What I Wish You for My Birthday

Today is my birthday. And for my birthday, here is what I wish you:

I wish you clarity.

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.” - Leo Buscaglia

“The real voyage of discovery consists of not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

I wish you courage.

“For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, "It might have been.” - John Greenleaf Whittier

“First say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do.” - Epictetus

I wish you confidence.

“Confidence comes from not always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.” – Peter McIntyre

"When someone tells me something is impossible, all I hear is that he or she in particular cannot do it. If it can be thought, it can be done."
- Brian Vaszily

“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” - Vincent Van Gogh

I wish you fortitude.

"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” – Dale Carnegie

"Falling down is how we grow. Staying down is how we die."- Brian Vaszily

“Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”
- Leon J. Suenes

I wish you empathy.

“It's surprising how many persons go through life without ever recognizing that their feelings toward other people are largely determined by their feelings toward themselves, and if you're not comfortable within yourself, you can't be comfortable with others.” – Sydney J. Harris

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.” - Antoine Saint-Exupéry

I wish you compassion.

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” – The Dalai Lama

“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.” – Kahlil Gibran

I wish you progress.

“He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery." - Harold Wilson

"Opportunity is always knocking. The problem is that most people have the self-doubt station in their head turned up way too loud to hear it." - Brian Vaszily"

“The person who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.” – William Blake

I wish you imagination.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” – Albert Einstein

“Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!” – Dr. Seuss

I wish you inspiration.

"Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
- Samuel Johnson

“Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant; there is a fuel in us which needs to be ignited with sparks.” - Johann Gottfried Von Herder

I wish you positive intense experiences.

“To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.” – Mother Teresa

“Happiness consists in activity. It is a running steam, not a stagnant pool.” – John Mason Good

I wish you joy.

“Fill your life with as many moments and experiences of joy and passion as you humanly can. Start with one experience and build on it.” – Marcia Wieder

“Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though it were his own.” - Goethe

I wish you patience.

“If you add a little to a little, and then do it again, soon that little shall be much.” - Hesiod

“Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.” – Helen Keller

I wish you integrity.

“Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, 'Something is out of tune.'“ – Carl Jung

“He who closes his ears to the views of others shows little confidence in the integrity of his own views.” – William Congreve

I wish you honor.

“You are what you think. You are what you go for. You are what you do.” – Bob Richards

“Whatever good things we build end up building us.” –Jim Rohn

I wish you faith.

“It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

“Faith is not belief. Belief is passive. Faith is active.”- Edith Hamilton

I wish you hope.

“When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.” – Charles Beard

“The inability to open up to hope is what blocks trust, and blocked trust is the reason for blighted dreams.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

I wish you forgiveness.

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” - Gandhi

In the affairs of life, all questions can be summed up in two questions: "Do I hold on, and how tightly? Do I let go, and how much?" - Brian Vaszily

“To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness.” – Robert Muller

I wish you peace.

“Don't worry about anything. Worrying never solved anything. All it does is distort your mind.” – Milton Garland

"Burn your computer. Blow up your TV. Bludgeon your cell phone. Breathe deeply. This, my friends, is the secret to inner-peace."- Brian Vaszily

“The single clenched fist lifted and ready,
Or the open hand held out and waiting.

Choose:

For we meet by one or the other.”
- Carl Sandburg

I wish you love.

“Only when we give joyfully, without hesitation or thought of gain, can we truly know what love means.” – Leo Buscaglia

“Love doesn't sit there like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all of the time, made new.” - Ursula K. LeGuin

“People who are sensible about love are incapable of it.” - Douglas Yates

“If love does not know how to give and take without restrictions, it is not love, but a transaction that never fails to lay stress on a plus and a minus.” - Emma Goldman

“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."- Emily Brontë

“We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.” - Tom Robbins

“Love one another and you will be happy. It's as simple and as difficult as that.” - Michael Leunig

I wish you happiness.

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” – Helen Keller

“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.” – M. Scott Peck

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony” – Gandhi

“People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within.” – Ramona Anderson

“If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias in his garden. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that has rolled under the radiator.” – W. Beran Wolfe

“Take your seat on the shore. Listen to the ancient voice in the waves. Taste the salt of life on your tongue. Run your fingers through the eternal sand. Breathe deeply. If you find yourself worrying about your cell phone and emails, if you find yourself feeling guilty that you should be doing “something important,” breathe deeply again. And again. Breathe deeply until every fabric of your being is reminded that this, being here, is your top priority. This is peace. This is wisdom. The work is a means to living, but this is the living. - Brian Vaszily

And here is what I intend for myself for my birthday:

To be what I wish for you.

- Brian Vaszily