What Are Your Best Motivational Books and What Would You Suggest?

OK its day 31 of my 90 fast and I want to start concentrating on, motivation, self help, inspirations from the past, things that have changed my life and hopefully you will share with me the things that have changed yours. I have to start out by asking you not say the bible. I know that there are a lot of religious people who are following my progress, and I appreciate your kind words, and your prayers, but let’s leave bible as a given and move onto other books that encourage, and motivate.

I’m presently reading “100 Ways to Motivate Yourself”, and I am finding it an excellent source of ideas which I will touch upon in future hubs. But I wanted your input, your ideas, and your personal experiences and the books and people who have changed your life.

I remember I met a man, I was working Renaissance Festivals at the time, and I living in a tent. Now it had been raining for days and the ground was just soaked, literally you could not leave you tent without stepping into a foot of mud, and the mud was so thick that it would suck you shoes right off of your feet. And we were all just miserable, wet and muddy and just feeling defeated by life. And here was this man smiling, playing his flute, running around barefoot in the mud. And he said something weird, he said, “I love the feel of mud as it squishes around my toes”. He had taken this miserable situation and found joy in it. That has always stayed with me. That is possible the greatest piece of wisdom that I have ever learned it life, try to find the Joy in ever situation.

Now understand the situation doesn’t change, but your attitude toward it can. Take my unemployment; I started out feeling defeated by life, depressed, obese, and practically unemployable. And then my attitude changed, I started to look at this time as an opportunity, an opportunity that I could challenge my normal way of trying to loose weight and go for something a little more extreme. I would never have tried this if I was working, but now that I have found out how easy it’s been I wonder why I waited so long to do this.

I have no doubts that I will succeed, the progress I see is overwhelming, my strength is returning, I feel as if I’ve lost 5 years off my age, and it’s only been a month, can you imagine what it will be like 2 or 3 months down the line. Forsaking any major catastrophes, I should be strong enough to do my play, after the 90 days. I might not have the resources to mount a fully dressed production, but a scaled down version is very feasible. And because of the economy, my unemployment might be extended, so I might even be able to lose even more, providing greater and greater opportunities to me. So what was once a depressing, gloomy, future has opened up to an assortment of opportunities and possible futures, all because my attitude changed. All because I decided to take off my shoes and wiggle my toes in the mud.

This gentle man changed my life, and I am sure there are people out there that have changed yours. Please share them with us. Perhaps a book has opened your eyes, and made you think in a different way. I would like as many ideas as possible, so that I could read and explore and report on what I’m discovering.

I thank you all for following my progress, I hope in some small way that I can inspire you as well with my process, and hope and pray that life always teaches you to smile and enjoy the complexities which is life.

Until next we meet then

Peace

FM