Inspirational Living: Life Lessons for Success & Happiness

Motivational Podcast Excerpt: Listen to episode 115 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance. Adapted from the famous essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Life is now. Power exists not in repose, but in that moment of transition from the past to a new state of being. This is the one fact that the world hates, that the soul becomes; for this knowledge forever degrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to shame, and shoves the saint and sinner equally aside.

The soul requires self-reliance. Because self-reliance is power. And power is in nature the essential measure of life. We are in desperate need of greater self-reliance throughout our society: in our religions; in our schools and universities; in our work and ways of living; in our governments, and more. Remember to always follow your inner genius and never imitate.

Your own unique talents are something that you can offer others at every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation. But if you try to imitate the talents of another, you will only ever succeed by half. That which you can do best, none but your Maker can teach. And no person yet knows what your gifts are, nor can they, until you have shown them.

This adapted essay is included in our new hardcover book Evergreen: 50 Inspirational Life Lessons. Learn more at: InspirationalLifeLessons.com.

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Listen to episode 113 of the Inspirational Living podcast: The Majesty of Calmness. Adapted from a book of the same name by William George Jordan.

Motivational Podcast Excerpt: Hurry is the deathblow to calmness, to dignity, to poise. Hurry means the breakdown of the nerves. It is the royal road to perpetual worry. Everything that is great in life is the product of slow growth; the newer, and greater, and higher, and nobler the work, the slower is its growth, the surer is its lasting success.

Mushrooms attain their full power in a night; oaks require decades. A fad lives its life in a few weeks; a philosophy lives through generations and centuries. If you are sure you are right, do not let the voice of the world, or of friends, or of family swerve you for a moment from your purpose. Accept slow growth if it must be slow, and know the results must come, as you would accept the long, lonely hours of the night — with absolute assurance that the heavy-leaded moments must bring the morning.

Let us as individuals banish the word "Hurry" from our lives. Let us care for nothing so much that we would pay honor and self-respect as the price of hurrying it. Let us cultivate calmness, restfulness, poise, kindness — doing our best, bearing all things as bravely as we can; living our life undisturbed by the prosperity of the dishonest or the malice of the envious. Let us not be impatient, chafing at delay, fretting over failure, wearying over results, and weakening under opposition....

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Listen to episode 108 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Tao Te Ching. Edited and adapted from Dwight Goddard’s translation of the Lao Tzu’s classic book Tao Te Ching.

Spirituality Podcast Excerpt: The Tao has three treasures which it guards and cherishes. The first is called compassion; the second is called economy; the third is called humility. A person who is compassionate can 'be truly brave; a person who is economical can be truly generous; a person who is humble can become a useful servant.

If we discard compassion and are still brave, abandon economy and are still generous, forsake humility and still seek to be serviceable, our days are numbered. On the other hand, if we are truly compassionate, in battle we will be a conqueror and in defense we will be secure. When even Heaven helps people it is because of compassion that she does so.

My words are very easy to understand and very easy to put into practice, yet in all the world no one appears to understand them or to practice them. Words have an ancestor (a preceding idea), deeds have a master (a preceding purpose), and just as these are often not understood, so I am not understood.

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Listen to episode 106 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Is There Life After Death? Edited and adapted from “Does the Soul Exist After Death?” by Swami Abhedananda. Spiritual Podcast Excerpt: From ancient times there have been thinkers in India who denied the existence of the soul after the death of the body. They are known as Charvákas. They believe that the body is the soul, and that the soul does not exist outside of the body, and that when the body dies, the soul is also dead and gone. They believe in nothing that cannot be perceived by the senses. The followers of such thinkers are spreading very rapidly, and their number is increasing every day. They are now known as atheists, materialists, etc. According to this class of thinkers, those who believe in the existence of the soul as separate from the body, or in a life after death, are ignorant and superstitious fools, while those who follow their ideas are clever and intelligent beings. Most of them hold that there is no such thing as a soul. No argument can convince them or change their views, because they will not admit the existence of anything which lies beyond the reach of their senses, or which cannot be perceived by the limited powers of the senses. They have written volumes after volumes against the existence of the soul, and have tried to stop such useless questions of the mind; but in spite of their efforts, have they succeeded in stopping that innate question, "What remains after death?" — which rises spontaneously in almost every human heart? No...

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Listen to episode 99 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Inspirational Quotes & Meditations On Life. Edited and adapted from The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

Self-Help Podcast Excerpt: What can shake your belief in the goodness of humankind? The cruelty of others? Remember that we have come here for each other, and that people act out of ignorance. Have mercy on them. Have faith. Everything happens within a larger Order. You will find this to be true if you watch the world carefully. Don’t look at things the way wrong-doers do. Don’t look at things as wrong-doers want you too, either. Instead, strive to see things in truth, as they really are. Never value the things that will force you to lie, lose self-respect, hate, or deceive.

Whoever values peace of mind and the health of the soul will live the best of all possible lives. Oh, how peaceful it is to stop looking at what our neighbors say and do and think, and simply strive to bring our own lives into alignment with truth and kindness. Let us live simply and modestly – and if anyone says that we do not live a simple, modest life, let us not be angry with them, nor change our direction. If we hold to our ideals, we will move through life with purity and peace of mind.

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Listen to episode 94 of the Inspirational Living podcast: How to Be Self-Confident (Overcoming the Confidence Gap). Edited and adapted from Psychology & Higher Life by William McKeever, published in 1905.

Self-Development Podcast Excerpt: The self-confident person, of necessity, believes in other people. Old as I am, it stirs me up to put forth greater effort to have people believe in me. The ordinary little child will do their utmost to come up to the standard fixed for them by the expressed opinions of their elders. The self-reliant person, therefore, is a benefactor of his or her associates. It is such an easy matter to drift down to the level of a gossip, and later to that of a defamer of character, and finally to that of the chronic misanthrope.

If one goes about looking for the meanness in other people's character, you can surely find it. But so can you find the good — more of it than you can enumerate in a lifetime. Happy indeed is the individual who has formed the habit of looking for the good. And so in every clime, we find the stalwart, self-reliant character, who, in the language of the statesman might say: "Master of human destinies am I: Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait." Another of the great promoters of self-confidence, as well as of long life and happiness, is love. Everyone should by all means fall in love with something or somebody, or, better yet, with everybody...

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Listen to episode 93 of the Inspirational Living podcast: How to Be Successful & Influence Others to Succeed. Edited and adapted from The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan.

Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: In every moment of life, we are changing to a degree the life of the whole world. Every person has an atmosphere which is affecting every other. So silent and unconsciously is this influence working, that we may forget that it exists. All the forces of Nature — heat, light, electricity, and gravitation — are silent and invisible. We never see them; we only know that they exist by seeing the effects they produce. In all Nature, the wonders of the "seen" are dwarfed into insignificance, when compared with the majesty and glory of the "unseen".

In a thousand ways, Nature constantly seeks to lead us to a keener and deeper realization of the power and the wonder of the invisible. Into the hands of every individual is given a marvelous power for good or for evil — the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of our lives. This is simply the constant radiation of what we really are, not what we pretend to be.

Every individual, by their mere living, is radiating sympathy, or sorrow, or morbidness, or cynicism, or happiness, or hope, or any of a hundred other qualities. Life is a state of constant radiation and absorption; to exist is to radiate; to exist is to be the recipient of radiations. There are men and women whose presence seems to radiate sunshine, cheer, and optimism. You feel calmed and rested and restored to a new and stronger faith in humanity.

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Listen to episode 92 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Mental & Physical Fitness: Get Fit, Motivated & Inspired. Edited and adapted from Assuming Responsibilities by Douglas Fairbanks.

Motivational Podcast Excerpt: The person who rises in the morning from a healthy slumber and plunges into the bath after some vigorous exercise is prepared to undertake anything. Their world seems fair, and though the sun may not be shining literally, it is to all intents and purposes. Thus, they go swinging along with a cheery smile, carrying the message of hope and joy to all those with whom they come in contact.

Of course, mental fitness is equally important to physical fitness. And the character of a man and woman expresses itself by the books they read. Every well-informed person since the invention of the printing press has been a close reader of a few books that stand out from among the many. We read of Lincoln devouring the few books he had over and over again and studying from cover to cover and word for word the Webster's dictionary of his day.

As the poet Robert Heath once wrote, "A few good books, digested well, do feed the mind." Feed the mind! That's the idea — but how shall we feed it? The answer is easy — with something worthwhile — something that will inform and inspire. We can cram our minds to the point of indigestion with useless, frivolous information, just as easily as we may cram our stomachs with certain foods that tear down rather than build up.

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Listen to episode 90 of the Inspirational Living podcast: How to Be a Gentleman & Lady. Edited and adapted from The Man Who Pleases and The Woman Who Fascinates by John Albert Cone. Inspirational Podcast Excerpt: It is almost the definition of a gentleman and lady to say that they are ones who never inflict pain. They carefully avoid whatever may cause a jar or a jolt in the minds of those with whom they are with, keeping an eye on the sensibilities of all their company. They are tender toward the bashful, gentle toward the distant, and merciful toward the absurd. They avoid unreasonable allusions on topics which may irritate; they are seldom prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. Another delightful trait of the true lady and gentleman is that they make light of favors when they bestow them, and seem to be receiving when they are conferring. They never speak of themselves except when compelled, never defend themselves by a mere retort. They have no ears for slander or gossip; are scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with them, and interprets everything for the best. They are never mean or small in their disputes, never insinuate evil which they dare not say out loud. They have too much good sense to be affronted by insults, and are too busy with enjoying life to remember injuries. They may be right or wrong in their opinions, but they are too clear-headed to be unjust.

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Listen to episode 89 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Inspirational Life Lessons for Adults (Young & Old). Edited and adapted from Our Sunday Talks by James J. Owen.

Self-Help Podcast Excerpt: The materialist may balk at talk of the soul — for they view the physical world as the all in all of the universe. They see reality only in those coarser forms of matter that appeal to the physical senses. In fact, they deny the existence of any and everything that their senses cannot grasp, forgetting that there may be keener senses than those of their own organism.

We use the term "coarser forms of matter" because to the undeveloped mind, those are the only forms that make an impact upon the senses. But science is constantly unfolding new and imponderable forms of which the senses take no note. Traversing the field of matter, it enters a new and unexplored domain which seemingly lies outside the boundaries of matter. And here in a maze of subtle forces and forms, the unfolded mind is lost in wonder and reverence.

We should therefore be modest in our denial or rejection of what we do not know to be true. Comparatively speaking, there is very little that we can know of anything save the simplest rudiments. Whoever dogmatically asserts that a thing is NOT so, because they do not KNOW it to be so, simply advertises their ignorance to the world — and that goes for scientists as well as religious preachers.

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