Are You A Duck Or An Eagle?

I believes that there are two types of people in the world- Ducks and Eagles.

Ducks are easy to recognize. They think in Duck-like ways. They spend all day in the duck pond with their little Duck friends. Their responses sound like quack, quack, quack as they try to convince others that they are right. The Ducks often tend to quote the rules or policy manual to try to avoid hard questions or as a reason to avoid solving a problem. Ducks are often guilty of the exact same things that they often quack (complain) about.

Ducks have no idea that soaring above them all the time are Eagles.

Eagles are people who have found success and soar above conflict. Eagles are optimistic and choose a positive attitude. Eagles are always aware of the Ducks' existence and the dangers that looms within the Duck pond.

Ducks can be very sneaky. They have a way of luring others to join the Duck pond....this includes Eagles Once caught in the pond, Eagles will quack along with the ducks and can often find it difficult to leave. Some are able to leave immediately....others it may take much longer. But most Eagles will leave the pond eventually and begin soaring the skies again. But the majority of Ducks are Ducks. They will never change, even with extensive counseling or training.

Ducks and Eagles can be found in nearly every situation – you'll see them in your offices, homes, churches and organizations. You see them in families and groups of friends. You'll encounter them as you go about your errands and with every person you encounter as a customer.....the bank, grocery store, dry cleaner, restaurants, etc. The Ducks let you know how difficult their job is and what an inconvenience you are. Eagles go above and beyond to provide excellent service…even if it’s just with their positive attitude and general likeability.

Ducks and Eagles are also easy to identify. Look around. I'm sure you can easily identify who belongs in each group. However, do you know what group you belong in?

Farewell

Farewell, my friend and confidante!
As you go, so must I
Return upon the well-worn path
Each soul must travel by.
Wend where you will, my wanderer,
Even as you stay
Long-treasured in my lonely heart,
Loved well, though far away.

Within Us Is Everything We Need To Change Our Lives

You have the power to choose how to react AND how to act (if you even choose to act for that matter). If you choose to react negatively to everything around you, then that is exactly what you will bring about in your life. If you choose NOT to act by giving your power away in the form of blame and excuses, your ability to be proactive becomes weaker and weaker as time goes on until you find yourself not being able to do anything at all.

You have the power and the responsibility to react AND to act and the truth is you always had that power within you. You just didn’t know it until you realized the fact that it was this very same power that is responsible for the life you are living today. When that hits us, we tend to focus on the fact that all the bad things in our life were not the fault of others, but the fault of ourselves so we become overly depressed. Never despair because with that being said, it’s leads to this realization.

If you want your life to change, it’s up to YOU to change it and you CAN change it.
Use that same power which has gone out of control that has given you the life today, seize it, and use it to create the life you want. Nobody can change your life except you. Stop pointing the fingers. Start pointing them to yourself. You have the power to act and create circumstances and while you can’t control circumstances and events that are out of your grip, you can control and choose how to respond to them. When we take responsibility for our lives and realize the power that resides in choosing how to react to circumstances and choosing to act in order to create new circumstances, we realize that within us is everything we need to change our lives.

Could We Have A Second Chance?

Love was not enough for us,
Though we were much in love.
We started down the well-worn path,
But it was not to be.

Delight was not enough for us,
Nor tenderness that moved
Through years of angry dissonance
Towards some dark, bitter sea.

Our differences were far too great,
Our lives too far apart.
We didn't like each other much,
But put that truth aside

Until one day it was too late
To reignite the heart.
One told the other, who agreed
At last that it had died.

But then, ah, then! we felt our loss
As unremitting pain,
As deep and inconsolable,
Unbearable regret.

And all alone we had to cross
That desert once again
That we might know that we had loved
Too much to soon forget.

Giant lizard discovered in the Philippines

The Northern Sierra Madre Forest Monitor Lizard or Varanus bitatawa feasts on fruits and snails rather than carcasses, unlike many monitors, including its larger relative, the Komodo dragon, according to American and Filipino researchers who wrote about the discovery in Wednesday's peer-reviewed Royal Society journal Biology Letters. It spends much of its time in the treetops and has unique claws that allow it to reach its favorite fruits.

"I knew as soon as I saw the animal that it was something special," Luke Welton, a graduate student at the University of Kansas and one of the co-authors of the study, said in a statement.

It is not that unusual to find a new species of tiny fish, frog or insect these days. But Welton and his colleagues said it was a "rare occurrence" to discover such a large vertebrate, particularly on an island hit by deforestation and nearby development. They compared their find to the 1993 discovery of the forest-dwelling Saola ox in Vietnam and a new monkey species discovered in the highlands of Tanzania in 2006.

"The discovery of such a large, charismatic, and strikingly distinct new species of vertebrate in the unexplored forests of the northern Philippines accentuates the degree to which the diversity of this global conservation hotspot is still poorly known," Mundita Lim, chief of the country's Department of Environment and Natural Resources Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau, said in a statement.

Eric R. Pianka, a lizard expert at the University of Texas at Austin, said in an e-mail interview that it was an "incredible find."

"This is truly a spectacular discovery," Pianka said. "Worldwide, there are about 60-plus species of monitor lizards. In all probability, some as yet undescribed species will be found on various islands in Indonesia," he said.

The new lizard is related to two other fruit-eating monitors in the Philippines, all of which have seen their numbers drop significantly due habitat destruction, as well as hunting and trapping for the pet trade.

"We hope that by focusing on protection of this new monitor, conservation biologists and policy makers can work together to protect the remaining highly imperiled forests of northern Luzon," Rafe Brown, leader of the team that discovered the new species and curator of herpetology at the University of Kansas, said in a statement.