Handle Hard Well

We all wait for things to get easier….It will never get easier.  What happens is, you handle hard stuff better….If you go around waiting for things to get easier in life, it’s never going to happen.  Don’t think, “When is it going to be easy for me, like it’s easy for other people?”  It’s not; it’s hard for everyone.  Make yourself a person who handles hard well, not a person who’s waiting for the easy.  If you have a meaningful pursuit in life, it will never be easy.  People who handle hard well are the people who get the stuff they want.  Don’t get discouraged if it’s hard; it’s supposed to be hard.  Make yourself someone who handles hard well, and then, whatever comes at you, you’ll be great.  – Kara Lawson, Women’s Basketball Coach, Duke University


Hard Work Wins

Hard work wins.  You get out of life what you put into it.  You cannot control the outcome, but you are one hundred percent in control of the effort.  And before you complain about what somebody did to you or said to you, go to the nearest mirror, look at it and say, what could I have done to change the outcome?  And no matter how good you are, how hard you work, sooner or later, bad things are gonna happen to you.  How you deal with those bad things will tell your mother and me if we raised a man.  –Randolph Elder in Dear Father, Dear Son by Larry Elder

Essential Components

Three essential components of psychological health are 1. the ability to openly and honestly communicate thoughts, feelings, and behaviors with another, 2. the ability to honor agreements and disagreements, commonalities and distinctions, and 3. the ability to use personal resources to accomplish values-directed goals.  --Steven R. Hobbs