Affirm means to make firm, solid, more real. Thoughts - not very solid - when repeated over and over, become more and more firm. They become feelings, behaviors, methods, experiences, and things.

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I'd love to see Christ come back to crush the spirit of hate and make men put down their guns. I'd also like just one more hit single.
- Tiny Tim

What we think about, we can become.

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If you think you can do a thing, or think you can't do a thing; you're right.
- Henry Ford

We all "visualize." If I asked you to draw a circle, you could do it. A circle is a visual thing. You had to "envision" it. However you "saw" the circle in your imagination, that's how you'll "see" while visualizing.

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See golden days, fruitful of golden deeds,
With Joy and Love triumphing.
- John Milton (1667)

Naturally, the more positive thoughts you have, the more positive you'll feel. If you want to feel happy, think about happy things.

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What's important is your focus. Where - in the big picture of things - are you putting your attention?

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Life, naturally, contains negative thoughts. No big deal. Really. Let them drift through your mind like leaves on a patio. There's no need to resist them, hold onto them, or entertain them (I'm talking about thoughts here, not leaves).

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Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.
- Carl Jung

Ever wonder why it's so difficult to keep negative thoughts out of your mind for any period of time? Ever berate yourself for not being able to hold a positive thought longer?

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I like to think of discipline not as forcing yourself to do without (the austerity school), but as keeping your attention focused on what you want.

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The eye sees the open heaven,
The heart is intoxicated with bliss.
- Schiller

The word discipline comes from two very nice words: discipulus, meaning pupil, and discere, to learn. Discipline, then is the devotion to learning.

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For the very true beginning of wisdom is the desire of discipline; and the care of discipline is love.
- Wisdom of Solomon 6:17

How to keep agreements? A few suggestions: Make only agreements you plan to keep. Make every agreement important. Keep the agreements you've made. Write agreements down. Communicate at once if you discover a conflict.

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I phoned my Dad to tell him I had stopped smoking. He called me a quitter.
- Steven Pearl

Your word is one of the most precious things you own. Do not give it lightly. Once given, do everything within your power not to break it. A broken word, like a broken cup, cannot hold very much for very long.

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Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.
- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, 121-180 AD

When you're so committed to something you know it's going to happen, you act as though it's going to happen. That action is a powerful affirmation.

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Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
- Goethe

Be bold. Commit and act.

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The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.
- Herbert Spencer

Successful achievement requires the use and coordination of three things - thoughts, feelings and actions.

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When thought and action are combined, the results are powerful - among the most powerful forces on earth.

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I have found power in the mysteries of thought.
- Euripides, 438 BC

Every human achievement - from the Hoover Dam to the book you hold in your hand - began as a single thought.

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In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true.
- John Lilly

The key in all this is not what you want, but what you want. When asked to list the material things they want, people often get lost in glamour: what thing can I have or do that will make me look good?

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I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck.
- Emma Goldman

In order to get what you want, it's very helpful to know what you want. If you don't know where you want to go, you probably won't get there.

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Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.
- Jonathan Kozol

The phrase "spending time" is a precise and accurate one. We all have only so much time this time around. Spend it well.

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Who begins too much accomplishes little.
- German Proverb

The history books are full of people who said, "I don't care if everybody thinks it's impossible, I think it's possible, I want it, and I'm going to get it (or do it)." And they did.

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I just want to do God's will.
And He's allowed me to go to the mountain.
And I've looked over,
and I've seen the promised land.
So I'm happy tonight.
I'm not worried about anything.
I'm not fearing any man.
- Martin Luther King, Jr. (April 3rd, 1968)

You can have anything you want but can't have everything you want.

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The greatest pleasure in life
is doing what people say
you cannot do.
- Walter Bagehot

The house, car, better body, career, or money you want - yes, even a romantic relationship, religion, or spiritual path - is simply a method or behavior to get something else, something inner, something experiential (security, fun, energy, satisfaction, love, knowledge of God, inner peace).

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You must first be who you really are,
then do what you need to do,
in order to have what you want.
- Margaret Young

There are no emergencies, only emergences. Consider each not a problem, but a challenge. Rise to the occasion. Emerge-and see.

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When you don't have any money,
the problem is food.
When you have money, it's sex.
When you have both, it's health.
If everything is simply jake,
then you're frightened of death.
- J. P. Donleavy

When people believe one thing and do another, they are inviting misery. If you give yourself the name, play the game. When you believe something you don't follow with your heart, intellect, and body, it hurts. Don't do that. Live your belief, or let that belief go.

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One must not lose desires.
They are mighty stimulants
to creativeness, to love, and to long life.
- Alexander Bogomoletz

The simple solution for disappointment depression: Get up and get moving. Physically move. Do. Act. Get going.

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Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.

- Thomas Huxley

Of course, one's belief about what happens after death falls into The Gap. There are, however, only three major beliefs about death in the entire Gap: first, life is purely biological; second, when you die, you go to heaven or hell; and third, reincarnation. If you take the time to explore your belief about what happens after death, you'll probably find it's not all that bad.

* * *

One of the situations in which everybody seems to fear loneliness is death. In tones drenched with pity, people say of someone, "He died alone." I have never understood this point of view. Who wants to have to die and be polite at the same time?

- Quentin Crisp

Death is a friend -- a joyful, freeing process.

* * *

Death is a friend of ours,
and he that is not ready
to enterain him is not at home.
- Francis Bacon

Once you overcome your addiction, you know you can overcome all things. The impossible becomes possible. The undoable, doable. The unmanageable, manageable. Overcoming an addiction even eases the process of releasing our addiction to life at the time of our death.

* * *

Why comes temptation,
but for man to meet
And master and make crouch
beneath his foot,
And so be pedestaled in triumph?
- Robert Browning

The "old" word for addiction was temptation. "Lead us not into temptation" (Jesus); "My temptation is quiet" (Yeats); "I can resist everything except temptation" (Oscar Wilde).

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Blessed is the man
that endureth temptation;
for when he is tried,
he shall receive the crown of life.
- James 1:12

An addiction is anything that has more power over you than you do.

* * *

When you stop drinking,
you have to deal with
this marvelous personality
that started you drinking
in the first place.
- Jimmy Breslin