TNT!

Seeds IX, 28

Seed: TNT!

There was a time in my life when I was a motivational speaker, mostly to the nuclear industry, and the first thing I always told them was that I couldn’t motivate anyone. It’s true. No one can really motivate anyone else. That’s because motivation is an inside job.

What I could and did do was create an environment where my listeners’ personal motivation could be activated. Today’s Seed comes from a respected motivational speaker, Denis Waitley. It stands for Today! Not Tomorrow! And it’s a great piece of advice.

Motivation can sometimes feel elusive. Let’s say you’re inspired to make a change in your life. Do it when the inspiration comes! Or, at least, start it when the inspiration comes.

You’ll find, I’m pretty sure, that once you take action—any action—that the next one will naturally flow from the first one. If you don’t act, then the change becomes just so much theory, a good idea, yeah, someday, and it eventually gets filed in the recycling.

Today! Not Tomorrow! Take that one step, and see how much easier the second one is.

Be serene,

Dr. Susan Corso

Seeds are remarkable gifts. Sown in consciousness, they bring you to the most important part of your being—your Divine Spark.

When you have friends you would like added to the Seeds e-mail list, send their addresses to me at SeedsDrCorso@comcast.net and please visit my blog at OdeMagazine.

Bypass Washington

I read these two words in the order in which they appear above in an article called “Redeeming America” in the July-August Utne magazine. They stunned me.

I wouldn’t exactly say I am a political animal and I have to be honest and credit Aaron Sorkin’s brilliant television series, The West Wing, for my interest in politics at all. (He taught me how it works.) I enjoy pedaling my bicycle for daily exercise in front of Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, the smart, bad boys of the liberal media.

There’s also one other thing: I vote—and I prefer to vote informed rather than strictly along party lines.

The hard part of this for me is the heart of our nation is in Washington, a government of the people, by the people and for the people. What people? What’s happened to our national heart? Where is it? Why hasn’t the heart of us gotten out of Iraq or into Darfur? What’s going on?

I am sorely tried by the Congress seeming to spout at the White House about bringing home our troops, and not voting to put OUR money where their mouths are. I pray more through the daily news than at any other time of the day.

Bypass is a word common to the world of coronary surgery. The surgery reroutes, or bypasses, blood around clogged arteries to improve blood flow and oxygen to the heart. Could “clogged arteries” also be spelled “clogged beltway?”

Bypass operations are happening politically all over the country these days. Mayors are greening their own cities; governors, their states. Communities are creating safety and watch organizations for their own streets. College students are working to create a Department of Peace in the United States Cabinet, and so are their adult compatriots. Bypassing is a commonplace.

When a coronary bypass is successful, blood flow is improved and the heart gets more oxygen. Take a deep breath, dear one, and pray for more bypass till the heart returns to our nation, or we return to our national heart, whichever comes first.

Just Ideas

For some reason, my favorite magazines have decided to change their taglines all at once. Ode, which used to be “for intelligent optimists,” which is what made me subscribe in the first place, is now “to people, to passion, to possibilities.” (Please be sure to check out their Readers Blog, where I am a regular charter member contributor.)

Utne used to be “understanding the next evolution,” which is a very clever use of their name. Now it’s “Don’t Be Afraid! They’re just ideas.” I laughed when I read it. Just ideas!?!?! Oh, that’s all.

Dear one, nothing but nothing starts without an idea first. I read an article in Guideposts about a stay-at-home mom who wanted to have her own business. She started with an idea to make pillows filled with corn that could be hot or cold. They’re called Wuvits and she’s now got a multimillion-dollar business. First, an idea.

I think ideas are why I write “Seeds” and why I’ve written them for nine years and why I see no reason to stop writing them. The “Seeds” I write are all about ideas. Because you never know. One small idea seed in front of the right person at the right moment could change the world.

One of my favorites, Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote,

Nothing can withstand an idea whose time has come.

Nothing. No thing. First, an idea. In an individual. Who is energized by it. Takes the idea and acts on it. Tells others. The world is transformed. Sounds like a short, simple formula. Not so much. But it doesn’t matter.

This summer I’ve been given some quiet time to reflect on the past almost fifty years of my life. The things that have taken me the farthest in these fifty years have been ideas. Don’t be afraid, dear one. We’ve all got them.