My Voters Guide

Are you going to vote in the upcoming elections? How are you going to vote? What issues are central to your decisions? How will your political decisions and political activity affect your life - especially your relationships with your family, friends, and neighbors?

5. To address the last issue first, ensure that however strong your political opinions, please don't lose any friends over politics. If your mix of friends is anything like mine, almost half are avid Conservatives, almost half are avid Progressives, and only a few are undecided or have chosen to distance themselves from any involvement in the election process.

Whoever is elected, we still need to love, honor, and respect our family, friends, and neighbors.

I never considered a difference of opinion
in politics, in religion, in philosophy,
as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
- Thomas Jefferson

4. Life will go on for each of us after the election.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed

(and hence clamorous to be led to safety)

by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins,

all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken

Success is not final, failure is not fatal.
It is the courage to continue that counts.
- Winston Churchill

3. Remember that most of the people you know have already made up their minds. Reserve your political (and religious) conversations for those who value your thoughts and are open to new ideas - or who are just open to a friendly debate.


2. If you are one of the few who has not made a final decision, consider looking beyond single "hot button" issues, beyond your own self-interest, and beyond this year.

Plant trees for your great-grandchildren -
for future generations.
Create the legacy of a better world.
Leave this world a better place than you found it.
Literally planting trees for
your great-grandchildren is a wonderful idea,
but far more important...
use this symbolism - this imagery -
to represent the kind of legacy
you want to leave to future generations.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

1. Please vote whenever there is an election. Your vote matters very much. Not only does your vote matter numerically, it matters that you are a full participant in your country's future.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Is Hope Futile?

Question: I have tried goal setting and hoped for many things, but not one of them has ever happened.  In fact if I really take off after something, that is an absolute 100% guarantee it won't happen. Is hope futile?

My Answer:

There are a number of steps on the path to success - and you need all of them.

1. Believe that God wants good things for you.

Our prayers should be for blessings in general,
for God knows best what is good for us.
- Socrates

2. Believe in yourself - develop self-esteem.
(see How to Build Self Esteem)

Believe in yourself. Have faith in your abilities.
Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers
you cannot be successful or happy.
- Norman Vincent Peale

3. Take action toward your goals - every day.

You can't cross the sea merely by
standing and staring at the water.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Achievement seems to be connected with action.
Successful men and women keep moving.
They make mistakes, but they don't quit.
- Conrad Hilton

4. Accept "failure" when it comes. "Failure" may mean either that you have learned something that will enable you to "succeed" next time, or that God has chosen something better for you than what you asked for - even if it doesn't seem so at the time.

Success consists of going from failure to failure
without loss of enthusiasm.
- Winston Churchill

A wonderful gift may not be wrapped as you expect.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

(also see A wonderful gift may not be wrapped as you expect
and Maybe So, Maybe Not. - Ancient Taoist Proverb)

5. Never stop trying. Look for new paths toward your highest level goal (your life mission) - and do not get stuck in repeating old methods that didn't work.

Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.
- Napoleon Hill

If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up.
Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
- Michael Jordan


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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie