Quotes from Art Berg

While the difficult takes time, the impossible just takes a little longer.

I discovered a long time ago that my happiness is not a condition of my circumstances. Rather, happiness is a choice, and I make it every day. While we cannot control the environment of change that is happening all around us, we can control how we respond to it. We can adapt. We can change. And we can still find happiness, no matter how dark the storms are around us.

Never forget that God has given every single one of us the most astonishing uniqueness. There's no one in the world who can do what you can do, who can think and see the way you do, who can create what you can create. You are a complex mesh of finely woven styles, view-points, abilities, tastes, and gifts. If you don't get to live your life, you've lost an incalculable treasure.

However, as good or as bad as yesterday may have been, it is unchangeable. There is nothing I can do to bring it back.

To hate and to blame would be so easy. But in the end, those who collect stones as a reminder of the past wrongdoings find themselves carrying far greater weights than the very people who have done them wrong.

You have the power to think whatever you choose to allow into your head. If something just "pops" into your head, you have the power to make it go away. You have the power to decide that a particular emotion is a "choice" rather than a condition of life. And you have the power, similarly, to choose beliefs that empower you, that bring out your best.

Excessive happiness! I never knew there was such a disorder. I didn't know you could be too happy.

Althought it's important not to let the little irritations consume you, it's also important not to ignore them. Backing down when others are unfairly running over you, or giving up with a sigh, can ultimately cause more distress than the hassle did in the first place. So I make sure to deal with them.

Choosing happiness, in large part, means consciously refusing to choose unhappiness.

To grab a hold of the good life, then you must be prepared for the struggles that lay ahead--for turmoil and the problems, for the pain that might cut through your heart and soul and perhaps even your body like a knife.

If we ignore pain long enough, it will eventually go away. But by the time it does, we may have caused lasting and permanent damage, and a new pain will enter our lives, which is often worse than the first.

Pain is important. It acts as a warning. It tells us that we are damaging ourselves in some way.

An attitude that avoids enjoyment today only means an evasion of happiness forever. Happiness becomes something for tomorrow and therefore ever elusive.

Just as a good chief executive officer keeps looking for ways to change because he or she knows that nothing will be the same in five years, so you, too, as the chief executive officer of your own life, must always be looking for better ways to make changes. You must be flexible enough to get around the new obstacles that are looming on the horizon, and you must be willing to change course if you have to.

Once you make the decision to keep fighting for change, the range of possibilities for discovering who you are can be are endless. By experimenting with new ways of doing things, you will eventually discover your full potential. By enduring your anxiety and consistently risking your best effort, you will achieve more than you ever believed possible. No, you won't be able to change everything. But you will have realized that you have spent far too long holding back your own potential.

As much as God loves his children, it is misplaced faith that asks him to prevent all pain in this life, especially the pain we created for ourselves. When we ask God to remove the natural consequences of our own behavior, we set ourselves up for disappointment and frustration. As a wise friend once said, "It is foolish to think you can sow your wild oats on Saturday and pray for crop failure on Sunday.

Is that you? When you fail, are you too humiliated or ashamed to ask for help? When you suffer, are you too embarrassed to ask for more support and comfort?

Believe me, I had my share of "why" questions. I turned my eyes upward again and again , and in my heart I asked why I, an ordinary human, should be bearing such an extraordinary burden of pain and grief. Why I was the one picked to deal with such a tortuous twist of fate? It all seemed so unjust. I had reached a point where I had to get answers to some questions that were inside me. Shutting myself into the world of my heart and mind, I wondered, "Why? Why? Why?

I don't believe we are put through hard times in order to learn a lesson that we couldn't learn some other way. But if we never get off the "why" question, if we never get unstuck from the idea that life is unfair to us, then we will never have a healthy response to living. We'll buy into all the reactions that take away our inner peace and eat away at us.

Our constant barrage of why's sounds a lot like whining to me. If you are a "why-ner," you're not looking for solutions. You are not interested in answers. You only want sympathy. But if you stop "why-ning," you can develop a belief system that says there are unfair things that happen in life that are an integral part of existence, and that when they happen you'll deal with them the best you can. Only then are you in the position to start making changes in your life.

I'm not saying people should not be held accountable for their hurtful behavior. But the only thing blaming does is to keep the focus off you. It means you aren't dealing with your problems.

I do not mean to imply that outside circumstances or other people do not play a role in our lives. Certainly, many factors influence the conditions we experience. But if we focus our attention solely upon those factors, we feed a spirit of fear and uncertainty regarding our future.

spend very little time reflecting on my future...I know there is nothing I can do about tomorrow, other than what I am willing to do today.

People think that an expensive car--a stimulus--will lead to a response of happiness. If they have a great paying job--the proper stimulus, they believe--then their response will be happiness. But what if the opposite is true? What if happiness is the stimulus and the response is whatever life brings from that happiness?