Looking through my old academic bin of readers, papers, notebooks (why am I saving this stuff? Does anyone really ever go back and review it?) for my old clinical supervision notes, I came across an old cardboard UPS envelope that I saved. I had filled it with tons of little scraps of paper, to the point of bulging. I pulled out one that read “When speaking of others, consider three questions: Is it true? Is it of a positive nature? Will it benefit those who hear it?” I realized that like calendar pages, they were snippets of articles, some one-liners that I thought were provoking. I pulled out another one that read “Choose cheerfulness. It’s contagious.”

I felt my heart ache because these were more than crumpled pieces of paper. I recalled the day I had the bright idea that I would start having “perfect mornings” (please laugh- I just had a good one typing that phrase). I would go for my daily run (I still do this. I am a runner, not running for me is not an option), shower (yes, I still do that sometimes twice a day), then pull out a quote and my glue stick and adhere it to pages of what I called my quote book. The idea behind this was I would fill it with thoughts, nuggets of laughter, and wisdom that I could flip through and center myself. I do not do this daily (as the evidence has proven), time simply has gotten away from me. So, as the New Year is in swing, I would like to push myself to positively purge these pearls of wisdom as I purge my pile of articles (151 to date). I welcome your feedbacks in the comments and your likes and passing the real life wisdom on to others as I embark on this new venture of “positively purging“, as I know each of these pieces represents something