Tag Archives: faith

Our Focus Is Often Out Of Focus

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C.L. Harmon

We are taught from a very early age to focus. In our education, personal lives and careers we are instilled with the belief that we achieve more by focusing on what we are doing. But do we ever stop to think just what we are accomplishing with the importance we place on this focusing? The very essence of focusing is putting ourselves at the center. We must focus in order to be better. We must focus to reach our goals. We must focus to create. We must focus to succeed. At the center of all our focusing on these actions is always ourselves.

It is true that there is a need to focus on certain aspects of our lives at specific times. However, many of us allow our desire to focus to become the focus of our lives. What should only be a tool in the building of our lives, becomes the structure we are building. We have become so involved in our efforts to achieve, we ignore the needs of others. We become the center of our own attention shutting out the world around us.

We were not created to focus solely on ourselves. Our purposes are rooted in inclusion. We are designed to function as an intricate web connected to each other with each strand intentionally woven to the next. The focus on one strand alone creates nothing beyond itself. We must shift part of our attention to others so that their strands will connect with ours creating a stronger outcome for all. To be a million strands disconnected is to be broken; to be a million strands intertwined is to be the structure of life and a vision worthy of focus.

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Each Of Us Is A Light That Only Needs A Power Source:Mindset

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Sometimes all we can do is accept the decisions of others. Although life is so much about choices, we are not given the ability to change the views and decisions of others if they choose not to listen to or act on what we say.  Many times our only option is to accept and this is not by accident but by design.

This act of acceptance, however, does not mean that we have faith in other’s ideas. It does not mean we believe in them or understand them or the direction they have chosen to pursue. It simply means we offer them the opportunity to learn and explore with support while offering us the opportunity us to gain insight beyond our current beliefs. To be believed in is a fundamental need for us all to build character, confidence and self-worth.

There are no great achievements without support. As we live we learn that we are created to believe in possibilities, not question them. Endless possibilities exist only in the presence of unwavering faith. When we believe in others, we not only give a part of ourselves to them, we tell them that they matter and that they have purpose. And it is that faith which is the most important element needed to achieve great things. Our faith in others teaches them that we are all lights which only needs an outside energy source combined with their design to illuminate the world

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Mindset: The Purposeful Road

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There seems to be little understanding as to the meaning of life and creation. And what is believed to be understood by some is never agreed upon by all. Yet we all seek knowledge, wisdom, and insight as to why we are here and to our purpose in life. We make choices and then worry about the outcome of those choices, believing them to be drawing us closer to our purpose and not further away.

But perhaps we put too much emphasis on what we believe to be our purpose instead of the faith needed to make choices which lead us to a purposeful life. Purpose does not belong to us, but to our Creator who has already made the choices necessary for us to fulfill the purpose He has given us.

However, it’s not His purpose which gives our lives meaning; for that, we ourselves must choose to live a life of purpose and consequence. Perhaps choosing to have faith and believe our purpose is a pre-existing road already built, will lead us to the insight to make choices which provide a life that is never meaningless and always purposeful.

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Mindset: Only Time Will Tell

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Life has a way of leading us on journeys that we don’t understand and which seem to us to serve no useful purpose in our lives at the time…and often, it seems we would be right. But if we consider the importance of this very moment based upon what it has taken for us get here, then we can begin to understand why such moments occur.


What we take from today’s situations is not necessarily intended for use now but for a future moment when it will become beneficial to us. Most of us live in the moment because it is real to us and we feel we have some control over what is substantial, as opposed to the future which is uncertain and offers little, if any, control.


But those future moments are as important to our Creator as the present ones are to us, and so He prepares us for them. Even though we will react when the times come, we wouldn’t have had the right tools to make good choices had it not been for that earlier moment, which made so little sense to us at the time.


This life is but a timeline, a clock that coordinates past, present and future events into an all-encompassing life of purpose which transcends the here and now. All things happen for a reason. As to their meanings in a particular moment, that it is something that will only come from following life’s path and then only in time.

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Mindset: You Were Chosen To Choose Wisely

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Human beings have the capacity for incredible compassion and indescribable evil. Can one even fathom the amount of faith it must take to entrust such liberty with humanity? The very idea that a creation made out of love can destroy itself with hate or evil must show the incredible importance of love to the Creator.

To allow cruelty and injustice to prosper defines what the value of choice actually represents. The gift of choice does more than set a course for our lives; it represents the idea that what we choose as individuals matters most to the Creator. Obedience can be chosen or ordered, but love cannot be forced. It can only manifest through a conscious choice.

Our hearts beat because nature dictates them to do so. They provide compassion, forgiveness and understanding because we choose for them to. Freewill is not so much about us choosing paths in our lives, but about choosing the ideals and beliefs that clear paths to a greater understanding of the definition of love.

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Mindset: Escaping The Crushing Rubble

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We should never hold someone else to a higher standard than we hold ourselves. We should not expect more from them than we ourselves are willing to be, give or do. Sometimes that standard can come in the form of an example and often times in a word. Those simple gestures or words form building blocks which allow negativity to move forward and build foundations upon us.

It is imperative that we acknowledge our mistakes. Not just so we can learn from them but so we can forgive ourselves and be forgiving when others make their mistakes. There is no greater equality than that which is in forgiveness. It reminds us that we have all been, without exception, guilty of transgression and victims of its consequences.

Through forgiveness, we find that we do not have to endure a life of crushing rubble which keeps us down preventing us from rising above negativity. Instead, we can move forward and raise humanity’s standards by simply standing on the belief that our imperfect nature makes us perfectly equal.

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Living In The Lost & Found

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For some, there will come a time when you will step out on faith and that faith will fail you. Only then and only by those who have experienced that loss will ever truly understand what it means to possess it. Many will make sacrifices and carry heavy burdens but that is not faith; those are actions and consequences. To step where there is no ground. To walk in darkness without light. To trust more than to fear, these are actually acts of faith.

There are few who truly test to see if there are boundaries of faith because there are so few who are willing to lose what they have gained. Real faith is not a gamble; it’s a willingness to sacrifice everything for one thing with only a belief. It’s a risk where all you are and all you possess that moment are at stake. There are no contingencies. You are alone, naked and exposed before all others.

Those few who take the risk walk in a different world than the rest. They experience their surroundings in different ways because they see depth even in the shallowest of existence while others remain blind to anything below the surface or beyond the horizon. They feel beyond natural barriers and sense a deeper understanding in all creation. Within them is a courage and a lunacy that outsiders cannot comprehend. And when that faith fails us, leaving us in despair, we grasp even tighter to it. Not because we are lost, but because we are found in that which only the truly trusting can ever know…that which is hope.

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New Mindset: Playing With Fire

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PLAYING WITH FIRE

What is your passion? There is one inside all of that burns with an unquenchable thirst. We feel it in times of high emotions and in the lows of despair. It’s a feeling, a voice, a desire and a sense rolled into one. It never leaves us and it never rests in peaceful slumber. It’s a part of us that we may not have yet met. But it’s there in every part of us

Our passion is as much a part of us as bones and blood. It lives, it grows and it dies within us . It knocks on our souls’ doors and begs entry into our thoughts. To know it is as simple as opening a door. With it come fear and delight, secrets and plight. A realm it is that is more than who we are, but one of who we never believed before we could be.

Dare to dream so that when death comes for you, it will know that you lived with purpose in every valuable moment given to you. Show it that you gave to life what only you could. Tell it that you heard the voice and you followed. You persevered even when darkness stole the light, you opened the door, you kept the fight.

Once passion is lit, it never burns out, never runs out of fuel. It builds rightenous and destroys maladies. It’s the sixth sense that each of us can unlock and free. Find it! Live up to it! Die with it! We are never fully whole until we find it. Every part of us is tied to it and without its discovery, we have existed having never truly lived at all.

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Mindset Origins: Grant Yourself A Pardon

 I have been writing Mindsets for 25 years. I thought I might take some time to explain exactly what they are and how they originated. For most, if not all of us, we have defining moments or experiences which mold us into who we become. For me, that was a clinical depression in early adulthood. I began writing to help me express and understand that depression. Initially, most of it was dark poetry, but the more I wrote the less about expression and the more about understanding and finding hope it became. Within a few years, the dark poetry became more, eventually morphing into what would become Mindsets. I had chosen to focus on what could be as opposed to what was. I chose to understand instead of escape into a vice or become completely lost in misery. I needed to believe that everything has meaning and that life is not a cosmic roll of the dice without rhyme and reason. Writing Mindsets has helped me to answer many of my questions and hopefully answer a few for others as well. In addition, it has allowed me to write about subjects for which I am passionate. I will be publishing a series of my early Mindsets that I hope you will enjoy. Most of what I usually publish are new ones that I have written recently and so you will see subtle differences in styles and context as my style has evolved over the years, Below is the second Mindset in this series.

Grant Yourself A Pardon

Life leaves scars, regrets, and sorrows that grow and integrate into our daily experiences. Because of this, they eventually become more than feelings, developing into an integral part of who we are. As they grow, they begin to mislead us causing us to believe their hold on us is stronger than our gift of choice.

If we simply resist the deception and remember that who we are and where we are going is our choice, then we can choose for every day to be a new beginning. What has brought us contempt and unhappiness in the past can feel erased by the mere choice to be free of them.

What we hold on to, holds on to us be it positive or negative. If we choose to keep the negative then it chooses to keep us in that darkness. Circumstances are not punishments or rewards. They are, however, prisons or freedoms we either build or grant ourselves.

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Mindset Origins

 I have been writing Mindsets for 25 years. I thought I might take some time to explain exactly what they are and how they originated. For most, if not all of us, we have defining moments or experiences which mold us into who we become. For me, that was a clinical depression in early adulthood. I began writing to help me express and understand that depression. Initially, most of it was dark poetry, but the more I wrote the less about expression and the more about understanding and finding hope it became. Within a few years, the dark poetry became more, eventually morphing into what would become Mindsets. I had chosen to focus on what could be as opposed to what was. I chose to understand instead of escape into a vice or become completely lost in misery. I needed to believe that everything has meaning and that life is not a cosmic roll of the dice without rhyme and reason. Writing Mindsets has helped me to answer many of my questions and hopefully answer a few for others as well. In addition, it has allowed me to write about subjects for which I am passionate. I will be publishing a series of my early Mindsets that I hope you will enjoy. Most of what I usually publish are new ones that I have written recently and so you will see subtle differences in styles and context as my style has evolved over the years, Below is the first Mindset in this series.

It Only Takes A Spark In The Darkness To See

So often it seems the root of humanity stems from what we want instead of what others need. The desire of tending to our own comforts can build walls separating us from those who need us the most. It is not always a conscious act of neglect but more of an unwilling blindness that keeps us from the most important issues and people in our lives.

It is a simple gesture to give, one that requires only the choices to see and then to act. This simplicity has an awesome effect on both the giver and the receiver because it brings positivity, which sparks an internal change that never ceases to evolve.

After truly experiencing the power of giving, we no longer see ourselves as individuals with personal desires but rather part of a large family whose needs lead us to the understanding that we are only as comfortable and secure as those to whom we give.

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