I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.
- -- Abraham Lincoln

In-between stimulus and response is a space. In that space lies our power and freedom to choose. How we wield those choices determines our happiness.
--Steven R. Covey

"We are continually faced with great opportunities which are brilliantly disguised as unsolvable problems." 

Margaret Mead

Whatever you plant in your subconscious mind
and nourish every day with conviction and emotion
will one day become a reality.

Constant repetition carries conviction.
Repeat something often enough and it will start to become you.
A change in what you tell yourself
will result in a change in your behavior.

What you impress upon your mind,
you'll inevitably become.
Self suggestion will make you master of yourself.

Max Steingart

"Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life." -
Immanuel Kant

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him with his friendship.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don't serve time; make time serve you.
You always have enough time if you will but use it wisely.
Your dilemma goes deeper than having a shortage of time,
it's basically a problem of priorities.
Most people leave undone those things that should be done,
while they do things that they shouldn't be doing.

Set priorities for your goals.
A major part of successful living lies in your ability to put first things
first.
Most major goals are not achieved because people put second things first.

Is what you're doing getting you closer to your objectives?
Anything that is wasted effort represents wasted time.
Max Steingart

"What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step."

-- Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Someday, in years to come, you will be wrestling with the great temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life. But the real struggle is here, now, in these quiet times. Now it is being decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, you shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character cannot be made except by a steady, long continued process.
 Phillips Brooks

Success doesn't "happen." It is organized, preempted, captured, by consecrated common F.E. Willard

We each have all the time there is; our mental and moral status is determined by what we do with it.
- Mary Blake

"Nobility is not a birthright. It is defined by one's actions." Kevin Costner (Robin) in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)

'What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself."Note: Sourced by NJC

"In times of change learners inherit the earth, while
the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world
that no longer exists."–Eric Hoffer

"No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance."
Confucius

Perhaps love is the process of my leading you gently back to yourself.
- Antoine De Saint-Exupery

"When someone is happy, positive, upbeat and passionate about things, it trickles down."
Andrew Jacob Mahr

This is a particularly long 4th of July Thought For The Day. I have shared it with some, others will be reading it for the first time. It is from a speech from Dr. Isaac Asimov, famed scientist, science and science fiction writer  who at one time held the title for the most published human being ever.

From Dr. Asimov's own writing:

" I have a weakness–I am crazy, absolutely nuts, about our National Anthem.

The words are difficult and the tune is almost impossible, but frequently when I'm taking a shower I sing it with as much power and emotion as I can. It shakes me up every time.

I was once asked to speak at a luncheon.  I announced I was going to sing our national anthem–all four stanzas.

I explained the background of the anthem and then sang all four stanzas.

Let me tell you, those people had never heard it before–or had never really listened. I got a standing ovation. But it was not me; it was the anthem.

More recently, while conducting a seminar, I told my students the story of the anthem and sang all four stanzas. Again there was a wild ovation and prolonged applause. And again, it was the anthem and not me.

So now let me tell you how it came to be written.

In 1812, the United States went to war with Great Britain, primarily over freedom of the seas. We were in the right. For two years, we held off the British, even though we were still a rather weak country. Great Britain was in a life and death struggle with Napoleon. In fact, just as the United States declared war, Napoleon marched off to invade Russia. If he won, as everyone expected, he would control Europe, and Great Britain would be isolated. It was no time for her to be involved in an American war.

At first, our seamen proved better than the British. After we won a battle on Lake Erie in 1813, the American commander, Oliver Hazard Perry, sent the message "We have met the enemy and they are ours." However, the weight of the British navy beat down our ships eventually. New England, hard-hit by a tightening blockade, threatened secession.

Meanwhile, Napoleon was beaten in Russia and in 1814 was forced to abdicate. Great Britain now turned its attention to the United States, launching a three-pronged attack. The northern prong was to come down Lake Champlain toward New York and seize parts of New England. The southern prong was to go up the Mississippi, take New Orleans and paralyze the west. The central prong was to head for the mid-Atlantic states and then attack Baltimore, the greatest port south of New York. If Baltimore was taken, the nation, which still hugged the Atlantic coast, could be split in two. The fate of the United States, then, rested to a large extent on the success or failure of the central prong.

The British reached the American coast, and on August 24, 1814, took Washington, D. C. Then they moved up the Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore. On September 12, they arrived and found 1000 men in Fort McHenry, whose guns controlled the harbor. If the British wished to take Baltimore, they would have to take the fort.

On one of the British ships was an aged physician, William Beanes, who had been arrested in Maryland and brought along as a prisoner. Francis Scott Key, a lawyer and friend of the physician, had come to the ship to negotiate his release. The British captain was willing, but the two Americans would have to wait. It was now the night of September 13, and the bombardment of Fort McHenry was about to start.

As twilight deepened, Key and Beanes saw the American flag flying over Fort McHenry. Through the night, they heard bombs bursting and saw the red glare of rockets. They knew the fort was resisting and the American flag was still flying. But toward morning the bombardment ceased, and a dread silence fell. Either Fort McHenry had surrendered and the British flag flew above it, or the bombardment had failed and the American flag still flew.

As dawn began to brighten the eastern sky, Key and Beanes stared out at the fort, tyring to see which flag flew over it. He and the physician must have asked each other over and over, "Can you see the flag?"

After it was all finished, Key wrote a four stanza poem telling the events of the night. Called "The Defence of Fort M'Henry," it was published in newspapers and swept the nation. Someone noted that the words fit an old English tune called "To Anacreon in Heaven" –a difficult melody with an uncomfortably large vocal range. For obvious reasons, Key's work became known as "The Star Spangled Banner," and in 1931 Congress declared it the official anthem of the United States.

Now that you know the story, here are the words. Presumably, the old doctor is speaking. This is what he asks Key:

Oh! say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
W hat so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?

And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
Oh! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

"Ramparts," in case you don't know, are the protective walls or other elevations that surround a fort. The first stanza asks a question. The second gives an answer:

On the shore, dimly seen thro' the mist of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep.
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream
'Tis the star-spangled banner. Oh! long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

"The towering steep" is again, the ramparts. The bombardment has failed, and the British can do nothing more but sail away, their mission a failure.

In the third stanza, I feel Key allows himself to gloat over the American triumph. In the aftermath of the bombardment, Key probably was in no mood to act otherwise.

During World War II, when the British were our staunchest allies, this third stanza was not sung. However, I know it, so here it is:

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footstep's pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The fourth stanza, a pious hope for the future, should be sung more slowly than the other three and with even deeper feeling.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation,
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n - rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, for our cause is just,
And this be our motto–"In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

I hope you will look at the national anthem with new eyes. Listen to it, the next time you have a chance, with new ears.

And don't let them ever take it away.

–Isaac Asimov, March 1991

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA

You cannot always control your circumstances.
But, you can control your own thoughts.
There is nothing either good or bad,
only your thinking makes it so.

Things turn out best for those people
who can make the best out of the way things turn out.
It's not the situation, it's your reaction to the situation.

The reality in your life may result from many outside factors,
none of which you can control.
Your attitude, however,
reflects the ways in which you deal with what is happening to you.

Life at any time can become difficult.
Life at any time can become easy.
It all depends upon how you adjust yourself to life.

What you see in your mind is what you'll get out of life.
Max Steingart

This above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.
- William Shakespeare