i need help with a quote

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Dan

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hey guys, i need help with a quote for school. the quote is "I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances". i dont know what this quote really implies.
thx for the help
 
I think that it means the way our life turns out or the way things go depends on our mood and how we feel about doing things rather then where we are at a certain time or at a certain place. I could be wrong I'm not very sure. Just taking a guess. :)
 
Yeah what bullet said, basically the way your life turns out depends on YOU and what YOU do about it, how much of a role you take in your own life, not just the circumstances surrouding it :)
 
Be the best that you can be, regardless of your surroundings. Set a good example to the people that look up to you and life will be more rewarding than you could ever imagine. (That's at least what I think it means)
 
Ok. well, first of the author is Martha Washington . I looked up her bio and is a very good read. http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/firstladies/mw1.html "I think I am more like a state prisoner than anything else, there is certain bounds set for me which I must not depart from..." So in one of her surviving letters, Martha Washington confided to a niece that she did not entirely enjoy her role as first of First Ladies. She once conceded that "many younger and happier women would be extremely pleased" in her place; she would "much rather be at home." "Behind every great man is a great woman" and she helped in her own way to shape our country.

The two key words are dispositions & circumstances. Look those words up to get a better grasp of what she is implying.

Ok so you can make this VERY deep or very simple..I will go with simple to some extent. you could change disposition for believe. both are verbs. I will give you a extended literal according to usage.

"I've learned from my day to day experiences that the thing that truly controls my happiness or sadness is my believing and not other people and random situations."

Ok so the deep part. The law of believing is the most important truth and principle in a person's life. nothing determines our lives upon earth, our successes and failures, nearly as powerfully as the law of believing. The law of believing is literally your rudder in life. A ship's rudder guides it and, in time, will navigate the ship to its desired location. As you learn to simply operate the principles of believing, it will be your life as a ship's rudder and take you to your desired destinations. A ship in the sea has many factors affecting it(these are the circumstances Martha is referring to, they are waves, winds, and currents) There are many factors pulling , pushing, and tugging at you, but the truth is believing is key weather you will succeeds or fail in every endeavor.
In simple essence, what you expect will happen will happen. Certainly, there are limitations and other influences, which I will not go into here. Another simple way of stating it is what a person confesses in his or her heart is going to happen in there life and what a person thinks of himself or herself determines who he is. This truth that what a person believes in his or her heart will come into fruition in there life will explain many things that happen to people. it is the answer to the big"why" in life that people are always asking.

I will give you a great example. During my teen years , I had two friends. One's name was Beverly, the other was Mary.Mary had a very unique personality. She was obnoxious, cocky and had the worst smart-aleck mouth of any person I had ever met. She took great pleasure in offending and irritating everyone, making her many enemies. Mary was also a rather unattractive teenager with a very large nose, protruding front teeth and a recesses chin.

One night I was driving Mary's car through a popular hangout spot when Mary said, " Britney, pullover. I want to talk to those boys." I glanced over at the boy in the other car and took a double-take. He was gorgeous. I though to myself, " how can I tell Mary? She is unattractive and her personally is obnoxious. She's just going to get her feeling hurt." then Mary began boasting that this boy would fall hopelessly in love with her. I laughed to my self and thought, "she's going to get what she deserves." So Mary strolled back over after talking to the boy for a while and came back with a grin on her face and had a date the next night. I did not get it!

Later, I had a better friendship with a fellow gymnast named Beverly. Beverly was a all around great girl and a all-around great friend. If you ever need a ride, help, or money, you could count on Beverly. there was one unusual thing about Beverly; She was absolutely, even to this day, the most beautiful girl I have ever met. She was around 5'3 and in superb athletic shape. I mean superb! I have not met too many people nicer than her, and still to this day no one as pretty, that includes Jessica Alba!

One night after gymnastics practice I noticed Beverly slumped over in a chair looking really sad. I went over to find out what was wrong. She said she was having problems with her boyfriend. she said " I don't think he likes me that much" It was all I could do not to laugh! I thought to myself., Beverly, you could have any boy in the world, anyone..even Brad Pitt..! And your upset over this boy I wouldn't even date!" Of course I did not say that but I just listen as she poured out to me worry and anxiety about her relationship.

Later, Beverly's boyfriend dumped her. In fact the next two boyfriends dropped her too and last time I heard she was engaged to be married but that guy left her too. To make things even stranger I learned that Mary has had several hot boyfriends.

Why? I will tell you why. Because there is a principle that governs all men and women's lives. IT is the principle of believing. What one believes in one's heart , one receives. This is the greatest truth one can know. Mary believed positively that a boy would like her, and they were drawn to her by her positive believing. Beverly worried and feared, which are types of negative believing and this destroyed his relationships. Fear is wrong believing; it enslaves, captivates, motivates, and causes misery and failure. Doubt,worry, and fear are like a bad scrape on a person's leg. IF not taken care of properly , the scrape can become infected which is more damaging and painful. The scrape is like doubt, the infection is like worry, and the gangrene is like fear. they work in the same manner.

Only you can disciple your mental intake, what you think about. Martha Washington is saying this in that quote basically. She didn't have all the negatives from the News, magazines, TV shows, etc. But she was in the mist of a war for our countries freedom and she was thinking of a happier time at home with her family but knew the greater good was serving her country.

Believing is a verb; it connotes action mental or physical. this is a key point.If you believed it was going to rain Tuesday, you would not plain Tuesday for a beach trip.If you played football or whatever and believed you had the potential to be great at that sport, you would try out for the team.If you were a high school male and you believed that the prettiest girl in the school thought you were great, you would call her up and ask her out right? But, if you believed she would not give you the time of day,you would not call here.

Your mind perceives everything that is introduced to your five senses. hearing, sight, smell, tough,taste. a key point is that thoughts you have in your mind are not what you believe; they are just merely thoughts that have been introduced to you. For example, If I playing DOD and thought of actually shooting someone. Well, that's nothing more than a fleeting thought of no consequence. People have millions of the inconsequential thoughts in less than a year.

However, when you have a thought in your mind and you begin to entertain that thought, keep it, and build corresponding thoughts, this thought pattern is beginning to become a part of your life. And the conviction with which you carry this pattern will determine how quickly it enters you heart. Once this enters the heart, it is you; it is your believing, and your life will proceed in the direction of what you have allowed in your heart. Thus the quote in a nut shell. She is saying don't be situation and people conditioned.

You better get a A+on this mrs.pierce or tell that teacher to come see me.. If its still to deep watch the Matrix and see how Neo's believing determines what he can and cannot do inside the matrix
 
A wonderful post by Brit, a very thought out and kind post to top it off. Iā€™m not trying to knock her explanation with this post. I think itā€™s clearly an excellent reply, itā€™s just I didnā€™t feel exactly the same so I wanted to at least put another option on the table.

Britney's explanation isn't all that different from how I see it, it is a little different due to the words we are using instead of disposition. I'm no final authority on it by any means, it's just that I don't really like the word believe being substituted for disposition.

The #1 definition for disposition that I see is 'one's usual mood; temperament'. I think this can easily replace disposition and the quote still have the same exact meaning.

#1 def for temperament - The manner of thinking, behaving, or reacting characteristic of a specific person

*I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our temperaments/disposition and not on our circumstances*

With the following examples, it should be clear how I see the context of the quote.

Take two men, but have nice office jobs and support their families. Both had dreams to run their own business. Both get fired(for whatever reasons, boss didn't like them/economic recession). One man takes this very hard, he knows he's capable but he still got fired. With the (bad rep from his boss/recession) he's having a hard time finding another job and eventually turns to alcohol to relieve his stress(sob story ensues). The other man, who also knows he's quite skilled, takes this opportunity to follow his dream as he knows he canā€™t get a job quickly anyways(loans/favors ā€“ hypothetical donā€™t ask how he does it). His business tanks for some reason or another, but the man knows that he was at least able to try to follow his dream and can move on. He can accept the situation for what it is, he was able to accept the situation because he sees the good aspects rather than focus on the negative aspects of any situation(or he knows things could be much worse, either way I think works or both together).

As Iā€™ve already said, I like temperament better than believe for disposition. There are some things no matter how much you believe in yourself you won't be able to change them. Believing in yourself is definitely the way to go, but that alone won't be able to override all the other factors out there at times. So when things go bad it's not your belief that you can do something to change them, rather you are able to accept any given situation and move on with your life. If you are able to accept things as the way they are and not always thinking about what you could have done instead or what someone else did to you, I think you'll be able to live a much more fulfilled and happy life.
 
Yeah Brit, good response, much better than mine. Glad I could be of some assistance Mrs. Pierce! :)
 
It's quite simple actually. It's just saying that it's how you look at the situation you're in rather than how good or bad the situation really is. Think of it this way. You can be in Pearl Harbor right when the Japanese began to bomb it and that's a terrible situation :( but if you take this disposition, "Man, i'm gonna kick me some Japanese arse!!! Get some! yeeehaw get some!" then you're looking at it from the right perspective. Any good situation can be looked at as bad and any bad situation can be looked at as good. It's really all about taking the good with the bad and keeping your head high! Hooah!!!
 
WOW BRIT. That was a demoralizingly long description, I didn't even read it and it took me 3 days to get through. Jeese, you have way too much time on your hands that you could be playing Day of Defeat, or time that you could use to


FEAR ME
 
Noyade, that was a frighteningly long response too. I usually have a pretty long attention spa- HEY WHATS THAT?!! Oh, its nothing... As I was saying, I have an enormously long attention sp- huh? Oh ya.

FEAR ME
 
If your teacher gives you a bad grade on this then you might want to ask around and see how many different types of narcotics she's using. Or you could just punch her in the face. :)
 
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