I have often found inspiration in these simple words. Originally I was introduced to them by my grandfather, and whenever I feel like quitting or feeling sorry for myself, I can read these words and somehow find the inspiration to keep on moving forward. It seems sometimes that life is an overwhelming experience, with many pitfalls and unpleasant experiences, but there is so much good out there and so many really great things to experience. Never let the world get you down. Don’t you EVER quit!
Here is the original poem in it’s entirety:
The Don’t Quit Poem
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow–
You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor’s cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out–
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit–
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.
– Author unknown
Here is an INSPIRATIONAL VIDEO to go along with The Don’t Quit Poem, I thought your might like. Peace be with you.
It is with a little bit of embarrassment that I admit that I love the television series, Psych. Truly I just love to watch Psych! It is a show designed, I think for people who are younger than me but I started watching it on Netflix and thanks to Psych episodes online, I quickly went through the first four seasons of the show and am an avid “Pshych-O”.
This show is totally unrealistic, and if you accept that going in you will be o.k. Shawn Spencer is the main character and he is a psychic detective. What is that you ask? Well he is a detective who uses his “psychic abilities” to solve crimes. He often is called into the Santa Barbara Police Department to help them solve crimes as well. Spencer works with his childhood friend Burton Guster, who is a full time pharmaceuticals salesman and part-time Psychic associate. These two characters have the funniest lines and most memorable banter between them. I literally laughed my butt off watching this show. Really I did. I was connected to my butt one minute and then, BAM, my butt fell off. From their constant references from foods to 80’s pop culture, there is something for everyone. They also have featured many interesting guest stars over the first five seasons. From wrestling’s John Cena to Cary Elwes, (the Princess Bride), they never fail to deliver an interesting story, and make you laugh in the process.
The laughter is definitely the number one reason I like this show. Even though I am quite sure that I feel my I.Q. drop every time I watch, I think that the boys and Juliet are worth it. Pineapple anyone?
Shawn: Come on, dude. I honestly didn’t know he was gonna be pulling a corpse outta the ground.
Gus: That’s alright, Shawn. I honestly didn’t know I was gonna be putting my foot in your ass. Life’s full of surprises.
Shawn: This is just another knock off of the other knock off of the original knock off of that other show.
Shawn [while they’re in front of the fence, after he said that usually the ‘electrified’ sign is fake]: Come on, touch it.
Gus: I’m not touching an electrified fence, Shawn!
Guard *smiling creepily*: How about I touch it?
Shawn: I don’t think I like the way that sounds.
“Or maybe you’re referring to my license to kill. Revoked. Trouble at the Kazakhstan border. I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you, which I can’t do because my license to kill has been revoked.”
Hello I’m psychic detective Shawn Spencer and this is my partner………
“Strict punctuality is perhaps the cheapest virtue which can give force to an otherwise utterly insignificant character.”~ John F. Boyes
Be On Time
In my experience throughout life, the first rule of anything that you do is to always be on time. I know it seems like common sense but I am constantly surprised by how many people fail to follow this simple practice.
“You may delay, but time will not.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
It doesn’t take any special talent or skill and really anyone can do it. It portrays your interest and responsibility to other people about anything that you are trying to do.
“I have always been a quarter of an hour before my time, and it has made a man of me.” ~ Lord Nelson.
The fact is if something is really important to you, you will make sure that you get wherever you need to be on time. Personally, I am the kind of person that if you are not 15 minutes early, you are late.
“I give it as my deliberate and solemn conviction that the individual who is habitually tardy in meeting an appointment, will never be respected or successful in life.” ~ Rev. W. Fisk
Effective Time Management
During my coaching career, I always made this rule number one in any introductory meeting. It helped set the tone that what we were doing was an important activity and anything worth doing is worth doing right. I hope that anyone who ever participated on any of those teams were able to take this life lesson and apply it to all aspects of their lives.
“Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of clear dishonesty. You may as well borrow a person’s money as his time.”~ Horace Mann
I hope you enjoyed this post and found the time management quotes inspirational.
As far back as I can remember I have really not liked tomatoes. I just think it tastes bad and particularly the texture isn’t something I have ever liked. No tomato in my sandwich I will have a BL with no T thank you very much. But here is the problem. I really like many tomato products, ketchup, tomato sauce, tomato paste, I can even eat tomatoes if they have been cooked. But fresh tomatoes out of the garden, no thank you, you can keep them.
I think the fact, that growing up, the only good thing that I can think of about tomatoes is that they made really good ammunition when it came to playing games outside which required the trowing of something at someone else. We often played these games because…………we weren’t all that smart. We used crab apples and sometimes even rocks, (like I said, not very bright), but tomatoes were the best object for these games. I remember one particular time getting pelted with them and being covered in a slick reddish goo, and thinking “Wow, this sucks, and so do tomatoes.” And I feel that way to this very day!
So there it is. If you are going to get me a sandwich, or order me a salad, please…………………………… be a friend-o and leave out the tomato!
A long while ago, a great warrior faced a situation which make it necessary for him to make a decision which insured his success on the battlefield. He was about to send his armies against a powerful foe, whose warriors outnumbered his own. He loaded his soldiers into boats, sailed to the enemy’s country, unloaded soldiers and equipment then gave the order to burn the ships that had carried them . Addressing his men before the first battle, he said, “you see the boats going up in smoke. That means that we cannot leave these shores alive unless we win! We now have no choice we win or we perish! They won.
Every person who wins in any undertaking must be willing to burn his ships and cut all sources of retreat. Only by so doing can one be sure of maintaining that state of mind known as a Burning Desire To Win, essential to success.
I don’t think it has to be quite this drastic, but the idea that you have to step out of your comfort zone and take a few risks to meet success head on, is clear. Nobody climbed a mountain sitting on their duff at home. Nobody every accomplished much by doing nothing. You need a plan for what you want to accomplish, a goal to set out for and the desire to get it no matter what the cost and you are in business. Dream big and achieve your goals, my friend.
After a conversation I had today I wanted to put a list of some of my favorite movies based on Stephen King Novels out there to scare, inspire or entertain your kids who probably weren’t alive when they first came out! Fun Making the list!
Salem’s Lot
Author Ben Mears returns to ‘Salem’s Lot to write a book about a house that has haunted him since childhood only to find his isolated hometown infested with vampires. While the vampires claim more victims, Mears convinces a small group of believers to combat the undead. Vampires in Maine what could be scarier than that?
Stand by Me
This film is a fantastic coming of age story about a group of four strange mismatched friends from junior high who try to track down a missing boy, presumed dead, by following some train tracks. Meanwhile they learn about each other and themselves, and end up all changing forever because of that several day journey. This is a very touching film with some sadness, and shows that Stephen King is not “just a horror writer.” This movie is based on the King novella “The Body.”
The Green Mile
Some may argue that this is the best movie, and they may have a point, but the fact that there are enough great movies based on Stephen King works that a film this good (rated on the top 250 movies ever on IMDB) could arguably not be in the top five just shows that there are some gems out there. Not only is Tom Hanks great in this film, but this touching movie (a not heavily hidden allegory of the Jesus story) follows the film and is a fantastic watch that generally follows the books very carefully.
It
This three hour and change movie is a two part movie, with Pennywise the Clown perhaps one of the most disturbing horror villains in movie history. I personally point to him (and watching this movie at the age of ten) as explaining my life long fear/hatred of clowns. This movie is often judged as the first half being excellent and the second half mediocre, in part because of a changed ending. In fairness, the book’s ending would be next to impossible to fully convert into a movie format, but all in all, this movie is still a great view, and the first half is excellent. You might want to skip this one if you have a phobia of clowns.
Shawshank Redemption
This movie is one of only three from the IMDB website that has a rating of over 9.0 (out of 10), and is rated as the second best movie of all time on that website, and for very good reason. This amazing movie is based on the equally amazing novella about a banker who is wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife and is sent to a sadistic prison where the guards and warden are both corrupt. The acting is incredible, the storyline is amazing, and everything about this movie works. Not only is this the best movie ever adapted from a Stephen King work, but many cinema fans agree that it was one of the better movies ever made.
Pet Cemetary-
This work was also one of Stephen King’s finest horror novels. There is a haunted pet cemetery, spelled cutely with an ‘S,’ where everything buried comes back from the dead, but comes back twisted and evil. This is a great film where the tragic loss of a child proves too much temptation, and what comes back is terrifying and evil beyond belief. The ending of this film is absolutely fantastic, and one of the best endings of a King movie.
Misery-
This was one of the best horror novels written by Stephen King, and the best movie based on a horror work. Annie Wilkes, the number one fan, is the worst nightmare of every celebrity, or every individual who has ever been stalked. An author gets in an accident, but is “rescued” by an obsessive fan, who ends up killing anyone who snoops around and creates the word “hobbling.” Anyone who saw the movie just winced at the mention of that word. Kathy Bates is exceptional as Annie Wilkes, and one of the most convincing movie psychopaths of all time.
Children of the Corn-
Children of the Corn was based on a short story by Stephen King (and all six of the terrible sequels were based on movie studios trying to stretch it for a cheap buck). “Outlander! Outlander! We have your woman!” This classic line and scene helps define the movie, where a child prophet has convinced every child to murder all the adults in town, as they worship “He who walks behind the rows.” Talk about the wrong town to break down in! This is a very solid horror flick, with some really genuinely creepy moments.
On this page you will be able to view the slideshow below of some of the graphic design work I did for the Moosehead Messenger. You can hire me to do your graphic design work at Maine Web Connection.
I have been blessed to have had a relationship with all of my grandparents and six of my great-grandparents. This article is about my Mother’s Father, Lloyd Pickett, Jr., or Grandpa to all of his grandchildren. Today he is on my mind and I can’t help thinking about all of the good things he did for me in my life. I wanted to let him know that he was appreciated and will be missed for what he did and who he was. Here’s to Grandpa Pickett, Lloyd Pickett, Jr.
l-r:Jamie Hilton, Grammie Pickett, Grandpa Pickett and Me. Looking at the horse. I was probably talking to it, I often did that, they never talked back.
When we were growing up, every summer for a week or two our parents let us go stay with Grammie and Grandpa, and for most of that time they lived in New Gloucester, Maine. Staying at their place was awesome for a kid. My Grandfather trained and raced horses for a living. These were Standard Bred Horses and this was harness racing. That means they used a cart. I always have had a fascination with the horses and the races. Grandpa could tell me, “We gotta get up at 6 and you are going to shovel horse crap for three hours.” , and I would have had trouble sleeping because I was so excited. My brothers and I followed him around and soaked in the atmosphere and the lifestyle that my grandparents lived. What ever Grandpa liked, we liked. What ever Grandpa did, we did. Some of my best memories of him were when we would jog the horses. We would get to take turns riding on the jog cart with him and we would follow the circular track listening to the rhythmic clip-clop, clip-clop of the horses hooves. Grandpa would often hum and sing along to the beat of the horses hooves as we moved around the track. I can’t remember the tune, but I can remember the song, and feel the sound in my memory.
I also loved race day. When a horse was racing, we would get to go to Scarborough Downs and watch. I didn’t know anything about gambling then, but I really loved being at the track. My brothers and I would get to race around and watch the horses and make bets with each other. We would wait for Grandpa to bring his horse out to warm up and watch him roll around the track, and yell and wave at him, even though Grammie always told us, he wasn’t supposed to wave back. Then if he won we would get to go into the winner’s circle and get out picture taken. It was awesome. Then on the way home, if we were good, we would usually stop at McDonald’s, and what kid didn’t like that? I remember this mostly because Grandpa always called shakes, frapes, I never really understood why. Also to this day, if I go to McDonalds and eat inside, I have to sit where I can see my vehicle, because Grandpa always did this to make sure nobody was messing with the horses. I don’t have any horses but I still follow this practice to the letter.
At Grammie’s insistance, probably to get us out of her hair for a little while, we would also play a lot while we were there. We went fishing in the river behind their place, we played baseball, whiffle ball, rode bikes and we even had races of our own around the track. It was about a half a mile, I am often in awe of the things we did for fun, today it would be punishment for kids to participate in activities like that but we really did love it. Grandpa used to be a great baseball player back in the old days,(he told us this), so when we were throwing the ball around, he would come out and play catch with us. He never used a glove…..I always liked that.
Inevitably the time would slip by, and soon my parents would return to collect us so that we could continue on our summer at home. I always loved those times and the memories of them are stored away to be recalled with a smile and a warm feeling, when I think of my Grandfather and what he meant to me as a boy growing up in Maine.
Anyone who knows me well, knows that I can be stubborn. Grandpa has been stubborn his whole life. He always refused to let anyone tell him what to do at any time. When he wanted to do something, he did it. As I write this it sounds a lot more like me than I thought. The past few years, as his health has been failing, he has been clinging to life with an iron grip, you have to envy. He underwent cancer surgery, when the doctors told him it would kill him. He had a pace-maker put in, even though the doctors said it probably would kill him. He has been trying to cling to every second of life that he can. My Grandmother Pickett, was just the opposite, when she felt it was her time to go, she said good-bye to her children and peacefully passed on. Grammie knew it was her time and really seemed to be at peace with it. Grandpa is not going that way, he is not going anywhere without a fight. I admire that in him, and even though I know that eventually he will lose that battle, every time he fights back it is a testament to the toughness inherent in our collective heritage.
As time has gone by, and I have been wrapped up in the happenings of my own life, I am regretful that I didn’t see Grandpa more over the past few years. It always seemed that circumstance or distance was in the way. When we lived relatively near each other, I was too busy to find the time to visit. The one thing that I have learned is that I was never that busy.
********** Lloyd Pickett, Jr. Passed away on May 30th, 2011 at approximately 7:55 PM at the Hospice House in Auburn, Maine. Rest In Peace Grandpa.
I loved racing then and I still love it now! L to R: Kyle Salway, Jon Hilton, Brandon Salway, Trainer?, LM Christina and Leigh Fitch at Scarboro Downs, July of 2010.
As I watched the final episode of the office featuring Steve Carell, I was shocked at how much I am going to miss this character. I have been a huge fan of the Office for quite awhile, but have always found the Michael Scott character uncomfortable to watch, he touches a side of you that you usually would never touch. He often says and does things that make you uncomfortable, and still make you laugh because he is a caricature of the typical boss. There are a million great quotes from Dunder Mifflin’s ex-fearless leader, which I will include below.
My favorite Michael Scott moments, 1. organizing his own birthday party at the skating rink and making everybody go even though Kevin possibly has cancer. 2. Survivorman- heading out into the wild woods of Scranton to brave the elements, Michael cuts his pantlegs off to make a hat? and then as it gets a little cooler tapes his pants back together to get warm. He manages to stay out in the wild for approx. 2 hours before he makes it back for Creed’s birthday party. 3. Any meeting led by Michael Scott in the conference room. Especially when they feature pictures. “Why did you use the picture of Tom Hanks in Big again.” Discrimination, homophobia, obesity, ageism, drug addiction, have all been tackled by Michael Scott over the years. Having sat through countless meaningless meetings, I can appreciate what he brings to the table.
Look below to read, “Somehow I Manage” , written by Michael Scott to be completed by Darryle, please enjoy the inner workings of the greatest managerial mind of our time.
Somehow I Manage By Michael Gary Scott
Chapter One: Introduction
There are all types of managers: financial managers, McDonald’s managers, Britney Spears’ manager, paper company managers, moms, baseball managers… the list goes on. Not all those people are naturally good at their jobs. Some have to work really hard at it. Others write books about it. I’m Michael Scott and this is my manual, “Somehow I Manage.” If you follow my guidelines, soon you’ll be the world’s second best manager (Sorry, I’ll always be #1. I have a mug that proves it.)
Chapter Two: Gum
Everybody likes the guy who offers them a stick of gum.
Chapter Three: Think Simple
That last chapter seemed skimpy, huh? That’s where you’re wrong pal. It was simple. And simple is good. Getting people on your side is as easy as offering them some gum. *Don’t ever give your employees Tic Tacs though, that will make you seem like a grandma.
Gum Guy is nice, laid-back and cool. He’s the type of manager who people want to hang out with after work and tell their life stories to. And you should tell them your whole life story too! That will make everyone close and happy, and happy families get more stuff done together than enemies do. Just look at Jon Voight and Angelina Jolie – they could be making awesome father/daughter movies, but instead they hate each other and barely talk. Such a missed opportunity.
Chapter Four: Equality
Treat people like equals and always make them feel good about themselves. It will pay off. For example, my ex-friend Packer once implied that my employee Phyllis wasn’t hot.
I couldn’t have that kind of negativity floating around. So I hugged Phyllis and told her I was worried about getting a boner. It made her feel wonderful. Later on that day she made two big sales. Another time I kissed a gay accountant during a meeting to show how accepting I was of his sexual orientation. He was going to quit before that, but guess what? It’s been five years since that kiss, and he’s still here.
Chapter Five: Entertain
“For some trips, high-speed rail will be faster than flying. Without the pat down.”
Who said it? Cosby? Tosh.0? Nope. Obama! Even the President tells jokes. That just goes to show how important comedy is. As a leader, people expect you to entertain them. Some managers might find this difficult because they’re busy doing other things like paperwork or employee reviews. Delegate all that boring stuff to other people so you have more time to entertain. Comedy should always take precedence over everything else because it makes people cheerful, and when they’re cheerful they work better. Someone once told me comedy is where the mind goes to tickle itself, and that couldn’t be truer. Make sure your employees’ minds are getting tickled on a daily basis. They’ll be so grateful, and so will you.
