Franklin at age 62.............................

The year is 1768.............. 

Above all, as he admitted in some letters, his views were in flux and he was still trying to make up his mind. . . .

     That was the crux of Franklin's dilemma.  He had rendered himself suspect, he noted in a letter to a friend, "in England of being too much of an American, and in America of being too much of an Englishman."  With his dreams for a harmonious and growing British Empire, he still hoped he could be both.  "Being born and bred in one of the countries and having lived long and made many agreeable connections in the other, I wish all prosperity to both," he proclaimed.  Thus, he was intrigued, even hopeful, about securing a government job in which he could try to hold the two parts of the empire together.

-Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, 

hold in mind.............................

      A mind that is concentrated on a positive thought has to power to increase the likelihood that the positive thought will materialize in the world of events.  The most successful people in the world are those who hold in mind the highest good of all concerned, including themselves.  They know that there is a win-win solution to every problem.  They are at peace with themselves, which allows them to be supportive of the potential and success of others.  They do work which they love, and so they feel continually inspired and creative.  They do not seek happiness; they have discovered that happiness is a by-product of doing what they love.  A feeling of personal fulfillment comes naturally from their positive contribution to the lives of others, including family, friends, groups, and the world at large.

-David Hawkins, Letting Go:  The Pathway Of Surrender

On taming the dragon................

     You affirm, "I am rich," and your mind contradicts, "You're not."  The conflict that develops confuses the Universal Law, which is about to deliver your heart's desire.  This clash of opposing energies has been the challenge of the would-be initiate since the beginning of time.  It is the hunt for the Grail, or the slaying of the dragon.  It states that no one enters the kingdom of heaven within until he has tamed the dragon of negativity that he inherited from the collective unconscious.

-Stuart Wilde, Miracles

On confusing mixes...............

     Mo matter how much we struggle for financial abundance, we'll have a hard time attaining it if we disapprove of those who have it.  If we're saying one thing but thinking another, we'll always end up with confused results.  Many people set themselves up to lose, working hard yet giving an ambivalent message to the universe about whether or not they really want money.
     Thoughts like "I want it, but I shouldn't want it, so I guess no, I don't really want it; but actually I do want it, but I don't want to admit that I want it" indicate ambivalence.  This confusing mix of thoughts inevitably brings forth a confusing mix of experiences.  Many people fail to manifest money because on some deep level they don't think they should.

-Marianne Williamson,  The Law of Divine Compensation

Ah, science...........................

We’ve a new little report, piece of scientific research, telling us that cheese and red meat are good for us. This in entire opposition to everything governments have been telling us about diet for decades now. This telling us that government is a seriously bad way of doing anything.

-Tim Worstall, from here

Alter.................................

     A man only begins to be a man when he ceases to whine and revile, and commences to search for the hidden justice which regulates his life.   And as he adapts his mind to that regulating factor, he ceases to accuse others as the cause of his conditions, and builds himself up in strong and noble thoughts;  ceases to kick against circumstances, but begins to use them as aids to his more rapid progress, and as a means of discovering the hidden powers and possibilities within himself.
       Law, not confusion, is the dominating principle in the universe;  justice, not injustice, is the soul and substance of life;  and righteousness, not corruption, is the molding and moving force in the spiritual government of the world.   This being so, man has but to right himself to find that the universe is right, he will find that as he alters his thoughts towards things and other people, things and other people will alter towards  him.

-James Allen,  As A Man Thinketh

Eye of the beholder...............

With fake new lurking everywhere, these have been some trying times for journalists who actually care about having a reputation for objectivity - "Just the facts, maam."

Academia, fortunately, has rushed in to help sort it all out.  Messing around in the Intertunnel can end you up in some strange places.  For instance, this paper "Social Media And Fake News In The 2016 Election."

To save you from having to read the whole paper, here is their conclusion:

In summary, our data suggest that social media were not the most important source of election news, and even the most widely circulated fake news stories were seen by only a small fraction of Americans. 

I stopped paying attention when the authors reported that their sources for determining fake news were Snopes, PolitiFact, and BuzzFeed.  Really?

If you Google "is Snopes.com biased?" you will be led here.  What a hoot.  You can look up the others your ownself.

My suggestion is that you talk with and listen  - talk and listen, not argue - to many different people with different perspectives and persuasions.  Its okay to watch both CNN and Fox News, just don't believe either one of them without doing your own thinking.   This suggestion applies to both news purveyors and news consumers.   Just saying.

Train yourself........................

Guard your speech.  Never speak of yourself, your affairs, or anything else in a discouraged or discouraging way.  Never admit the possibility of failure, or speak in a way that infers failure as a possibility.  Never speak of the times as being hard, or of business conditions being doubtful.  Times may be hard and business doubtful for those who are on the competitive plane, but they can never be so for you;  you can create what you want, and your are above fear.  When others are having hard times and poor business, you will find your greatest opportunities.

Train yourself to think of and to look upon the world as a something which is Becoming, which is growing; and to regard seeming evil as being only that which is undeveloped.  Always speak in terms of advancement;  to do otherwise is to deny your faith, and to deny your faith is to lose it.  Never allow yourself to feel disappointed.  You may expect a certain thing at a certain time, and not get it at that time;  and this will appear to you like failure.  But if you hold to your faith you will find that the failure is only apparent.  Go on in the certain way, and if you do not receive that thing, you will receive something so much better that you will see that the seeming failure was really a great success.

-Wallace D. Wattles,  The Science of Getting Rich

I resemble that remark...............................

"I have finally made up my mind, but the decision was by no means unanimous."
-Ashleigh Brilliant

Good advice

"...never to decide a thing in your own mind upon hearsay alone but to examine things yourself and judge for yourself."

-John Quincy Adams, from a letter to Peter Jay Munro

Some people will............................

.......................................never be happy.

On the Paris climate conference, or..................

.............Why multilateral negotiation is so difficult

"What world leaders have actually signed us up to is: voluntary emission limits with no enforcement mechanism, voluntary progress reviews and voluntary contributions to a trillion-dollar green climate fund. Nothing is binding except that each country must resubmit its voluntary national goal every five years and even that does not apply to the G77 developing nations."

"World leaders essentially solved the problem of where to go to dinner by changing the topic of conversation to how much they would all like to go to dinner. On this they were all triumphantly agreed. For the poor people of the world, the vagueness of the Paris agreement is good news: it means development can continue, making them less vulnerable to all harms, including weather. Those who think climate change is a huge threat should be worried, but those of us who think climate change is not such a big threat should still be concerned about just how bad the world would be at responding when a really big collective-action problem comes along: mega-volcano, alien invasion, etc."

as excerpted from this Matt Ridley post

Transformative.............................

“This I know: the mind, left to itself, repeats the same stories, the same loops.  Mostly ones that don't serve us.  So what's practical, what's transformative, is to consciously choose a thought.  Then practice it again and again.  With emotion, with feeling, with acceptance.   Lay down the synaptic pathways until the mind starts playing it automatically.  Do this with enough intensity over time and the mind will have no choice.  That's how it operates.  Where do you think your original loops came from?” 
-Kamal Ravikant

thanks Nicholas   #65 on this list

Change.....................................

"Munger likes to say that a year in which you do not change your mind on some big idea that is important to you is a wasted year."
-Tren Griffin,  Charlie Munger:  The Complete Investor

Believe it or not, this was written in 1955...........

      Like the machines which delight and enthrall them, the masses are neither good not bad.  Machines have made our lives complicated and intellect has made our minds restless.  Poise, assurance and serenity seem to be beyond our grasp, and to gain a false sense of security the individual blends with others in a new entity, the mass.  The spectre of the mass hovers over public affairs, industry, business, social life and manners.  The great danger with the mass is not right thought or wrong thought but the utter absence of thought.   The immense impact of mass media on our lives encourages passivity, acquiescence, conformity.  The mind is benumbed and the will paralysed.   Instead of courageous independent thinking, there is a susceptibility to words, to symbols of crude emotion.  The collective wisdom of the masses is a misnomer for surrender to emotionalism.  Those who manipulate the people acquire great influence.  Politics has become a gamble in mass psychology.   It was the masses that stoned the Bastille; it was the masses that responded by collective rapture to Hitler-in-the-brewery.  It is the masses who are being exploited today for ideological crusades.  The leaders of public opinion use the techniques of propaganda for controlling public opinion.

-Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan,  Recovery of Faith

Self-made.......................................

     There is no physician like cheerful thought for dissipating the ills of the body;  there is no comforter to compare with goodwill for dispersing the shadows of grief and sorrow.  To live continually in thoughts of ill will, cynicism, suspicion, and envy, is to be confined in a self-made prison-hole.  But to think well of all, to be cheerful with all, to patiently learn to find the good in all - such unselfish thoughts are the very portals of heaven;  and to dwell day by day in thoughts of peace toward every creature will bring abounding peace to their possessor.
-James Allen,  as excerpted from As A Man Thinketh

More often than not.................

Ponder this one for a while.......

Great minds think alike, and fools seldom differ.  You shouldn’t buy Ensco after reading this unless you have studied it out.  Just because I agree with a comrade does not mean you should take action.  We could both be wrong.
-David Merkel, via The Aleph Blog

Editors................................................

via

Quality.....................

“You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind.” 
-Dale Carnegie

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