Thursday, October 27, 2005

Happy Birthday Slinky!

Many of us have fond childhood memories of our first Slinky. We walked them down ramps, stairs and our school desktops, or just about anything that could remotely show off it's "magical" abilities. Being a huge fan of desk toys today, I have still have a mini-Slinky sitting on my desk. It's quite therapeutic at times and even comforting when I'm working through problems.

In 1943 Marine Engineer Richard James invented the Slinky after a tension spring from a meter he was using to test battleship horsepower fell off his desk and "walked" end-over-end across his office floor. Two years later the first 400 went one sale just before Christmas and they've been a huge retail item ever since.

In this month's Reader's Digest ("An Immortal Coil," November, 2005) it was written, "...here's to hoping this American classic springs eternal." Happy 60th Birthday Slinky!

Monday, October 03, 2005

Life is About Constant Change

Eleanor Roosevelt is one of my favorite women in history. She had a remarkable sense of humor, a gift for understanding people, and incredible insight and wisdom about living life to its fullest. She was not blessed with a "perfect" life and, like many, had to bear incredible sadness and tragedy in her life along with its successes and happiness. I highly recommend that you buy her book, "You Learn by Living!"

In her book she talks about the constant change and readjustment we face in our daily lives:

"Readjustment is a kind of private revolution. Each time you learn something new you must readjust the whole framework of your knowledge. It seems to me that one is forced to make inner and outer adjustments all one's life. The process never ends.

Whatever period in life we are in is good only to the extent that we make use of it, that we live it to the hilt, and that we continue to develop and understand what it has to offer us and we have to offer it. The rewards for each age are different in kind, but they are not necessarily different in value or in satisfaction."

Whatever you are facing in your life today requires you to determine what you have to offer, what you want as an outcome and then to pay attention to the details and information you have at hand in order to understand your situation. You can choose to face these readjustments in life as an opportunity to grow, or you can run screaming the opposite direction and be in a state of denial. Eleanor Roosevelt embraced the changes in her life and found ways to turn even unthinkable situations into learning opportunities.

Decide today whether you are going to "...live life to the hilt..." or if you are going to run away from an opportunity that can help you achieve your lifelong goals and happiness!

Copyright M. A. Webb, 2005. All Rights Reserved

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michele is a
Netpreneur with five websites and numerous Blogs (see links on this page). She has successfully marketed an online learning system to a small niche market with little or no advertising budget.

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