A 90 Year Old Woman's Commandments For A Successful Life

I'm not much of a one for rules and commandments but I came across the story of a lady called Elodie Armstrong. She had multiple sclerosis, but lived happily for over 40 years following her diagnosis. When she was 90 she decided to share her personal ten commandments.

Some of them are perhaps nothing new, others may be easier said than done, but it's interesting to see them gathered together. Numbers 1, 3, 8, 9 are ones that I would say I try to follow but, whatever, here are Mrs. Armstrong's commandments.

1. Thou shalt not worry, for worry is the most unproductive of all human activities.

2. Thou shalt not be fearful, for most things we fear never come to pass.

3. Thou shalt not cross bridges before you get to them, for no one yet has succeeded in accomplishing this.

4. Thou shalt face each problem as it comes. You can handle only one at a time anyway.

5. Thou shalt not take problems to bed with you for they make very poor bedfellows.

6. Thou shalt not borrow other people's problems. They can take better care of them than you can.

7. Thou shalt not try to relive yesterday for good or ill - it is gone. Concentrate on what is happening in your life today.

8. Thou shalt count thy blessings, never overlooking the small ones, for a lot of small blessings add up to a big one.

9. Thou shalt be a good listener, for only when you listen do you hear ideas different from your own. It's very hard to learn something new when you're talking.

10. Thou shalt not become bogged down by frustration, for 90 percent of it is rooted in self-pity and it will only interfere with positive action.

Other Random Posts:
Positive Thinking Creates An Aluminium Ladder!
Anne Parrish Book Coincidence
23 Funny Children's Letters To God

Positive Thinking Creates An Aluminium Ladder!

The power of positive thinking or visualisation - does it work? Here's a story which illustrates that it does. Though many will simply write it off as a 'coincidence'.

Pete Leeder had been doing some outside work on his house and realised he needed a ladder, preferably a 20 foot aluminium ladder.

Although he had most tools in his well stocked workshop, the one thing he didn't have was a 20 foot aluminium ladder. Neither did any of his near neighbours. So he drove to the local hardware store - and no, they didn't have one either.

At that point, Leeder decided to utilise the old psychic powers of the mind and zero in on the subject of ladders and his need and desire for one. Meanwhile, from the hardware store, he drove to meet his wife where she worked. During this drive he was thinking about how he could secure the ladder to the car once he had 'achieved' one.

He remembered there were some heavy ropes in the car trunk so he figured he would tie them to the ladder and then run the ends through the open windows of the car and tie them securely inside. Working on this problem kept his mind constantly on the subject of the ladder need.

Having collected his wife, Leeder now began his drive home but, instead of going the usual way, found himself taking a different route entirely. Part of the route was along a road where there were few houses and little development, so consequently there were few pedestrians and hardly any traffic.

Only two people were walking along that particular stretch of road, and they happened to be boys about 12. Between them they were carrying a ladder, a 20 foot aluminium ladder!

To his wife's surprise, Leeder pulled up alongside them and asked them where they were going.

"We've got a treehouse in the ravine down there," said one. "This is going to be part of the structure.".

"Is it your ladder?" asked Leeder..

"Sure it is," replied the boy. "My pop's in construction but he could've been killed the other day when his metal ladder went near some overhead cables. He got himself a new wooden one and said we could have this one.".

"Want to sell it?" asked Leeder..

"How much?" responded the boy.

"Ten bucks," said Leeder..

"Done," said the boy..

Leeder handed over the money, went to the trunk, got out the heavy rope and put his prepared ladder-tying-up plan into action. It worked. The boys happily pocketed the windfall and Leeder drove home with his ladder..

All in all his positive thinking resulted in fulfilment in just 45 minutes.

I know many ridicule visualisation and positive thinking, or whatever you want to call it but it does work - even for finding a car parking space! See my post How To Get A Car Parking Space Using Coincidences. If you can create a parking space then why not, well anything!

Accentuate The Positive

I suppose I'll have to accept that I'll never be rich because I never get the breaks and life is hard. I've tried, but I can't save money as money just burns a hole in my pocket.

I've got a friend and he is filthy rich but money isn't everything. Besides if I earn a lot I'll just have to pay higher taxes and if I did have money I'd just worry about losing it.

As for my health I'm catching a cold which is just my luck. I would go to the doctor but you can't trust anyone can you? It's a dog-eat-dog world. If something can go wrong, it will.

Sometimes we get the life that we ask for. So ...

You've got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
And latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In-Between *

And it's not just with money or health.

I can't remember names ... I'm always losing things ... I must be losing my mind ... I'll never understand ... I'm falling apart ...

They are just a few of the phrases I've heard recently.

Does this matter? Well it does if we believe that, what we give out is what we get back.

* Accentuate the Positive lyrics by Johnny Mercer.

Other Recent Posts:
Married Couple Were Unknowingly Photographed Together As Children
A Cornish Journey Back To 1644 At Restormel Castle
In Life We Are Programmed Into A WYSIWYG Matrix

The Cat Is Crying So Whose Died?

Two or more cats were howling horribly nearby as I tried to get to sleep last night. "Wonder whose died?" I thought.

It's strange the garbage that can flow through the mind when we are half asleep, but  it came to me that a lot of these thoughts have a source, often going back many years. We are made up of all the information that has been thrown at us since we were born - and not only by the media at large.

When I was a child my mother told me that when a cat or cats cry outside of a house it means there has been a death in the family. I don't know where she got this from but it's become a part of what is me. The idea or thought still lingers after all those years have gone flown by.

But it's not only other people's thoughts or stories that infiltrate our minds so do our own.

I remember when I was sixteen there was a girl I fancied. From somewhere I had heard that if you wish for something while under a bridge, especially a train bridge, then this would come true. Fortunately there was such a bridge near to where I then lived! So I made many detours on my bike wishing that I would go out with this particular girl. Not sure why I didn't simply ask her out!

The peculiar thing is that sometimes, when I drive under a bridge in the car, I'll still think of that girl as she was then. I no longer wish to go out with her, of course. She could well be a grandmother now - just imagine. Okay, I know I've now got a grandson - but who would have thought such a thing possible back then.

I guess what I'm getting round to saying is that words have a remarkable power to stay with us and influence our lives and beliefs. We have to, therefore, be a bit careful what we say to others - especially children - and also what words we allow as seeds to germinate in our own minds.

The fact that crying cats make me think that someone may have died isn't too much of a hassle and remembering a teenage girlfriend is actually quite pleasant. But what about all of the other words and ideas I've gathered over the years. Hopefully most of them are positive but in reality they will be mixed.

If our own words can stay with us and influence us it might be as well to take care what we repeat to ourselves. Positive auto-suggestion, as it used to be called in the 1970s, is a useful tool.

We are a bit like sponges and at times we perhaps need to squeeze out all of the dirty water and top up with something pure and sparkling. That's surely what the Law of Change is all about.

We want to make sure that our words and thoughts create a good future for ourselves.

Photo by Diego Grez via Wikimedia Commons

Don't Look At The Clouds Of Tomorrow Through The Sunshine Of Today

This is something I came across yesterday: an attitude towards life. It's in the words of Rolling Stone Mick Jagger - quite a deep man in some respects.

Mick has been putting together an album, SuperHeavy, as part of a 'super group' which includes the likes of Dave Stewart, AR Rahman and Damian Marley (son of reggae legend Bob).

Invariably though, when he is interviewed, reporters want to look at the 'old days' of the Stones and this is what he replied:

"Don't look back. I live in the now. But I don't ever think, 'This is amazing, I can't believe I'm still doing this.' I am doing it. I'm just doing it. And I don't think, 'It's all gone so fast', because for me it's still happening. When I started it was a different century and it seems like that. You move on, it's all good."

Mick went on to say, "You watch what you eat, you exercise, you have a bit of fun. You keep going forward. Don't stop. Do what makes you happy. Don't look at the clouds of tomorrow through the sunshine of today. That's it."

How Rituals Combined With Action Can Cure Illness

On Sunday I wrote a post Woman Walks After 23 Years Through Spiritual Healing. I think of this as being a form of 'faith healing'. There was also a video on the post showing her being 'cured' and her first steps.

Today I was reading about how dummy pills can really work in making people feel better - even when the patient knows they are only a placebo!

This perhaps indicates that we can cure ourselves by thinking positive thoughts about feeling an improvement in our health - in other words a kind of faith healing. Our belief can work wonders with our general health.

Dr. Ted Kaptchuk of Harvard University Medical School carried out tests with patients who had an irritable bowel disorder. They were given a tablet with no active ingredients.

Dr. Kaptchuk explained, "Not only did we make it absolutely clear that these pills had no active ingredient and were made from inert substances, but we actually had 'placebo' printed on the bottle. We told the patients they didn't have to even believe in the placebo effect. Just take the pills."

Clinical tests where carried out where some patients had these placebo pills and others had real medicine. Even though the pills had no active ingredients patients taking them felt better and had improved symptoms.

Dr. Kaptchuk added, "These findings suggest that rather than mere positive thinking there may be significant benefit to the performance of medical ritual. Placebo may work even if patients know it is a placebo.

From these placebo trials we can see that if linked to a 'ritual' they can work and this is very similar to faith healing. There is a ritual of laying on hands, and the like, backed up with perhaps music or rhythm and the patient gets better. The subconscious realises something is happening and associates this with being cured. In the case of a placebo the act of taking a tablet, as offered by a medical practitioner, is sufficient to cause a subliminal trigger to make them feel better.

And, if you think about it, this is also the whole purpose behind magic or religious rituals: to cause a reaction of belief that something will happen, because of whatever act is being performed.

Ritual + an action = a desired response.