I struggle with being calm. There. I said it. I try, I really do…but it always seems like a state of mind I plan on acquiring when I get home. My affliction is probably like many others who can’t always find that peace of mind. So here are a few quotes to lead us in the right direction:

A desire arises in the mind. It is satisfied immediately another comes. In the interval which separates two desires a perfect calm reigns in the mind. It is at this moment freed from all thought, love or hate. Complete peace equally reigns between two mental waves.
Sivananda

Affliction is the wholesome soil of virtue, where patience, honor, sweet humility, and calm fortitude, take root and strongly flourish.
David Mallet

Am I calm all the time? That is a question to ask my mother. I am very happy in my home. I have a good family, that gives me something extra.
Jean Alesi

Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.
Publilius Syrus

Be calm in arguing; for fierceness makes error a fault, and truth discourtesy.
George Herbert

Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.
Michael Caine

Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.
Martin Luther

Before, I was so stupid. But, you know, when you have friends who died on the street, you say, okay, let’s calm down. It’s not the kind of energy I want to have in life. I want to go slower, and longer.
Olivier Martinez

But when I lose my temper, I find it difficult to forgive myself. I feel I’ve failed. I can be calm in a crisis, in the face of death or things that hurt badly. I don’t get hysterical, which may be masochistic of me.
Emma Thompson

Calm self-confidence is as far from conceit as the desire to earn a decent living is remote from greed.
Channing Pollock

Stories like these always warm the heart. When people extend themselves for animals (which they should do, instinctively, I do pray), it reminds us that we’re all interconnected…and that deep down inside, we care.

MOUNT SINAI, N.Y. — Police on New York’s Long Island spent over four hours rescuing a baby deer that fell into a 20-foot-deep manhole.

The cute, speckled creature scampered into the woods after it was released Thursday by its beaming, burly rescuers.

Landscapers called Suffolk County police around 3:30 p.m. Thursday after they saw the deer fall into the hole near a vacant lot in Mount Sinai.

Four emergency service officers responded.

The officers said the deer looked scared and sounded like it was crying.

One officer descended while wearing a breathing apparatus and a harness.

He placed another harness on the deer. The team raised it to ground level around 8 p.m.

They proudly posed for pictures with the fawn before releasing it.

Source: AJC.com

How one deals with anger is as individual as thumbprints; we all have our own techniques and even they change over time and per situation. I found this section of an article helpful, where Leadership Freak asked his Facebook friends how they deal with anger. Look at the wide array of responses!

Contributors on my Facebook page completed the sentence, “I deal with anger by ____:”

1. Trying to find the funny or ironic in the middle.
2. Getting it out and getting it over quick.
3. Riding my bike.
4. Thinking of solutions.
5. Being sure my brain is thinking before my mouth is moving.
6. By putting the energy into positive behavior.
7. Walking away and taking time to evaluate.
8. By reflecting on my part in the situation.
9. Painting, writing about it.
10. Seeking advice from a third party.
11. Picturing what my grandfather’s reaction would be.
12. Checking my ego.
13. Too often saying things I regret. (I had to include that one)
14. Accepting that I’m angry.
15. Depending on the situation, letting it out on the person who screwed up.

Leadership Freak’s technique?

“When I feel anger’s heat, I call a trusted friend and spew it over him. I tell him exactly what I think, unfiltered. He always does the same thing; he listens and slows me down. He saves me from a world of regret and enables me to identify constructive behaviors.”

Here in the US, it is the fourth of July. We celebrate our independence. Countries all over the world celebrate their independence as well. So today, let’s talk freedom:

“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”
- Gloria Steinem

“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.”
- Coco Chanel

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”
- Mahatma Gandhi

“Lock up your libraries if you like, but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”
- Virginia Woolf, A Room Of One’s Own

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
- Benjamin Franklin, Memoirs of the life & writings of Benjamin Franklin

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can’t be any large-scale revolution until there’s a personal revolution, on an individual level. It’s got to happen inside first.”
-  Jim Morrison

“Freedom lies in being bold.”
- Robert Frost

“I’m single because I was born that way.”
- Mae West

I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you.
- Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

This post might come across as cliche. Nobody likes forced smiles. And nobody like forced positivity. But this morning, as I was walking to work, a woman smiled at me. I took a moment to note the changes I felt after she did it. Relaxed, more welcome in this world…like the world was a friendly place, not a dangerous one.

Fast forward to later that day and I decided to pass it on. I smiled at a grumpy co-worker who didn’t smile back (but it didn’t matter). I smiled to the cashier at the cafe who I could tell genuinely appreciated it.

So smile LIKE you mean it. That doesn’t mean you even have to 100%. Just come close. You’ll shift your world and theirs.

I don’t know about you but I still find something majestic and comforting about the British royalty. Perhaps its the the pride, the style, the well-mannered protocol. In a day and age where pomp and circumstance seem like a thing of the past, the Queen’s Jubilee seems to resonate well with the nation and the world.

The History:

2012 marks the 60th Anniversary of Her Majesty the Queen’s Accession to the Throne when she will become only the second British Monarch to have achieved this noble milestone–the last was Queen Victoria in 1887.

Source: The Guardian

We love hearing from you at Only Positive News. This morning we received another positive news websites called Airprayers.com.

They seem to still be setting up shop but their opening story caught my eye. It’s about Water.org, an organization with smart solutions to a big problem.

Remember these facts when you’re showering this morning.

If you knew that 3.5 million people a year died from water related disease – every 20 seconds a child dies, or that 884 million people lack access to clean water, would you care?

We found this to be so alarming that we wanted to highlight an amazing non-profit group Water.org – founded by Gary White and Matt Damon, who to date have transformed hundreds of communitues in Africa, South Asia, and Central America by providing access to safe water and sanitation. Even with a celebrity co-founder in Damon, who’s been know to tout his charity on the popular hit series Entourage, Water.org could use everyones power to spread the word and donate.

Read more at Airprayers.com.

Watch full interview with Matt Damon on the water crisis.

A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes.

Joseph Addison

A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.
Steve Martin

A good laugh is sunshine in the house.
William Makepeace Thackeray

A light wind swept over the corn, and all nature laughed in the sunshine.
Anne Bronte

Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone, It’s not warm when she’s away, Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone, And she’s always gone too long, Anytime she goes away.
Bill Withers

An easily accessible and transparent database of contract information will bring sunshine into the confusing and sometimes shadowy practice of government contracting.
Tom Coburn

Anyone’s life truly lived consists of work, sunshine, exercise, soap, plenty of fresh air and a happy contented spirit.
Lillie Langtry

Arizona is gorgeous. The sunshine in Arizona is gorgeous red.
Cecilia Bartoli

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.
Thomas Jefferson

Change, like sunshine, can be a friend or a foe, a blessing or a curse, a dawn or a dusk.
William Arthur Ward

Every player should be accorded the privilege of at least one season with the Chicago Cubs. That’s baseball as it should be played - in God’s own sunshine. And that’s really living.
Alvin Dark

Sunshine in a Man - Bill Withers

Fancy your having no sunshine in London yesterday! Here it was glorious, like full summer, and I sat up with the window wide open, listening to the discourse of two amorous thrushes.
Marie Corelli

My sister sent me these photos this morning and it started my week off right.

Shot in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania:

Whether metaphorically or literally, singing is a beautiful way of expressing yourself. So let your heart sing out or sing your favorite song proudly. Let these quotes inspire you to sing today. Sing like you just don’t care.

My heart is like a singing bird.
Christina Rossetti

I spent many years laughing at Harry Secombe’s singing until somebody told me that it wasn’t a joke.
Spike Milligan

Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.
Rudyard Kipling

Love, I find, is like singing. Everybody can do enough to satisfy themselves, though it may not impress the neighbors as being very much.
Zora Neale Hurston

My heart is singing for joy this morning! A miracle has happened! The light of understanding has shone upon my little pupil’s mind, and behold, all things are changed!
Anne Sullivan

No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?
Bertrand Russell

Nothing I have done professionally will top the feeling I got when singing with John Farnham at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.
Olivia Newton-John

Singing is the love of my life, but I was ready to give it all up because I couldn’t handle people talking about how fat I was.
Stevie Nicks

Stevie Nicks

Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/singing_2.html#ixzz1nmobtYjx