All by Reece Gardner
As you know, Valentine's Day is being celebrated this week - February 14 - all across the U.S. and in other places around the world. Most of us look on this Day as an opportunity to express our love for those who mean so much to us throughout the year.
I want to expand on a Column I wrote several years about age. Even with the Pandemic we have experienced the past two years, people are still living longer, Centenarians are actually the fastest growing age segment, with the number of 100-year-olds to hit 6 million by mid-century.
Do you have any regrets? Are they about something you did, or about something someone did to you? Most of the presentations on this subject that I have heard in my Dale Carnegie Classes over the years, as I have mentioned previously, have come from people who felt they they had been the cause of another's hurt.
All of us at times struggle with negative emotions, things we find difficult to understand. But we can better handle these negatives in this New Year of 2022 if we recognize that inspiration can come from them. For example, most of us are bothered by the way so many of our law enforcement people in various parts of our country are being treated today, from being humiliated and denied service at restaurants to being ambushed, wounded, and murdered.
There are some things that bear repeating, such as expressions of love, about which I will be repetitious today. We are now fully into the New Year of 2022 and there are a lot of exciting events on the horizon. But, as always, there is also the potential for depression and sadness, especially if we try to relive days from the past or agonize about days to come.
In recent years this effort has grown, leading many to believe that we should enact a voucher program that would give parents throughout the state a choice in how and where their children are educated. This could lead to freedom of choice in education, putting education in the market place and requiring educational outlets to compete with each other to attract students to their facilities. Schools would have to be competitive, and most of us will probably agree that competition tends to bring out the best in all of us.
With Thanksgiving Day coming up next week we would all benefit by recognizing the many blessings that come our way and by being thankful for those blessings. For example, just this past week I had the good fortune of being included in the festivities surrounding the celebration of the birthday of my two identical grandsons, Patrick Robert Nix and Davis
It seems that every day we are reminded of the evil in our world, so much so that we might overlook the goodness all around us. In that spirit, I decided to look for some acts of kindness on display, and I found that they are in abundance.
Today I want to talk about how we are blessed by animals around us and how we need to let them know we care. Joe Exum put the organization "Friends of Man's Best Friends" together a few years ago and great numbers of animals have been given quality lives as a result of his effort, and the efforts of his dedicated associates who give freely of their time, money, and expertise in the promotion of this noble cause.
Happenings of inspiration occur frequently in all our lives, but unfortunately, we are often too busy to notice them. Here are a couple of True-Life examples of inspiration that I hope you will enjoy.
Today I want to talk about TIME, which is a very interesting thing. We can't stop it, slow it down, turn it off, or even adjust it, and we certainly can't bring it back. Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow is uncertain. We may look ahead to a full year's block of time, but we really have no guarantee that we will experience any of it.
Life is a gift, so before we say an unkind word we need to think about those who can't speak; Before we complain about the taste of our food, we need to think about those who have nothing to eat; Before we complain about our companion, we need to think of someone who is crying out to God FOR a companion; Today, before we complain about life, we need to think about someone who went too early to Heaven; Before we complain about the distance we have to drive, we need to think of someone who has to walk that distance;
Folks, we all want to be positive in our outlook on life, and indeed there is a lot to be positive about, locally, Statewide, and nationally. But some things have occurred on the national and international scene during the past 9 months that in many ways are puzzling and hard to understand.
Just recently, on September 17, a 3-judge panel of the Wake County Superior Court ruled 2-1 that North Carolina's Voter ID Law violates the State Constitution and cannot be put in force. These two judges wrote that the attorneys defending the law failed to prove that it was not discriminatory.
Three very special young ladies are traveling in Italy this week and I want to highlight some of their experiences. These ladies are my Daughter Jessica, my Grand Daughter Rachel, and a special friend, Carla Gray. They are all extremely busy in their everyday business and personal lives. Jessica holds a very important position with Natural Stone Services headquartered in Alpharetta, Ga., and she also is a leader in her church and community. Rachel is also a very busy young executive, and Carla stays on the move as well. So if you are planning to travel, don't let your busy schedule keep you from doing so.
