It is not pessimism or sickening optimism that provides a channel, but real hope - which is the foundation of true optimism.

Unfortunately, our daily newspapers and radio and television programs perpetuate the pessimistic spirit and day and night nourish it with their gloomy news and with movies of violence and destruction. After reading your morning paper and listening to the news on your television, you fill yourself with the spirit of pessimism and negativity; you lose your hope for life; and all day your body produces poison or imperil. Once you poison yourself, your handshake becomes poisonous; your smell becomes poisonous. To whatever you touch, you impart poison. You carry poison into your office, workshop, and home. Day after day you increase your poison, and eventually you defeat yourself with your pessimism.

Those people who change crises into a process of purification and opportunities for transformation, victory, and achievement are called "the hopes" of the nation and the world, who stand in front of humanity as paths leading toward greater achievements, new courage, daring, and striving. In reading and hearing about such people, we are filled with new hope and we think, "If they achieved, if they conquered in those difficult conditions, we, too, can achieve and conquer." Thus we become a source of hope for ourselves and for others.

QUOTE of the WEEK:
"Once we discover how to appreciate the timeless values in our daily experiences, we can enjoy the best things in life."
Harry Hepner


THOUGHT for YOUR WEEK:
Affection Never Was Wasted
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Talk not of wasted affection!
affection never was wasted;
If it enrich not the heart of another,
It's waters returning back to
their springs,
like the rain shall fill them full of refreshment
That which the fountain sends
forth returns again to the fountain.


QUOTES for YOUR WEEK:
"The word 'appreciation' means to be thankful and express admiration, approval, or gratitude. It also means to grow or appreciate in value. As you appreciate life, you become more valuable—both to yourself and others."
Sara Paddison

"Appreciation can make a day - even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary."
Margaret Cousins

"We must be willing to fail and to appreciate the truth that often life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived."
M. Scott Peck

"There has never been another you. With no effort on your part you were born to be something very special and set apart. What you are going to do in appreciation of that gift is a decision only you can make."
Dan Zadra

"One can never pay in gratitude: one can only pay 'in kind' somewhere else in life."
Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes of which all men have some."
Charles Dickens