Authenticity Archives - Page 3 of 9 - Stephanie DelTorchio

Live A Life That Matters

Live A Life That Matters/positive inspirational quote by Marcus Aurelis/befat.net/Stephanie DelTorchio/9.1.2016

(NOTE: This was sent to me by a friend of this website. What a beautiful and inspirational message — perfectly aligns with the BeF.A.T. mantra. Passing along to you to enjoy and share.)

Live A Life That Matters

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.

There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.

All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.

Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.

It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.

Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear.

So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will expire.

I Know Derek

Derek and his friend Jane.

SPOTLIGHT: As often as possible I want to shine a light on some person, place or organization who epitomizes the Be F.A.T. way of life. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Derek.

Of all the joints…

On a recent summer evening I met Derek, and his beautiful friend, Jane, at a Jimmy Buffett concert. For Parrotheads, (followers of Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band), making new friends is Cheeseburger in Paradise nirvana. We know every song by heart, dance with complete strangers and for the better part of the day, congregate in a tropical, if not quite, religious experience.

Turns out Derek, from Canada, is a traveling Parrothead. This concert was Derek’s ninety-seventh, he said, as in 9-7. I was impressed, and then quick to point out that if he’d put the money spent following J.B. and the band in the bank — tickets, travel, lodging, food — assuming a conservative compound interest rate, a sizeable nest-egg would finance his new sailboat. In cash.

It’s Complicated

It's Complicated/So this is my life...and I'm trying to figure it out before it's too late/befat.net/Stephanie DelTorchio/8.23.2016

Maybe you were born with a road map to your path and destiny. And then there’s people like me…the wanderers. Still trying to figure it out.

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

Original graphic and quote: Stephanie DelTorchio

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Can You Handle the Truth?

Be honest before you break my heart/Stephanie DelTorchio/befat.net/8.23.2016

“You can’t handle the truth” from A Few Good Men is one of my top ten movie lines of all time.

Icalled a plumber to rework the heating pipes in our small bathroom. His voice message said he’d return my call “as soon as possible.” That was three years ago.

I can handle the truth. It’s NOT getting the truth that’s difficult for me to handle.

Tell me you can’t.

Tell me you’d rather not.

Tell me you’re super busy.

Tell me anything, but don’t lie to me about your intentions to make good on a promise, and then leave me in the cold.

Everybody Has A Story

Everybody has a story/To tell the story of your life/befat.net/Stephanie DelTorchio/8.20.2016

Life is filled with lots of little moments that eventually add up to one life. Your life. Your story.

Our ability to sort the wheat from the chaff is difficult, given that, well, it’s our story. It’s very personal. And when we sum up our life every bit matters — from what we’ve heard to what we’ve seen to what we’ve felt. These are the moving parts to our story.

It’s easy to pick out the good times from the bad times, but we store both in our minds. For safe keeping. Maybe to use later.

The positive stuff goes under the “good” column. If we haven’t figured out a way to “let go” or forgive or forget the bad stuff, we stockpile this to perhaps use later as ammunition or revenge or excuses.

All wrapped together, the good and bad experiences become our story. Years of data — wounds, failures, hurts, surprises, awards, broken promises, wins and losses, etc. — support the story we tell.

Start Here

Just Start Already/quotes/images/befat.net/Stephanie DelTorchio/8.18.2016

Call it laziness. Procrastination. Second guessing. Hedging. Toying. Dilly-dallying.

Whatever name you give it doesn’t help you to move forward.

No matter how you justify the reasons you haven’t taken the step out, or the leap, they are all just excuses. Wrap them in pretty paper and a bow (valid reasons why you can’t) only makes your hopes, dreams, whatever your “thing” is, pushed further out of reach.

Why are you playing hide and go seek with whatever it is you MUST do. What you WANT to do?

Stop for a second. Look down at your feet. Wherever you are standing…this place is a good place to begin.

Just start already.

File Aug 18, 1 55 43 PM

(Taking my own advice after exhausting all the excuses — procrastination, laziness, doubts, roadblocks…all of it — and organizing all of my notes to finally start writing an e-book.)

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

Original graphic: Stephanie DelTorchio

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Table For One

Oscar Wilde quote/Now and then it is a joy/befat.net/Stephanie DelTorchio/8.18.2016

A former colleague of mine had remained a single woman into her early 40s. She owned a renovated beach bungalow. A lovely wardrobe of designer clothing. Drove a cute two-seater sports car. And her vacation time from work actually involved going on vacation, to a beautiful island or an extended stay at a spa resort. She treated herself well; setting “a proper table” at night which included a glass of wine and fresh flowers she bought twice a week from a vendor near our building.

As a mother of three school-aged kids, I couldn’t help being a bit envious of her Sex and the City lifestyle.

One day after work we wished each other a good-night. I harried off to gather my children, while she, with her stylish gym bag slung over her shoulder, headed in a totally different direction.

My Working-Mom-Part-2 ritual began. Three pick-up stops in a minivan followed by tug-of-war homework assignments while getting dinner on the table before baths and cleaning out backpacks. The Monday through Friday three ring circus. Still, the best part of every day was having our family around the table. Where everyone recapped their day. Caught up on schedules and who needed what by when, usually news to me.

“Mom, the bake sale is tomorrow. I said you’d make brownies with frosting, and sprinkles.”

At midnight, waiting for the brownies to cool, I romanced about my colleague. Probably soaking in a hot bubble bath sipping Chardonnay, while I made bologna and cheese sandwiches, then folded a load of warm laundry.

With the shoes and backpacks lined in a row by the door and the brownies wrapped, the dog patiently waited for me to call it a day. Instead, I poured a very tiny glass of red wine — to relax, you know.

One by one I shut the house lights. Then checked the bedrooms. The low breathing of my sleeping children brought a sense of completeness; another successful day — one where nobody broke a bone and the house didn’t burn to the ground.

Before going to bed I glanced around the living room with its scattering of books and puzzle pieces and Barbie doll body parts. The moonlight danced around it all, including the soccer cleats someone would forget tomorrow.

On the coffee table beside me, the pure and delicious scent of fresh lilacs, my favorite, filled the night with spring. Harvested from a neighbor’s yard, they had been a gift delivered with love by my seven-year-old daughter.

For a few minutes, in the quiet stillness, I sat alone enjoying my table for one. A final taste of wine, the smell of lilacs in the air and I headed off to bed. In the totally right direction.

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

Original Graphic: Stephanie DelTorchio

Quote: Oscar Wilde

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Over Your Head?

If you aren't over your head/inspirational/T S Eliot quote/befat.net/Stephanie DelTorchio/8.17.2016

“If you are not in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?” Inspirational quote by T.S. Eliot

The very act of taking even baby steps outside of your comfort zone is important. Get serious about going to the next level or achieving a goal or making a necessary change in your life.

What’s at stake here?

Your daily well-being, that’s all.

A string of daily challenges you give to yourself wads up to a fully explored and challenged life. (And great fodder for your obituary).

The opposite of making any move — remaining stagnant, doing nothing — guarantees mold will grow between your toes. And who wants to dance with someone sporting green fuzzy feet?

C’mon you guys…You have no idea how high the top is unless you reach over your head.

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

#1440minutes
#BeFAT

Original graphic: Stephanie DelTorchio
Quote: T.S. Eliot

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Reinvent Yourself Again and Again

8.16.2016 At the moment of your greatest failure, you have the chance to reinvent

You’re going to try many things in this lifetime. Some will work out. Some won’t. I believe this is why Karaoke was invented — to appease all the wannabe rock stars and embarrass their children.

But the end of one thing is never THE end.

It’s the beginning of something else.

We’re not all destined to be rock stars. That’s a good thing. Because there would be no classical, jazz, heavy metal, country…disco…Well, in my opinion, we could have skipped the disco era and all of the 80s.

The point is: You get to fail. Over and over.

And whether you tweak and refine one idea or start another from scratch doesn’t matter. You get the opportunity to take another swing at something that just might be THE thing that brings you the most satisfaction.

You have the power to do that. You’ve always had the power to reinvent yourself. As many times as you want.

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

Original graphic; Stephanie DelTorchio

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When Will You Say “Yes”?

positive quote/befat.net/Stephanie-DelTorchio/8.11.2016 While you are wondering about your direction, the rest of us are patiently waiting for you to say “YES!”

Say YES to that inner voice. That gut feeling, the hunch, the spark.

Say YES to new adventures.

Say YES when you normally knee-jerk NO.

Say YES to sharing your talents, your gifts, your time, your money, your PIE! (I love pie)

Say YES to taking a chance on a new love or rekindling an old friendship.

Say YES and show us your inner beauty, however you manifest it outwardly.

Say YES to exploring new places.

Say YES to starting this day with wide-eyed wonder by embracing a new beginning.

Say YES, again and again and again, to the things that make you happy. (You know it’s your sweet spot – no harm hanging out there a while, my friend)

Say YES to everything that sparks the smallest bit of interest and curiosity in you today. Because you never know where it will lead, what doors it may open and whose heart you may touch.

Get on with it. We’re waiting for you to say YES!

#1440minutes #BeFAT

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

Original graphic: Stephanie DelTorchio

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