Jerry R Mitchell’s Blog

Words cannot convey my gratitude for your response to my daughters request for birthday messages for my book of memories on my 70^th birthday. You can have no idea how much it means to me. Thanks for providing me the opportunity to be all that I am capable of being and for recharging my battery.

I have always known the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

I’ve always taken pride in the fact that I’m a positive person who always attempts to look on the bright side of things

I’ve always known that people need to feel good about themselves and I see my role as offering support to them, to provide some light along the way.

The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a tree, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another’s, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.

I share with you these words from Teddy Roosevelt, which sustain my energies:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

What you have given me will stay with me a lifetime.

With love,

Jerry