Camp counselor Rachel Guzy doesn’t think of herself as a hero per se - just doing what anyone else could do. Rachel thought quickly after bus driver Ramon Fernandez collapsed due to a heart attack as it came to a busy intersection in New York several weeks ago. Aboard the bus were nine children and Rachel, 17, who doesn’t even possess a learner’s permit.

Rachel jumped into the driver’s seat and pulled the emergency brake, slowing the vehicle before it crashed into a minivan.

No one was seriously hurt in the accident.

The bus driver was later pronounced dead.

“I just did what I had to do,” Rachel said Wednesday. “Everything went through my mind. I worried about the kids. I worried about the driver. I knew I had to react. I just jumped into the driver’s seat, and the first thing I did was press down on the brake as hard as I could,” Rachel said. “Then I pulled the emergency brake.

“I was a nervous wreck. I was shaking and I was crying. I couldn’t breathe. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life.”

Rachel, a junior at Bryant High School in Long Island City, said she had a sense of what to do because she had spent time messing “around with everything on the bus. I never knew it would pay off. I guess it pays to be curious.”

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/08/19/2009-08-19_a_real_hero_quickthinking_teen_rachel_guzy_pulled_bus_brake_after_driver_drops_d.html#ixzz0R5TYsQSt

A friend of mine is quitting smoking. And it’s a struggle. She was a serious smoker. A pack of Marlboros a day. She sent me this and I found it applicable to other situations. I hope you do too:

Of course, I miss smoking. Sometimes it seems like there isn’t a minute that goes by it doesn’t nag at me.

My latest technique is simply to shift focus. Yesterday, while sitting at the computer, I wanted a smoke so badly, I could have died. So I simply got up, put on some sneakers and went for a walk. That simple act shifted my focus away from the craving to something else.

Then I tried it in more subtle ways. (I can’t go for a walk everytime I crave a cigarette!) Today, I simply got out of my chair and danced and sang for a minute. Singing helped me breathe deeply and dancing helped me get in touch with my body. Both helped allay the craving.

Got me thinking that I could shift focus more in my life, whenever negative thoughts plague me. Simply by getting up, moving, breathing, laughing, reading a book, looking up at the blue sky, calling a friend, laughing…whatever. Anything that’s different than what I’m doing.

Shari Arison is no ordinary billionaire several times over. She can see the future. Or so she claims. And whether or not you believe this Israeli woman, her focus is more than positive: she plans to change the world.

“Over the years I suffered much from the visions, the feelings and these messages. I prayed they would go away. They brought much pain to my life. This was the preparation for the current phase, the phase in which I am ready to declare what I know with courage and without fear.”

According to the Washington Post:

She says she plans to mobilize her wealth, her companies and, most important, the energy of her accumulated lives to save the human race. As a businesswoman, Arison has an environmental focus — green building, renewable energy, water management. As a philanthropist and erstwhile spiritual role model, she had already been taking action — like encouraging good works and promoting the kind of inner harmony she believes will do as much as summit meetings to keep people, and particularly Arabs and Jews, from hurting each other.

Shari Arison

Thousands of spectators turned out this month to watch the choreography of trainers and dogs at a herding competition in Dawsonville, Georgia. Herding or stock dogs can be of many breeds, and even a fictional pig did the job in the movie “Babe.” But it’s the border collie that is most closely associated with the practice.

“Border collies are what we call ‘class on grass,’ ” said farmer and dog trainer Mike Northwood. “They’ve got style and class, and do their work on grass.”

Northwood, from northern England, was one of the judges at the U.S. Open Stock Dog Trials in Dawsonville. He runs several farms and owns more than 5,000 sheep, and says he is “absolutely dependent” on his dogs.

The dogs act as both traffic cops and psychologists when herding sheep, cattle, and even ducks or geese.

Because the dogs and livestock may sometimes be far out of whistle or voice range of the shepherd or rancher, experienced dogs are trusted to make decisions about how best to move the animals on such occasions.

“We have a tendency to let the dogs work out the problems for themselves,” Northwood said. “They can’t hear your commands if you are a half a mile away. And that’s the beauty of the border collie. It thinks on its own.”

(It’s important to know that border collies do not always make the best pets. They are very active dogs and need to work and stay busy in order to thrive. They are not lap dogs but work dogs and can become neurotic and problematic if not directed properly.)

Source: CNN

Here’s some beautiful photos to showoff this “class on grass” dog. Thanks for your tireless service!:

It’s Labor Day weekend. Most of are trained to celebrate it in very particular ways that include grilled food, cold beer and crowded beaches.

But I’m proposing you celebrate this weekend with a little different take: truly celebrate your labor of this last year.

Many of us are contending with financial difficulties or perhaps are unemployed or underemployed. But we all work to some extent. We extend ourselves to make our life better. We try.

And labor doesn’t have to mean simply employment. A single mother is working hard raising a child. Some children work hard to survive in troubled homes. And for some, our minds just work a lot and need a rest!

For all the work that we output, in whatever form - celebrate it by letting it go this weekend and doing whatever the heck you want. No pressures. No keeping up. No working. No labor. Just relaxation and celebration for you and all you’ve done, in whatever form.

Many times we think of a positive state of mind as something we have to achieve or work for. Suddenly, positivity seems daunting, difficult. It could take years! Special classes! A total personality rehaul!

But one of the goals here at Only Positive News is to remind you that positivity is at your fingertips. Sometimes, literally. In other words, it’s not rocket science.

So let’s get back to grooming. How could good grooming possibly add to your overall mental state? For this, I approached a good friend of mine, Andrea S., a professional hairdresser in NYC and asked her if she sees any correlation:

Of course, there’s a connection! It’s an outside in approach to positivity. Lots of clients come to me during a transitional time in their lives, like a break-up or a new job…or more recently, a job ending. They rely on a good haircut to recreate or reinvent themselves, in a sense. I’ve seen clients seem totally rejuvenated after getting their hair done. Or a good massage. Or a pedicure. Or a new outfit. Whatever it is. When your outward appearance is clean, sharp, stylish, it helps buoy your state of mind. No, it’s not therapy…but on some levels, it’s easier!

What can you do for yourself today to improve your look? You don’t have to be supermodel. The idea here is to treat your external body and show the world a beautiful, distinctly you….you!

Losing a ring can be one of the worst feelings in the world. You feel as if a part of you is lost with it. This story reminds us not to give up hope - that something lost can be found with a little tenacity and determination. It also reminds us of the power of prayer:

WELLINGTON - A Niwa ecologist, from Hamilton, has come to be called ‘Lord of the Ring’ by his friends after plucking his wedding ring from the bottom of Wellington Harbour, 16 months after he lost it.

Aleki Taumoepeau was checking the harbour for invasive plant species in March last year, when the ring slipped from his finger.

Soon afterwards, he hastily threw an old anchor overboard to mark the spot where the ring had fallen, and promised his wife Rachel that he would find it.

He never gave up hope that he would find the ring, and even refused her offers to buy a replacement.

“She kept saying to me when we went out, ‘I’ll have to buy you a new ring,’ but I just said, ‘No, I’ll find it,”‘ stuff.co.nz quoted him as saying.

His wife said: “It flew off into the air and everyone on the boat was looking at it and said it was like a scene from Lord of the Rings in slow motion.”

Back in the capital for a conference three months after the mishap, Taumoepeau decided to borrow dive gear from colleagues to search.

Since conditions were bad and the GPS co-ordinates he had noted down at the time were wrong, he came away empty-handed.

A year later, Taumoepeau returned with some new co-ordinates garnered from Niwa and website Google Earth.

This time his wife and their nine-month-old son, Alekisanita, watched from the Petone shore.

“I thought he was mad going back a year after. Even people on the beach were saying ‘Is he OK? Is he a bit crazy?’” she said

In three metres of water near the Hutt River mouth, Taumoepeau hunted for the anchor, and after an hour, he stopped to catch his breath and, while doing so, asked for some divine intervention.

“I was getting cold and tired so I said to God it would be really good to find the ring about now,” he said.

He then looked down, spied the anchor, and found the ring just centimetres away from it.

“I couldn’t believe that I could see the ring so perfectly. I was thinking I won’t see all of the ring, maybe part of it, but the whole top surface of the ring was glowing,” he said.

His wife heard him cheering and screaming in the water.

“I couldn’t believe it. It was the power of prayer,” she said. (ANI)

Source: BreakingNews24/7