March 2011
1 post
Untitled
The Ever Forward blog has moved. I’m now posting here: http://www.petertcrowell.com I hope you’ll stop by for a look! Thanks. Peter Posted via email from Ever Forward
January 2011
2 posts
Your life is asking something of you.
Jesus told his followers to be “perfect as the Father is perfect.” At first glance this seems pretty outrageous, but glance again. If you have perfection as a goal, excellence as your standard, you will always have work to do. You’ll face your own inner obstacles: those fears and preconceptions that hold you back. You’ll face circumstances beyond your control, which...
Your life is asking something of you.
Jesus told his followers to be “perfect as the Father is perfect.” At first glance this seems pretty outrageous, but glance again. If you have perfection as a goal, excellence as your standard, you will always have work to do. You’ll face your own inner obstacles: those fears and preconceptions that hold you back. You’ll face circumstances beyond your control, which...
December 2010
2 posts
God wants us to thrive. If it does not help you...
The point here is to have life to the full. Of course that doesn’t mean a life without struggle or a life without challenge. It does mean having a perspective on struggle and challenge that help you to grow, to improve your your surroundings, and to contribute in positive ways when change is needed. Or to simply enjoy a good thing while it lasts. This message is all over the place in the...
How's the view from your deathbed?
The deathbed perspective is a great way to evaluate the decisions you make. When faced with risk or opportunity, consider how you will feel when you look back from your deathbed at the choice you made.If there is an upside to death, it might be the surgical precision with which it can help you sort your priorities. Ever forward. Posted via email from Ever Forward | Comment »
November 2010
3 posts
Consider the evolution of awesome
Awesome is a great word. It used to mean “eliciting awe,” and implied a mix of inspiration, fear, exhilaration: like I felt the time I used my pocket knife to free a huge buck deer that got it’s antlers tangled in the ropes supporting a pine tree. It was awesome. When I was a kid, awesome took on “lower-case A” status and came to mean “cool” or...
Success hounds your steps intent on devouring you...
Success shadows failure where ever it goes. People who never give up understand this. The people who work every day to bring what they have to the world keep doing it because they understand this truth. Sure they experience failure, defeat, discouragement. They may even get overwhelmed. But they endure because of an abiding sense of possibility. Failure and discouragement imply their own...
Imagine if creativity for its own sake were an...
Evolving your freedom and taking chances on your passion are the best things you can do for yourself, your loved ones, and for the world. Consider what you think and feel inside. What happens in there that you don’t like? What is about you that stands in the way of you? Of you prospering and thriving, of you unleashing your creativity, of hatching and achieving your dreams? Who...
October 2010
2 posts
Don't miss your chance. It only comes around a...
Whether you’re working on the project of your heart’s desire or getting chewed out by your boss, you have chance to make something great of your circumstances. It depends on three things:Your sense of self Your alertness to opportunity Your idea of great Ever forward. Posted via email from Ever Forward
Your job is more than just a career, it's the...
Don’t be a pushover. Be someone who creatively pushes back. Rubbing up against personalities, against the unimaginative, against the threat of losing your job: these things are the context you’ve been given to polish yourself and deepen your maturity. This is your mythical adventure. Express yourself fully, then let go. Then refine how you express yourself and try again. Realize that...
September 2010
1 post
What I really need to do is be.
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August 2010
2 posts
There seems to be a difference between the real...
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We live on a planet in orbit around a star....
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June 2010
1 post
With futility out of the way the sky is the limit...
make an act of love for your craft. Where there is no love, put love, and there you will draw love out. Creativity can be brutal and the sense of futility can wear you down. Sometimes we have to labor at what we love rewarded only by the belief that doing so is good. Sometimes you just can’t feel the love, as the hackneyed saying goes. But there is a less tired saying, at least as true:...
May 2010
15 posts
As you explore your talents you uncover hidden...
When you use your talents, you start to make time for them. You realize that no matter how busy you are, you can make a little time. Your talents will reach a higher place on your list of priorities, among the other things that really matter. Your talents have a special place on that list. Even among your relationships, your work, your health, your family. Your talents are there to help you stay...
Your dream, your passion, is woven into your being...
A sense of self is the ability to know yourself when you see it. With a strong sense of self you are able to find yourself at any given moment under all circumstances. You’re able to manage your weaknesses and access your strengths. You’re able to remember your values and your true motivations no matter what is happening around you, no matter how you feel emotionally. Your dream, your...
Your dream is the whole of your life and you have...
It’s hard to wait for something when there is no guarantee it will happen. Add to that a conviction that seeing it done is parcel to your very being—a divine mandate, an inner command—and, for you at least, it’s kind of a big deal. This experience is a central aspect of dream building. It’s the fear of slow. Doing the work your dream requires is actually the easy part. At...
Death at the door
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There is a kernel within you that only exists...
Be mythic. Be the stuff of myth. Be the one who ventures out, driven by vision, by a dream, by the promise of a prize that can only be got on the long end of struggle. You can do it in your spare time. Get up early. Go to bed late. Do what you have to do, this is urgent. Everybody has their own myth to live and yours is unique to you. It lives in your talents and aspirations. Those things are...
Failure is not failure if done properly.
Failure is information. Failure tells you what you are not, and knowing what you are not is crucial. Take Hangman. The game, Hangman. You start out knowing nothing, literally, about the word you’re trying to decipher, except the number of letters it takes to spell it. Most of the letters you will guess are wrong. You fail and your turn is over. But you’ve also learned a little bit...
Roots and flowers
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1 tag
Into light or into darkness?
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What does excellence look like?
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When in doubt, love others.
Being good to others conjures up a rudimentary confidence that you can build on. If you are faced with a situation where you feel weak or insecure, take a genuine interest in the people around you. It actually dispels the insecurity, stops the self scrutiny and creates true emotional stability that is not forced, fake or put on. Once you’ve established this basic relaxation inside, you can...
The strength of weakness
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Awkward moment.
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Midlife can be the most powerful, most productive...
Midlife gets a bad rap. Too much negative spin. People start trying to disguise the fact that they are gaining ground on life. Very often we look back with regret, or even horror at how we’ve spent the time so far. Missed opportunities. Errors in judgement. Embarrassing moments etched forever on the memory of the universe. Hogwash. You can’t take the wisdom from an experiences as you...
Make a game of being awesome on the job and you...
The workplace can provide all the challenge you need to grow as a person. You spend most of your time there. It’s your context. It’s your primary observation deck for witnessing how you interact with life. Pick your biggest challenges. Boredom? Repetition? A boss who never approves anything? A coworker two cubes over who cranks away on his apple as if he were the only man on earth...
A new earth
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April 2010
20 posts
The false peak
It’s a painful discovery, maybe even overwhelming. You struggle. You sweat. You devote large amounts of time, energy, maybe even money, to reach a desired end, a mountain top. You do the work, you make the sacrifices, you reach the summit, only to discover it’s not the summit at all. The first thing you see when you stand up, eager to take in the results of your dedication, is another...
Mindcage
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Try not to keep death waiting
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Truthshine
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Real passion is a fact-facing, cold-blooded...
It’s hard not to get emotionally invested in an opportunity. And that can make disappointment all the more bitter. But it’s vital to stay passionate and excited about a prospect if it really lines up with who you are and what you want. That energy can’t be replaced in the striving for a successful outcome. Positive attitude keeps you moving, keeps you sharp, and helps you...
How to find your dream
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What kind of fuel do you burn?
Negativity is like fossil fuel. It doesn’t burn clean, it’s bad for the environment and there are limits to how far it will take you. Using it it creates conflict, but it gets you through the day. Positivity on the other hand is like solar power. It’s abundant, clean, and highly efficient when properly tapped. Using it tends to create a sense of harmony. It’s harder to...
On positive thinking
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"Let it be true." A new cartoon from the Ever...
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Do it even if you'll never make a living at it.
So much divides us from our talents, and therefore from our dreams. A huge part of living well, of thriving, is gaining access to your talents. For some, just doing that much can take a lifetime, but doing that work is every bit as praiseworthy as pulling off a best selling book. It’s just not as noticeable to strangers. In fact it might be a greater accomplishment because of the seeming...
Who are you when you're not looking?
A world view is more than a belief system or an agenda. It’s what comes out of you automatically—when you meet a person different from yourself, when you’re exposed to a new idea. It’s what makes you angry or sad or afraid or happy. Your worldview is so present you don’t even know it’s there most of the time. It’s what you really think, beneath all your efforts...
"Cult of the Round Hole." A new cartoon from the...
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Religion is useless to you if you reduce it to a...
Religion is useless to you if you reduce it to a moral code. You don’t need religion for that. All you need for that is a todo list. (Or a todon’t list.) All the “you need to live this way” or “you need to believe in this” parts of religion are just people putting their own spin on the information. Any worthwhile religion is trying to tell you that there is way...
Love constantly raises the bar, rejects mediocrity...
Real love is very hard to do. It requires that you overcome your limitations and that you require others to overcome theirs. If you’re not working to overcome your limitations, you’re not loving yourself. If you’re not requiring it of others, you’re not loving them. If your idea of love is sentimental or wimpy abandon it. Remember that it’s love that drives a mother...
Fear and doubt come from certainty.
Fear and doubt come from certainty—the certainty that what you’re doing will not work, that your chosen road leads to failure. But this amounts to predicting the future. To tell yourself that the future holds failure is no less a lie than telling yourself that success is assured. You simply don’t know. That’s why they call it the future. For some reason, for many of us, the...
Staying positive is a skill
Staying positive is a skill. It takes reflexes and endurance. It also requires the suspension of disbelief—the same ability that allows you to enjoy a science fiction film or book. You need to be able to reject the so-called realism with which you have been programmed. Instead of saying “that could never happen” you have to be willing to let it be possible. Think big. Dream like the...
Death and resurrection is more common than you...
Death and resurrection is more common than you think. You might already have done it a couple of times today. Each time you push yourself beyond your limits, you die a small death and rise to slightly new life. It happens when you weather hesitation and do something risky, like asking for a raise or saying “I love you” for the first time. Regardless of the outcome, you’ve just...
New cartoon from the Ever Forward blog
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New cartoon from the Ever Forward blog
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New cartoon from the Ever Forward blog...
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March 2010
20 posts
Ten-second survey, 3 random questions, totally...
A totally anonymous survey from the Ever Forward blog. Click here for the survey. —————————————————————————————-Join the mailing list Start a conversation Posted via email from Ever Forward | Comment »