Don't sink down under daily, discouraging news. Stay mentally, emotionally, and financially afloat with this:

Quote To Float Your Boat

"It lies within a man's grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, the times, lack of good fortune, or quirks of fate." --Louis L'Amour

Encouragement From The Boat Floating Quote

It is within your grasp to stay up when times are down. You can stay encouraged and afloat in the midst of all your troubles and struggles.

As a person you have been given the keys to the most amazing device known to mankind -- the human mind. You can crank it up and make it operate anyway you wish. You can generate encouraging, uplifting, hope filled ideas with it or you can run depressing and discouraging thoughts through your brain. Or you can choose to leave your mind in netural and allow it to pushed and shoved along by the current of public opinion. You can shape your life or allow it to shaped by others.

Oh, it's tempting to blame "parents, the times, lack of good fortune, or quirks of fate," but try to avoid that. Blame will only make you lame. If your situation is merely the fault of the times (or anything else outside yourself)' then you are a hopeless victim. (Now that is discouraging.) However, if you refuse to blame and instead continually program your mind to stay positive and seek successful solutions, then you will have hope.

You have a wonderful ability. You can grasp your thinking, speaking, believing, and behaving and direct them wherever you want to go.

Will you shape the clay of your life into what you want it to be? Or will you passively drift along with the massive current of negative influence? Will you shape and form your life from within or will you be conformed to the negative influences around us?

It's a great day today because you and I are still alive. We have been given a precious gift -- a new day. Many people on our planet didn't make it through the night, but for some reason we did. We have both been given one more opportunity to serve and help somebody--to be a difference maker.

Our gift of today bears a responsibility, to use it well--to make it count. How? Serving, helping, loving, rejoicing, encouraging, smiling, enjoying, being an example of positive living, overcoming obstacles, defeating negativity, refusing self-destruction, giving thanks, being kind, doing right, avoiding doing wrongful things, reading wisdom, showing compassion. What a privilege we have to be alive for one more day.

Another gift of today is that we can leave the negatives of yesterday behind. We can begin with a new start. Yesterday ended last night so we can leave behind our pain, disappointment, conflicts, frustration, anger, heartbreak, negativity, guilt. No matter how we lived yesterday, we can live today in a different and better way.

A new day is like a touchdown in football! The sun came up and we awoke to be on life's scoreboard once again -- Tuesday, Jaunary 6, 2009. Yeah! WhooooooooooHooooooo! There is no rule against celebrating life!

Shoppers shoppin'

Store hoppin'

Fillin' greed

More than need.

But wrappin' stuff

Ain't enough?

Gift wrap?

No, gift rap!

Here's a map.

Time to shift

To a greater gift!

Give an ear

To really hear

And calm some fear.

Give a tear

To someone dear.

Forget the mart,

We gotta start

Giving smart!

Give your heart.

It's time to care

And to share

More than a dime

Or a rapped up rhyme,

Give your time

And real compassion.

No need to ration

Or follow fashion,

Go, care with passion.

If you fail, you're not a failure, unless you fail to try again. Failure is actually the pavement on the road to success. Every failure paves the way for another and wiser attempt.

Many people feel failure is final. No way. Failure may feel like a finality, but for those who wisely observe their outcomes, failure is only feedback. Ah ha! That didn't work. Perhaps I should try again with a different approach. Thus, every failed attempt to accomplish something gives us important information to help us build a strategy for our next attempt. If we continue to fail and then to learn and apply that new knowledge to our next effort, we will fail all the way to triumph -- unless we quit trying.

The fact is that the more things you try, the more you will fail. But the more you fail and use your failure wisely, the more you will succeed. It may sound like double talk, but it is true. Read the biographies of great and successful people, and you will see that those people actually failed their way to success. Their lives illustrate this principle: If it's worth doing, it's worth doing poorly, until you can finally learn to do it well.

There are a great many ways a person can fail in life. Probablly the worst failure is the failure to try new approaches again and again To fear and avoid failure is also to fear and avoid growth, progress, and success. Both failure and success are rungs in the same ladder. No one steps into success who has not first climbed over some failure.

So why not study your disappointments and failures? Take them out of the closet and examine them and discover the secrets of achievement that they have to teach you. Then you can fail your way through failure and discouragement to faith, optimism, and a fabulous future!

May you make the year 2009 a love-filled and happy year of serving others. When you feel down or discouraged, don't give in to those feelings. Instead, get up and help somebody in a practical way. If you do that, this year will be one of your best ever!