by Mona Gallagher

Created on: October 25, 2009

People everywhere on earth, sooner or later, will be in a place that seems like a deep hole of discouragement. This can come about through many avenues in personal life, business dealings, and life events. The person who hasn't been touched with tragedy, discouragement or despair is an isolated island, a man or woman set apart from the rest of humanity.

Words are equivalent to power tools and should be handled with utmost care. Woven in wise context, words can lift a broken spirit from despair. Words of wisdom shed new light on situations and predicaments. That spoken or written wisdom opens a door of discovery through which a troubled soul can walk out of despair and find inspiration to continue on a chosen path.

One of life's most difficult hurdles is the death of a loved one. What does one say to someone in this situation? Trite phrases ring hollow as a person one grieves his loss, but well-placed and true words of wisdom can bring inspiration and hope for a brighter tomorrow. How those words are formed makes all the difference in the world, so we may posit that words of wisdom spring from wisdom itself.

Inspiration is often found in the words of caring friends and/or skilled counselors.

A family therapist once had trouble breaking through to a couple he was counseling because they were stuck in their communication pattern, preferring to revert back to familiar arguments and blaming each other instead of confronting the hot issues. Efforts to move forward were stalled. The therapist drew a visual picture for them by saying, "When the kitchen is on fire, you don't go hang pictures in the living room."

How those wise words affected the family undergoing counseling is unclear, but from a personal standpoint, I thought it was a brilliant and inspirational way of saying, let's cut the crap and get down to the real issues that are tearing the family apart. Wise inspirational words are not always a nicely framed set kind word or platitudes. Sometimes they confront. Yet they move us toward truth and truth can be an inspiration.

Sports trainers understand inspiration and use motivational tapes and visual enhancement to inspire teams to fight harder to reach victory. You'll rarely hear a despondent sports team member bemoaning a lost opportunity. No matter how he or she feels on a personal level, they tell the press the other team played a tough game and deserved to win, and "We'll play a better game next time around."

The right words at the right time can keep a

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