A double take of dogs, except this one is saved by an unexpected animal in water. While this is obviously a staged setting, it’s still fills our hearts that two mammals that live such different lives posses the ability to love one another. We should all take a moment to think about that fact. Do something to fill someone’s heart, someone that you normally wouldn’t do something for.

People go through life thinking that they aren’t strong enough. They feel weak in all of the circumstances that are brought before them, and even if they try to be stronger..it’s not enough to keep the pain from coming. Most of us feel like having our heart being broken is a matter of not having strength, while others feel their heart’s not strong enough to fall in love with someone. We all feel weak to certain things and we are all different in that respect.

While not feeling like you’re strong enough hurts, it is not a reflection of our inner strength, it’s our mindset. STOP for a second and take a look around you. Listen to the rain fall, look up to the mountains, into a river or ocean, through many miles of a horizon. Now think about where the water drops from the sky, how many people can see that exact same mountain, how many boats that have sailed that river or sea and how many people that have traveled through that long horizon. Our mindset is that of one that can’t quite grip the understanding of what is going on in the world around us. In another place someone is starving, another is wondering if they’ll find a place to keep their kids out of the cold rain for the night, a person is riding in the back of an ambulance after a bad crash, a massive storm has torn off someone’s roof, a house has been devoured by fire.

If you think of the bigger problems of the world you can realize how many problems there are that you don’t have. That will not only make you thankful, it will help you prepare yourself for those circumstances and stand strong for others as they are going through them.  We are much stronger than we think, we just have to think of others first.

We could all use an “easy sheet” when it comes to buying Christmas gifts for others. But this Christmas list is better and has many more long term benefits instead of the temporary items that are bound to break.

Fruits are too expensive and junk food is too cheap. It’s tough to make a “good” choice when you’re on a budget. Here’s a different way to start thinking about things.

What you put in your body today, it will help put that energy out for you tomorrow.

While this literally may not always be true if you don’t follow a routine, it’s still a better motto than:

“Eat to your hearts content”.