Frey Freyday – Freedom

(Frey Freyday is simply a bunch of inspirational, motivational and other quotes meant to make you think, reflect,
smile, even laugh a bit. Hopefully helpful, useful stuff….)

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free·dom-[ˈfrēdəm] NOUN
– the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint

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Today I choose life. Every morning when I wake up I can choose joy, happiness, negativity, pain… To feel the freedom that comes from being able to continue
to make mistakes and choices – today I choose to feel life, not to deny my humanity but embrace it. Kevyn Aucoin
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A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself. Jim Morrison
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The secret to happiness is freedom… And the secret to freedom is courage. Thucydides
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Every human has four endowments – self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… The
power to choose, to respond, to change. Stephen Covey
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Money won’t create success; the freedom to make it will. Nelson Mandela

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If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. George Washington
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Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. Viktor
E. Frankl
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Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you. Jean-Paul Sartre

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Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, None but ourselves can free our minds. Bob Marley
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We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thomas Jefferson

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WORD TO LIVE BY:

Freedom – we all define it differently but in so many ways…basically freedom is the ability to do what we want; to go where we want, to be what we want, to say what we want. We take many freedoms in this country for granted – free speech, the ability
to earn a living as we please, to travel where and when we want, and generally to live as we want. 

 

We might feel ‘enslaved’ or trapped by a job, relationship, a situation. Maybe its freedom from a bad habit. Free from sin? Guilt? Disease? Often we discuss
financial freedom – what does that specifically mean? What have others done to get out of similar situations? Others have become ‘free’, can we follow their success? How can you be free of that thing?

 

We all want freedom – or at least we say it. Many times I know I’ve said that I wanted to be free of something so that I could really go for it. But then
I actually get a chance to really go for it and that freedom is a little scary.

 

We all say we want freedom but sometimes the security of limitations is comforting and freedom is intimidating.

 

With freedom there is growth and change. This is good for us. We are living, growing beings and growth and change is good and natural. Depending on our
perspective and how we frame it, these can be good things or things that make us uneasy.

 

What if you had freedom to do exactly what you wanted to earn a living? Would you do it?

What if you had financial freedom so that all your bills were paid – what then would you do with your time? Your life?

 

Often we believe that we’re tied to one thing or another and that we have no freedom.

Often our own beliefs limit us and take away freedom, consciously or unconsciously.

 

Did you ever take just a moment to define what freedom means to you? What does freedom look like?

How can you pursue it if you don’t define it? 

Also take a moment to distinguish between what it means for us to be
free from something and to be free to do
or be something.

 

Maybe freedom is just a state of mind? Like Bob Marley sings above, “None
but ourselves can free our minds”

 

Best wishes for freedom and happiness to you and yours…..

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Frey Freyday was actually born
out of something I created called “Words To Live By” (WTLB). Going forward, I will now not only share the quotes, as you may be used to receiving, but also a related (WTLB). In 1999, when we had our first daughter, I was contemplating how I would raise
my new beautiful child, and I was thinking about how I can best educate her and my other children about values, morals, and other key thoughts about life. School offers education. Religion offers some values and morals. Parents offer most of it, sometimes
intentionally, sometimes accidentally.

So I created a (WTLB) book, like a dictionary, which lists things like honesty, love, persistence, etc. with a definition that I created, with my wife’s
input. I then turned it into a workbook with one word per page and space below for notes. For years we would discuss with my two daughters and they would draw pictures and make notes in the blank space. I may share some of those images with you. As they got
older, they were less inclined to draw and more open to quotes and references from adults, hence where Frey Freyday came from…

Why We Shouldn’t Be Afraid of Suffering

I often see and hear people talk about suffering here in the U.S. I do think sometimes we can be overly concerned with our own suffering – mental/emotional/physical.

As a nation, we definitely overly compensate in regards to physical pain and suffering. I recently read that the U.S. has 14% of the world’s population but we use 80% of the world’s pain killers (mostly opiods).

This is a great article about suffering in general.

Instead, we should fear not knowing how to handle our suffering, according to Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh.

By Thich Nhat Hanh

Jun 28, 2017

https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/shouldnt-afraid-suffering/

We should not be afraid of suffering. We should be afraid of only one thing, and that is not knowing how to deal with our suffering. Handling our suffering is an art. If we know how to suffer, we suffer much less, and we’re no longer afraid of being overwhelmed by the suffering inside. The energy of mindfulness helps us recognize, acknowledge, and embrace the presence of the suffering, which can already bring some calm and relief.

When a painful feeling comes up, we often try to suppress it. We don’t feel comfortable when our suffering surfaces, and we want to push it back down or cover it up. But as a mindfulness practitioner, we allow the suffering to surface so we can clearly identify it and embrace it. This will bring transformation and relief. The first thing we have to do is accept the mud in ourselves. When we recognize and accept our difficult feelings and emotions, we begin to feel more at peace. When we see that mud is something that can help us grow, we become less afraid of it.

When we are suffering, we invite another energy from the depths of our consciousness to come up: the energy of mindfulness. Mindfulness has the capacity to embrace our suffering. It says, Hello, my dear pain. This is the practice of recognizing suffering. Hello, my pain. I know you are there, and I will take care of you. You don’t need to be afraid.

Now in our mind-consciousness there are two energies: the energy of mindfulness and the energy of suffering. The work of mindfulness is first to recognize and then to embrace the suffering with gentleness and compassion. You make use of your mindful breathing to do this. As you breathe in, you say silently, Hello, my pain. As you breathe out, you say, I am here for you. Our breathing contains within it the energy of our pain, so as we breathe with gentleness and compassion, we are also embracing our pain with gentleness and compassion.

When suffering comes up, we have to be present for it. We shouldn’t run away from it or cover it up with consumption, distraction, or diversion. We should simply recognize it and embrace it, like a mother lovingly embracing a crying baby in her arms. The mother is mindfulness, and the crying baby is suffering. The mother has the energy of gentleness and love. When the baby is embraced by the mother, it feels comforted and immediately suffers less, even though the mother does not yet know exactly what the problem is. Just the fact that the mother is embracing the baby is enough to help the baby suffer less. We don’t need to know where the suffering is coming from. We just need to embrace it, and that already brings some relief. As our suffering begins to calm down, we know we will get through it.

When we go home to ourselves with the energy of mindfulness, we’re no longer afraid of being overwhelmed by the energy of suffering. Mindfulness gives us the strength to look deeply and gives rise to understanding and compassion.

Excerpted from THE ART OF LIVING by Thich Nhat Hanh with permission by HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright 2017.

 

Frey Freyday – Top Ten Words

(Frey Freyday is simply a bunch of inspirational, motivational and other quotes meant to make you think, reflect, smile, even laugh a bit. Hopefully helpful, useful stuff….)

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Hello – I am breaking from the normal format and process for a moment. Sometimes we can benefit from reflection and a different perspective. Also, we all love those “Top Ten” lists that everyone seems to offer.

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This is a list of the Top Ten Words to Live By, in my opinion. I think in different situations, one can argue a different order here but in general, my list:

 

1. State of mind – No matter what, your state of mind is everything. Making decisions, taking actions, interacting with others, thinking by ourselves, happiness, life – our state of mind affects all things for better or worse. In the same moment, the state of mind can change everything.

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Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way, to choose one’s own state of mind.-Victor E. Frankl

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2. Decision – the decision to act, to think a certain way, to do or not do….making a decision can literally make an instant and huge impact. A decision can determine your destiny.

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“What I’ve come to realize is that the single most important decision in life is this: Are you committed to being happy, no matter what happens to you?” asks Tony Robbins. “To put this another way, will you commit to enjoying life not only when everything goes your way but also when everything goes against you, when injustice happens, when someone screws you over, when you lose something or someone you love, or when nobody seems to understand or appreciation you?”

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3. Action – Talk is cheap. Theroad to hell is paved with good  One action starts change. Consistent action builds habits, persistence and a pipeline of success. Massive action produces massive results. I believe that action is everything. Dumb or smart. Evil or well-meaning. Good ideas are all fine and good but without action, they are nothing.

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Infuse your life with action. Don’t wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen… yourself, right now, right down here on Earth.-Bradley Whitford

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Action is the foundational key to all success.-Pablo Picasso

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4. Focus – In this world there is good stuff, empowering stuff, upsetting stuff, angry stuff – all sorts of stuff for us to focus on….and what we focus on often determines our state of mind, actions, decisions, etc.  ‘Where our focus goes, energy flows and things grow.’ You focus on negative stuff, it grows. You focus on happy or helpful things, likewise they will grow in your life. It isn’t saying the bad doesn’t exist, just focusing on the good makes life better.

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Accidents, coincidences, and serendipities are the disguises I use to sneak magic and miracles into your life without arousing suspicion that the game is rigged, the dragons are fake, and you’re about to hit the biggest “home run” of your life. Just keep focusing on what you want and move ahead. Now, please don’t ruin this for anyone – The Universe http://www.tut.com

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The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear.-Brian Tracy

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5. Questions – Questions set our moods, our focus, our beliefs and our actions. We all ask ourselves questions each and every day, all day, whether we realize it or not. They say we have up to 60,000 thoughts running through our minds each day, and many of these are questions. Are they good questions? Are they useful? Do they empower us?

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Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone’s face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love? These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and the life to come.-Henri Nouwen

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Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.-Voltaire

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6. Belief – Your beliefs are everything. Beliefs make up your personality, they create habits which lead to your lifestyle, your relationships, your career, etc. Beliefs can limit you or they can help you excel and grow. The meaning we assign to all sorts of things are related to beliefs.

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Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact. Belief creates the actual fact.-William James

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It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.-Muhammad Ali

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7. Faith – Have faith in yourself, in your gifts, have faith in others, have faith in our World. Have faith with your spirituality or religion. Have faith that things will work out, that you have all that you need inside you right now. Have faith that amazing things can happen. Sometimes we just have to let go and have faith.

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Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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You’ll see it when you believe it.-Wayne Dyer

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8. Happiness/Joy – One of the best lessons I learned on my own, even though my parents often told me, is to just be happy. Don’t wait for it, don’t look for it, and don’t expect that when you buy/accomplish/get something that you’ll be happy then. Be happy now and always. If you’re happy and experience joy, your decisions, actions, and life will reflect it. People are drawn to happy people. Challenges will come into our life regardless, but if we have joy and happiness, the challenges are a little easier to deal with and recover from.

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The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature. –Marcus Aurelius

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Research has shown that the best way to be happy is to make each day happy.-Deepak Chopra

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9. Vocabulary – the words you consistently use to describe your life, emotions and sensations—immediately change how you think, feel and live. (if you want to change your life, Adjust your habitual vocabulary)

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Language shapes our behavior and each word we use is imbued with multitudes of personal meaning. The right words spoken in the right way can bring us love, money and respect, while the wrong words—or even the right words spoken in the wrong way—can lead to a country to war. We must carefully orchestrate our speech if we want to achieve our goals and bring our dreams to fruition.—Dr. Andrew Newberg, Words Can Change Your Brain

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10. Kindness –We are here to experience life together. Part of life is contributing back, compassion, love and kindness. How can we work with/play with/be with others in this world if there isn’t kindness. The Golden Rule or law of reciprocity is the principle of treating others as one would wish to be treated oneself. Multiple religions discuss this and atheists also often embrace it. Kindness is necessary for any role in life, for any moment in life. Kindness is the expression of mature ‘agape’ love.

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This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. – Dalai Lama

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Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love. – Lao Tzu

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(BONUS- #11. WHY? Ask why you’re doing ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ is….. determine the why and the how will work out just fine….)

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Frey Freyday was actually born out of something I created called “Words To Live By” (WTLB). Going forward, I will now not only share the quotes, as you may be used to receiving, but also a related (WTLB). In 1999, when we had our first daughter, I was contemplating how I would raise my new beautiful child, and I was thinking about how I can best educate her and my other children about values, morals, and other key thoughts about life. School offers education. Religion offers some values and morals. Parents offer most of it, sometimes intentionally, sometimes accidentally.

So I created a (WTLB) book, like a dictionary, which lists things like honesty, love, persistence, etc. with a definition that I created, with my wife’s input. I then turned it into a workbook with one word per page and space below for notes. For years we would discuss with my two daughters and they would draw pictures and make notes in the blank space. I may share some of those images with you. As they got older, they were less inclined to draw and more open to quotes and references from adults, hence where Frey Freyday came from….

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You can read more at www.onewebstrategy.com

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Frey Freyday – Risk

(Frey Freyday is simply a bunch of inspirational, motivational and other quotes meant to make you think, reflect, smile, even laugh a bit. Hopefully helpful, useful stuff….)

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RISK – exposure to the chance of injury or loss;

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Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. T. S. Eliot
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The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks. Mark Zuckerberg
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The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision. Maimonides
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If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary. Jim Rohn
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There are 30,000 days in your life. When I was 24, I realized I’m almost 9,000 days down. There are no warm-ups, no practice rounds, no reset buttons. Your biggest risk isn’t failing, it’s getting too comfortable. Every day, we’re writing a few more words of a story. I wanted my story to be an adventure and that’s made all the difference. Drew Houston
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We must have courage to bet on our ideas, to take the calculated risk, and to act. Everyday living requires courage if life is to be effective and bring happiness. Maxwell Maltz
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WORD TO LIVE BY:

Risk – we all face risks each day, some perceived, some not.

Each day many of us risk our lives hurtling ourselves and our loved ones in a potentially deadly situation, where only a thin line of paint separates us from strangers who could cause us death or severe bodily injury. We face this every day and almost never think about it, and we casually, confidently overcome it. Yes, this is driving on the road.

Think about it, we’ll trust hundreds or thousands of total strangers with our lives – we trust that they will obey the rules and lines of the road and not run into us. Yet, many times we don’t trust loved ones in our lives – or we don’t trust ourselves to take a risk.

Risk is about how you frame it, how you perceive it.

Risk started the day you took your first breath out of the womb. Risk brings both failure and success, and certainly brings education and experience.

To change, to grow, we must take risks.

Noah St. John, author and owner of http://noahstjohn.com/writes:

Here are 3 main benefits of risk-taking:

1. You face your fear.

And once you face that fear, that fear can’t run your life any more.

2. You become stronger.

Once you realize that you are stronger than your fear, you often discover that you’re stronger than you thought you were.

3. Your life changes in ways you couldn’t have predicted or imagined.

(More on this in the Bonus link below)

 

Let’s not get confused with a careless or reckless risk – in this case we’re talking about calculated and thoughtful risks.

What are we waiting for anyhow? This is not a rehearsal, this is the final performance. Go for it.

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Frey Freyday was actually born out of something I created called “Words To Live By” (WTLB). Going forward, I will now not only share the quotes, as you may be used to receiving, but also a related (WTLB). In 1999, when we had our first daughter, I was contemplating how I would raise my new beautiful child, and I was thinking about how I can best educate her and my other children about values, morals, and other key thoughts about life. School offers education. Religion offers some values and morals. Parents offer most of it, sometimes intentionally, sometimes accidentally.

So I created a (WTLB) book, like a dictionary, which lists things like honesty, love, persistence, etc. with a definition that I created, with my wife’s input. I then turned it into a workbook with one word per page and space below for notes. For years we would discuss with my two daughters and they would draw pictures and make notes in the blank space. I may share some of those images with you. As they got older, they were less inclined to draw and more open to quotes and references from adults, hence where Frey Freyday came from….

BONUS  

The Benefits of Taking Risks

https://onewebstrategy.wordpress.com/2015/12/17/the-benefits-of-taking-risks/

Frey Freyday – Confirmation Bias

(Frey Freyday is simply a bunch of inspirational, motivational and other quotes meant to make you think, reflect, smile, even laugh a bit. Hopefully helpful, useful stuff….)

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 Confirmation bias – a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions, leading to statistical errors.

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As people’s opportunities to succumb to confirmation bias increases online – only seeking out information that confirms their prejudices – ignorance, extremism and close-mindedness have continued to rise unabated. Maajid Nawaz
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Being deeply knowledgeable on one subject narrows one’s focus and increases confidence, but it also blurs dissenting views until they are no longer visible, thereby transforming data collection into bias confirmation and morphing self-deception into self-assurance. Michael Shermer
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WORD TO LIVE BY:
Confirmation Bias – put simply; it is a type of cognitive bias that involves favoring information that confirms previously existing beliefs or biases.

Confirmation bias is a type of cognitive bias and represents an error of inductive inference toward confirmation of the hypothesis under study.

Confirmation bias is a phenomenon wherein decision makers have been shown to actively seek out and assign more weight to evidence that confirms their hypothesis, and ignore or underweigh evidence that could disconfirm their hypothesis.

For example, if you think that left-handed people are more creative than right-handed people, then whenever you meet someone that is both left-handed and creative, you typically will place greater importance on this “evidence” supporting the existing belief. You might even seek “proof” that further backs up this belief while discounting examples that do not support this idea.

We all do it. Liberals and conservatives. Republicans and Democrats. Rich and Poor.

Confirmation bias can also be found in those of us who may be more fearful or anxious, and/or those of us that view the world as threatening, dangerous or similar.

If you ever experienced feelings of low self-esteem, or know someone who is feeling inferior, confirmation bias manifests itself in a way that makes you or the individual highly sensitive to being ignored by other people. We’ve all observed it in ourselves and others, we’re constantly monitoring for signs that people might not like us. We’ve all done it in some way, if we are worried that someone is annoyed with us, we are then biased toward all the negative information about that person acts toward us. We may even interpret neutral behavior as indicative of something really negative.

Also in a related way, these are two other things we need to be aware of and avoid:

Recency bias is the belief that current trends, good or bad, will continue. Tony Robbins and various clinical psychologists says the solution is to create a checklist of all the steps you’re taking towards your goal and refer to it frequently. That will help you stay on track, whatever current conditions may be.

Loss aversion is the tendency to recall negative experiences more readily than positive ones and to let those darker memories shape your expectations for the future. This can be overcome by actively planning in advance for challenges and setbacks. These bumps in the road are inevitable and don’t need to be feared. (Source http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/21/tony-robbins-to-be-truly-successful-avoid-these-3-mental-traps.html)

 

What can we do about it? The answer lies in first recognizing that we have this bias and then in desiring to overcome it. Not easy. If you are willing to try, then here are a few pointers:

• If you regularly read blogs for news and opinions, add one or two that comes from a different perspective. Not a radically different one (as that will likely make you even more staunch in your position), but one that offers views you might normally dismiss or not consider.
• Reflect. Most of the political issues that are most controversial have no easy, black-and-white answer. Ask yourself why someone would hold an opinion adverse to your own. Why would some people dedicate their lives and careers to trying to something other than your viewpoint?
• Spend time with people whose views you disagree, but whose company you don’t mind. Mere exposure to someone whose views differ from your own can help both of you understand the other’s position, even if your fundamental views don’t change.
• Try to think from their perspective, try to understand.

(Source; https://lawblog.justia.com/2011/07/29/overcoming-confirmation-bias/_

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Frey Freyday was actually born out of something I created called “Words To Live By” (WTLB). Going forward, I will now not only share the quotes, as you may be used to receiving, but also a related (WTLB). In 1999, when we had our first daughter, I was contemplating how I would raise my new beautiful child, and I was thinking about how I can best educate her and my other children about values, morals, and other key thoughts about life. School offers education. Religion offers some values and morals. Parents offer most of it, sometimes intentionally, sometimes accidentally.

So I created a (WTLB) book, like a dictionary, which lists things like honesty, love, persistence, etc. with a definition that I created, with my wife’s input. I then turned it into a workbook with one word per page and space below for notes. For years we would discuss with my two daughters and they would draw pictures and make notes in the blank space. I may share some of those images with you. As they got older, they were less inclined to draw and more open to quotes and references from adults, hence where Frey Freyday came from….