at every juncture, and you’ll steadily work your way to where you want to be.— Ralph Marston

Life matters

 Your life matters.This hour matters. This day matters.What you are doing makes a difference. Your commitment to excellence and integrity makes a difference.Nothing you do is worthless, yet everything you do can be improved upon. No one you encounter is perfect, yet everyone has something unique to offer.It’s easy to feel overwhelmed. But it’s better, and just as realistic, to be filled with wonder and amazement.Live every moment of life as if it matters. And you’ll know without the slightest doubt that it does.— Ralph Marston

Truth and falsehood

What is the difference between truth and falsehood? Truth can stand up to repeated, robust scrutiny, and falsehood cannot.Truth is not a function of who it comes from. That is trust.Certainly there are people you trust to speak the truth and people who can be depended on to lie. Yet truth itself is independent of how it gets to you.Those who deal in truth are eager to be questioned and challenged about it. Those who deal in lies cannot tolerate any dissenting opinions.At the most fundamental level, you depend on truth, from yourself, from others, to survive. Whenever you venture away from what is true, what is real, reality always wins.Seek out and live by those truths, within you, outside you, that can stand up to challenge. With truth, every good thing is possible.— Ralph Marston

All that will happen

Think for a while about the days to come and remind yourself of this. You will have the chance to do your best, and you will be able to do well.Life’s challenges will continue to test your strength. As a result your strength will grow and your skills will improve.You cannot know all that will happen tomorrow, yet you can know this. Everything you experience has the potential to add richness to your life.You’ll have opportunities to offer kindness, to practice patience, focus, and discipline. There will always be new mysteries to intrigue you, lessons to teach you, endeavors to enrich you.There was a time when you never even knew about or cared about much of what you now value. Imagine how much more you will come to treasure and love as life continues to unfold.In whatever may come there is goodness and value to be found. Step forward with confidence and create your own unique richness in each new moment that arrives.— Ralph Marston

Accept this moment

Accept the moment that is, as it is. Settle into it, easing away from dissatisfaction with the past, away from concern about the future.Accept the situation that is, as it is. Once you do, you give yourself the power to transcend it.Acceptance is about right now, and doesn’t mean you’re forever fine with the way things are. It means you’re clear, realistic, able to focus, able to act in beneficial ways.Let go of your racing thoughts about what could have been, what might or might not happen. Stop second guessing yourself and center your thoughts and actions around a positive intention.What’s done is done, and now is the time to make good use of it. Whatever challenges may loom ahead, the best way to meet them is with clarity and meaningful purpose.Keep all your energy pointed toward what you can do right now to support those things that truly matter. Accept this moment fully, and empower yourself to create maximum value with it.— Ralph Marston

Lift up the lives around you

If you always dominate the conversation, you’ll be invited into fewer and fewer conversations. If you always cheat at the game, very soon no one will want to play with you.It is in your own interest to restrain your own interest. Because your own well being is interwoven with the well being of others.Your most rewarding goal is not to always win at any cost. Your most rewarding goal is to develop and maintain a world where as many people as possible can win.That doesn’t mean denying or opposing your own self interest. It means understanding your self interest from a broad perspective.Success is not an isolated phenomenon. Though success is built through individual effort, the greatest successes are those that encompass and benefit the most individuals.Seek always to succeed in ways that inspire and enable many others to succeed. Lift up the lives around you, for that is the most dependable and fulfilling way to lift your own life as well.— Ralph Marston

Reward yourself with responsibility

Nothing will solve your problems until you take responsibility for them. That truth is built more deeply into life than you can imagine.You cannot escape the necessity of taking responsibility. Seeking to hand that responsibility off to others only makes your situation worse.Yes, others can be of great help to you, and yes, others may very well be to blame for your situation. Nevertheless, you must take responsibility for it, and once you do so, good things begin to happen.Take responsibility, and you liberate yourself from the oppression of your own denial. You see reality more clearly, and you find ways to increase that clarity.You begin to discover your own power and effectiveness, and you begin to add to it. Taking responsibility is not easy, comfortable, or convenient, yet it’s really your only choice.You’re rewarded with a measure of control over the way your life unfolds and an ability to respond to whatever comes. Give yourself that ability, without hesitation, without condition.— Ralph Marston

Life’s call to action

When life asks the most from you is when you’re getting the most from life. What you receive is inseparable from what you give.Dig deep, give more, and you’ll benefit just as much as anyone. That is the essential nature of every opportunity.Today is filled with many such opportunities. Turn toward them, filled with gratitude, eager to do your best work.Get involved and invested, pulling life again and again in a more positive direction. Let each small gain remind you how much more you can do.Achievement is not easy but neither is it complicated. It’s a matter of going where you are needed and doing what must be done.You’ve always been good at that, and each effort makes you better. Answer life’s call to action and share in the great rewards.— Ralph Marston

Something you can love

Something you can loveThere is something you can love about right now. Do you see it, can you feel it?Somewhere within this moment is unique beauty. Somehow within this situation is positive potential.Encourage yourself to resonate with the goodness that already exists. Challenge yourself to envision and create the value that can be.Go beyond the obvious and look with eyes enlightened by love. Discover how very much there is to love, to care for, to build upon right here and right now.Colors, sounds, feelings, motions and ideas swirl through your awareness. Connect them all together and give them a positive, useful direction with love.This is the moment you have, this is the moment you are living. To find the very best in it give your very best to it, with love leading the way.— Ralph Marston

Make a little progress

Even a small amount of progress feels good. Even a small amount of progress is better than no progress.What good thing can you do that will make life just a little bit better? Give it priority, give it attention, give it action, get it done.Do you wish you had more confidence in yourself, or in the future? Make a little progress and you’ll discover a lot more of that confidence you seek.Remind yourself of your abilities in a way you won’t soon forget, in a way you cannot deny. Deposit a little bit of new value into life where it did not exist before.That is the real life magic of which you’re capable. And when you perform a little of that magic, you’ll be inspired and encouraged by yourself and others to do more.A little progress is yours to be had within the hour, at any hour. It’s a powerful way to successfully deal with whatever confronts you right now.— Ralph Marston

Continue your choices

A single positive choice is one step in the right direction. For that one step to have any lasting consequence, you must continue to add to it.Whatever success you seek will not magically spring from just one choice. Success is built upon many, many choices that all support and enable each other.Choose a healthy, nutritious breakfast, and follow that choice with a nutritious lunch and dinner. Then continue your healthy choices the next day, and the next, and make those choices a continuing part of your life.Choose to show up on time and do more than is asked of you, then make that choice again, week after week, month after month. Give power to each positive choice by carrying it with you as you move steadily into the future.As you follow through with each choice, feel its immediate benefits and envision its long-term value. Right then and there, inspire yourself, commit yourself to making that choice again.Continue to link your positive choices, another upon another. What you’ve chosen before, you can choose again, giving your choices the power to bear magnificent fruit.— Ralph Marston