Hell NO WE Won’t Go

Images taken from: http://vietnam-war.commemoration.gov.au/vietnam-war/

The year is 1973 and I am 15 years old. This year I entered High School as the last leg of my studies to graduate. From that point on I have few choices I can make in my life. One get married and have a family. Two go off to College and further my education. Three take a few years off and travel. Four get a job and move out on my own. But this year is different. As I watch my school mates being drafted and shipped overseas to a war nobody wants to be in. The Vietnam War; that makes young men flee from their County in fear of the draft. 

In the years past I sat and watched the body bags and caskets being unloaded from the planes as they brought home the dead. I hear the fear in my friends’ voices as they announce their brother just received his draft notice in the mail. He has to register and be shipped off to this senseless war. The look in their eyes, the fear, the question will they ever see him again? 

By 1973 the war has started to affect everyone. I for one was no different. I had started to participate in a rebellious battle. My hair was long past my butt and half way to my knees. I braided my hair each day adding a leather band on my forehead. I would add flowers to my hair. I wore tie-dyed shirts to make a statement. I would take the new Levis my parents bought for me and soak them in bleach with rocks inside the bucket. After I would cut the legs outer seam of my pants up to the knees and add bright flowered material to make the bell bottom jeans everyone was wearing. I spent hours on end embodying peace signs, flowers, and anti-war designs on my pants.  I had to do my part. 

Everyone at school was wearing leather and silver bracelets with someone’s name on it. Praying for the men and boys who were captured or missing. Some of my friends’ Mothers volunteered at the offices set up for families of the war. Their job was to keep track of the POW’s and MIA’s. After school we would go to the office and collect bags of bracelets and roam the streets selling them to everyone. We believed if everyone wore a bracelet with a soldiers name on it he would come home again to his family. 

My solider was Col. Joseph Bowers. He never made it home. He is still on the list today of the MIA’s that never made it out of Vietnam. I followed my solider each day looking on the list hoping he was found. Hoping he would be reunited with his family and loved ones. He never was. To this day nobody knows what happened to him. 

As part of our anti-war efforts my friends and I created a book. We wrote pomes to the loved ones to give them hope. We sent our pomes off to the families of the solider we carried on our arms. We put forth all our efforts to try and stop a war that nobody wanted to fight. At one point we organized a sit in the middle of town. We thought if the Government would not listen to us maybe our local Congress would. Our efforts were of no vial. Nobody cared what happened to our friends. How young they were and why they had to leave to a Country that did not care about another person’s life. 

This is my Poem to the family of Col. Joseph Bowers and all the other men who were captured or lost in Vietnam.

The Sorrow of our Times 

Holy Father in Heaven above
Protect the men that we do love
Bless our children’s innocent face
Keep them safe in this unknown place
May they know that we are there
Holding hands in silent prayers 

Holy Father in Heaven above
You created him for me to love
You picked him out from all the rest
Because you know I’d love him best 

Holy Father in Heaven above
Look upon his innocent face
Protect his soul from his fears
Let him shed no more tears 

Holy Father in Heaven above
Take my son to thy above
Cleans his soul for what he’s done
Keep him safe for years to come 

Holy Father in Heaven above
Keep my son safe for me
Let him look from Heaven above
Knowing we are there to love 

Holy Father in Heaven above
Keep his memories safe with me
His touches so soft and kind
Will stay with me to the end of time 

I wrote this prayer to Col. Joseph Bowers’s family in his memory. He was sent to Vietnam and never returned home again. His body was never found and his family still morns his death to this day. I was 15 years old when Col. Joseph touched my life. I wore his name on my arm for years after the war. As I grew older I took this silver band off and placed it in a safe place. Every now and then I pull it out and look back on time to the year of 1973. To this day my bracelet still carries the blue star incased in the white circle telling me that Col Joseph Bowers is still a MIA in Vietnam.

Never forget the men and women that are away from home. It might not be Vietnam but it is a war all the same. My Uncle was lost in WW2. He boarded the last submarine in Pearl Harbor when it was attacked. He and his crew limped the damaged sub to San Francisco for repair. The last time my Mother ever saw her brother was the day he boarded the sub again headed towards Japan. His sub was lost somewhere in the South Pacific never to be found again. My Uncle rests at the bottom of the ocean incased in a medal prison. 

Never forget the men and women who have given their lives for America. Say a silent prayer now for each person who has given their lives so that you can be free today. Say a prayer for each man and woman that is away from their families now at war. Say a prayer for their families to bring their loved ones home safe to them. Each day take a moment to reflect back on the men of the past and the families that went on after they were gone.

By Ann LeFlore
A reflection back in time to the years of war that affected an entire nation

 

 

How to Develop an Attitude for Success

Attitude what is it? We can look this up in the Webster’s dictionary and find out the meaning. Webster describes attitude

How to Develop an Attitude for Success

as “Position as indicating action, feeling, or mood; as, in times of trouble let a nation preserve a firm attitude….”

 What does this all mean? Attitude is the basis that prepares us to face life’s challenges. If you carry around with you an attitude of defeatist you are inviting defeat into your life. If your attitude says success you are inviting success into your life.

 Working on changing your attitude from defeat to success takes come changes in your mind and efforts on your part. How can you develop an attitude of success? Let us examine some ideas of attitude change in our lives:

1. Surround yourself with people who feel good about themselves. Stay away from negative minded people in your life. Positive attitudes will pull you upward where negative attitudes will pull you downward. Surround yourself with positive minded people who can reveal your hidden potentials in your life and make you success minded.
2. Always seek to step up higher on the ladder of success. Have you ever heard of a mediocre success? Well let me tell you this there is no such thing. Success is always one step higher than mediocre. In your life if you always seek to step up one step higher from where you are today you will achieve your goals. Never stop seeking to better yourself in your life. Think of life as a ladder and you need to climb this ladder one step at a time to reach the top. If you stop in the middle and forget to advance and climb your life is stuck in one place. Always consider life like a ladder there is always one rung higher from where you are now.
3. Look for the opportunities in ever challenge never let one pass you by. Stop yourself from being a victim of negative feeling. When you find yourself in a difficult situation do not let negative thoughts get in your way. The challenges in our lives are there for a reason. They are put into our lives to makes us think, to act, to connect with other, and to motivate us. When a crisis enters our lives think of how the Chinese would write this. The Chinese word for crisis is composed of two characters. One represents damager and the other represents opportunity. Always consider the opportunity you may gain out of every crisis you encounter in your life
4. Learn, Learn, and Learn some more never stop learning. I read once a wise old soul wrote “An idle mind is the devil’s playground, and it’s called Alzheimer’s disease.” This might not be the case but it got you thinking now. Our minds need to be feed all the time. We can not allow our minds to go idle. We need our minds filled with learning experiences and not junk. Feed your mind with food that will bring out the creativity and potential advancements of your mind. Just remember the road to success for many has been paved with brilliant ideas learned and then put into effect. Keep your mind sharp and continue to learn each day fuel your mind with learning experiences that can advance you in your life.
5. Be of service always willing to help others. When you are of service and help other to succeed they are there standing behind you helping you to succeed at the same time. Think of your services as a ladder. The person who is in front of you pushing him up one step closer to the top. Then the person who is below you will push you up one step to take the others place. If you are negative and try to defeat the person who is ahead of you on the ladder there is no room for you to advance. Consider the person who is one step above you on the ladder. If you push him and he falls he can take you with him on his way down.

Changing your attitude is not an over night process. In one night we can not build an attitude of success. The change of attitude is done over time and is a slow process. You will never know how long it takes unless you change your attitude today. The road to success and attitude chance must start now. When you begin the changing process you might discover that success is right around the next corner.

How Creating and Revising Personal Goals Can Change Your Life

What are your personal goals in your life? I am new here on GoodBlogs but from what I have been reading most people

How Creating and Revising Personal Goals Can Change Your Life

write about being on the first page. How they want to win the $20 and be voted the number one post. Is this so important? I feel writing a good article and supplying useful information is more important.

 Your personal goals need a planning process in order to succeed in your life. If you do not have a personal goal plan in your life now is a good time to start one. Why? This answer should be simple to you. Any successful person in any field always has a clear picture of what they want to achieve long before they actually achieve it.

 How? Before anyone of them ever started out in business, family planning or what ever goal they wanted in their life they had a plan. They knew where they were going, knew many of the steps to achieve these goals, and had mapped out these steps to lead them to where they wanted to go.

 Now it is your turn to decide on some goals you would like to achieve. Take them one at a time and work on them in a time frame. Set a goal and decide on if it is for today, this week, or this month. Your goal can be extended for longer periods of time such as 6 months to a year, and can go as long as 5 years to 10 years.

 To start you need to write down the end results of what you need to know or do to accomplish your goal. In these steps you may decide that you need more money, more knowledge, more time to implement your goal, and you might need more formal qualification to achieve this goal. Now think of ways to get what you need.

 When working on your goal plan it might seem impossible at first, instead of saying that you “can not do this”, ask yourself how you can do it. Open your mind to all possibilities. You might be surprised at some of the ideas you come up with and some opportunities that come your way. You have to take back control of your life and believe you can do it. You thoughts and your attitude will play a major part in determining your success.

 If a major goal is too difficult and you think you could not achieve this goal start off with a smaller goal. One that you could achieve is you really wanted to. This goal could be a small task you have been putting off for way too long, maybe decide that when you are in a shopping center you will smile at ten strangers, or maybe you will decide to speak to a person at work that you do not know well at all. Choose a task that is challenging but not so difficult that you will put it off and not do it.

 Once you have accomplished your task analyze how it went. Ask yourself how it felt before you started. Were you nervous in this task, did you feel shy, were you scared, did you feel nervous, or were you relaxed. After completing your task how did you feel? Were you excited? Were you pleased with yourself? Are you still nervous? The sense of achievement you have gained after completing a task encourages you to try again.

 Successfully accomplishing small task one at a time build up your confidence. You have successfully completed a small task and now you are ready to start a new one. Each task that is successfully complete builds up to much harder task and goal in your life. Before you know it you will be able to achieve the one big goal you want most in life.

 Goals and task in your life will not be easy at first. Success will not come over night. This is a process that takes time and dedication to work. The best way to guarantee success in your task and goals is a little at a time. Do not force thing to happen. Work on these goals each day. Never loose sight of what is important to you.

 Improvement; in any area of your life; whether it is personal or business come from consistent work and many small steps. The process is always the same. You first have to identify your task, make your plan, and carry it out. There is no overnight success in personal life or business. Success comes from many years of hard work and never giving up.

 Not giving up is very important. Any personal achievement takes time and effort and most of all believing in you. Take control of your life and see the rewards it brings. You will soon notice how one small thing can build and lead to something better.

 If you feel lost or feel like you are off track go back and start again. Look at where you lost sight of your goal. When were you last on track? Start from this point and work forward again. There are no wrong decisions in your personal goals. You just have different choices that lead to different consequences. There is always something to learn each decision you make when you look at each one of them.

 Evaluating your progress is just as important as your initial planning. You may need to make improvements to achieve your goals. It never makes sense to keep doing something the same way if it is not working. Many people in their personal life fall into this. Analyses your results and use feedback from others. Could something be done a better way? Is a different way more feasible? Keep your mind open to all new possibilities and listen to what others say.

 When setting your goal and assessing them you find one is too hard or does not seem relevant any longer. Put this goal aside and work on another one. Do not concentrate your efforts on this goal. You may decide to come back to this goal at a latter time or you might decide this goal is no longer important and forget about it. The main point here is to continue to take small steps and moving forward every day. In doing so you keep on the path of where you want to be and closer to achieving the goals you have set for yourself. The small steps and progress you make today will lead to bigger and better results tomorrow.

 Live your life with you in control. Look into your inner self and see what you want to achieve and where you want to be in different stages of your life. Sit down and map out a rough draft of the path you want your life to take. Now break this map up into workable segments small steps in achieving your major goal.

 Each step of the way keep track of your progress at regular intervals and make changes when needed. Work on your goals each day making small advancements towards your major goal. Each day should lead you closer to your final goal. If today you have decided to work on self improvement, building a stronger relationship with your family, or improving your fitness. Keep focused on these goals, believe in your self and you will be successful.

 

 

Achieving Your Goals Through Visualization

Achieving Your Goals Through Visualization

Personal goals, business goals, or family goals are the central key to personal and professional success. Stating your goals will not accomplish your task for you. You have to put your goals down as a concrete statement of what you want. A timeline is of utter most importance in achieving your goals and getting what you want.

 Sharing your goals with others holds you accountable for your tasks. Each day read your goals out loud and look for ways to reinforce each goal and achievement. A higher degree of success can be achieved by adding creative visualization to your goal setting and implementations.

 When you use creative visualization to link your goals to the power of your imagination you are forming a subconscious bond with your mind. You are visualizing in your mind your goal success and forming a powerful tool to support your vision of success.

 By setting a goal and capturing it on paper you have a word picture of what you want to achieve. What you want as your outcome, what efforts you will do to achieve these goals, and when finished what you plan to do for your next achievement.

 Now take these words and create a mental image in your mind, picture in your mind what it will be like once you have achieved this goal. Creating a visual image of your goal in your mind allows you to see things that you want. You can visualize how it will be once your goal is achieved. See your efforts for your work, your relationship, even yourself, the way you want them to be and the outcome you are striving for.

 By using creative visualization we can harness our emotions, use our concentration to achieve our goals, and focus on our outcome. We create a brilliant, vivid mental picture in our minds of what we want to achieve. As you keep replaying these images over and over again in your mind you are using the art of creative visualization to move in the direction of powerful, positive thoughts.

 Each day moves you closer to the visual image of your completed goal and success of your outcome. By using visualization you stop your subconscious mind from taking over negative thought. Positive visualization stops your unconscious and subconscious mind from taking over your thoughts and directing them in a negative direction. You are now continuously and consciously using your thoughts as a powerful tool to achieve what you truly want in your life.

 Each day each waking moment concentrate on your goal. Play the visual image in your mind. Look deep into your thoughts and see your image of success. Using visual images of what you want to achieve helps keep you on the right track and your goals and keeps you focused on your desired destination.

 The power of positive thinking, visualization, and forming positive images in your mind brings you closer to your desired goals. Each step of the process leads you closer to success. If you allow your mind to wonder and think negative thoughts this only hold you back from your goals and what you want to achieve in your life. Always think and visualize where you want to be and how you are going to achieve this goal in your life.