High Apple Pie in the Sky Hopes

I get the best emails from a friend of mine. Lately, I've been really working from both ends of the spectrum on getting life back to as-normal-as-I-get after this treatment for aplastic anemia (coming up on the 100 day mark, this coming Tuesday). Every day, he sends me and list of people an email featuring Ralph Marston. Very positive and insightful. This Ralph Marston is better than caffeine every morning. Well, ok, almost -- I still need the coffee, half-caff. I try. So anyway, I thought I'd keep posting the emails while I get back into the groove soon. Not the rut, just the groove. I like this one in particular. It's my favorite subject matter, about The Little Guy Getting Ahead with big value from small opportunities:

"Sometimes the opportunities that seem the smallest are the best. For they're the opportunities that have the most room for growth. The biggest, most obvious opportunities attract a great deal of attention. That can make them fiercely competitive because of all the people who seek tomake the most of them. Small opportunities can go largely unnoticed.

"Yet for someone who makes the effort to see it, a small opportunity can be an ideal platform on which to build great value. Small opportunities are numerous and widely available. You could spend yourwhole life waiting for a big opportunity, while many small opportunities comealong every day.

"Small opportunities usually offer more latitude, flexibility and room forcreativity. With small opportunities you can make the most of your own unique passion and purpose. Open your eyes to the abundance of seemingly small opportunities that arrivein your world on a daily basis. For even with small opportunities you can create big value."

-- Ralph Marston

Go, Ralphie! Thanks for the positive goods!

Haven't had proper time to write.

But I do have time to share. Got this in the email today from a friend.

"A Positive Way"

How do you keep yourself positive when the people around you are so negative? How can you maintain a positive approach when the situations and events around you are so troublesome? A sincerely positive attitude is not a reaction to the way things are. Rather, it is an expression of the way you choose for things to be.

Being positive is not an unrealistic or naive view of a negative world. It provides you with a solid foundation for making real improvements in the world and creating meaningful value.

Being positively focused enables you to see, and to make the most of, opportunities that would otherwise be invisible. Being positive gives you the energy to move forward no matter what the obstacles may be.

When you focus on the positive aspects of a situation, there will be plenty of people who disagree with you. But that is their problem, not yours.

Look beyond those who argue for defeat, and find the path to victory. Whatever the current situation may be, you can always choose a positive way forward.

-- Ralph Marston