One Life by Dane Allred

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One Life

by Dane Allred


Short or long, one life is all we have been given
Time to sing
To dance
And walk a while.

To learn and love
To touch the lives
Of those near and far.

Each day unfolds as
A new hope.
Another possibility.
To do all the things we have to do
One life to do all the things we are here to do
One life to do all the things we want to do.

This day to smell the flowers
Watch the sunset
And breathe in the sweet air of life.

Go to 1001 Thanks for more selections, including other original pieces by Dane Allred and his audio versions of many famous novels, short stories and poems called Literature Out Loud, plus lots more!!

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One Life


by Dane Allred




Short or long, one life is all we have been given

Time to sing

To dance

An walk a while.

To learn and love

To touch the lives

Of those near and far.



Each day unfolds as

A new hope.

Another possibility.

To do all the things we have to do

One life to do all the things we are here to do

One life to do all the things we want to do.



This day to smell the flowers

Watch the sunset

And breathe in the sweet air of life.

Clean the Screen

Go to Abundance for more selections, including other original pieces by Dane Allred and his audio versions of many famous novels, short stories and poems called Literature Out Loud, plus lots more!!

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Dane Allred’s World of Hurt


Clean The Screen


I’m positively done with the negativity. I’m not going to listen to the naysayers and doomsday prophets anymore. To symbolize this change, I just cleaned off my computer screen and the world is looking much, much better. Don’t have a screen to clean? Think of it this way. Wipe that mud off your face and walk away from those throwing the mud.

I’ve made a conscious decision to stop participating in the mud fight. I’m sure others will keep on throwing the mud, but that doesn’t mean I have to stay and get dirty along with them.

Without sounding too negative in my newly designed positive world, I’m talking about all those people who trade in words like “can’t”, “failure”, “never”, “no”, “futile” or “stupid”.

I confess to listening to those words spouted by the “experts” for many, many years. But I’ve had it. You’d be surprised how much your attitude changes when you embrace what is possible and delete the “impossible” from your language.

As an example, here’s a list of past “impossibilities”. Humans can’t fly. Humans will never walk on the moon. Humans will never cure polio, measles, small pox, etc. I’m taking my new marching orders from someone you may have heard about. Albert Schweitzer was known for getting things done, not for nattering about the negative. His attitude was one of positive thinking, action, and an indomitable spirit.

Here’s a summary for those who doubt. He studied to a theologian. After his training, he could have preached goodness and light for the rest of his life. But he wanted to roll up his sleeves and be part of the solution. So he went back to school and became a doctor. He spent seven more years gaining the knowledge and aptitude to put his belief into action. At the ripe old age of 37 he started practicing medicine in an old chicken coop in Africa. He spent his life trying to get us to stop worrying about the end of the world and get busy making a positive contribution. He didn’t listen to the harping chorus of “no, never, pointless, worthless, ineffective, fruitless, futile, stupid, etc.” Oh, by the way, while doing all this, he also became one of the world’s greatest organ players.

Still not convinced we don’t need to wallow in the mud with the others? Here are some ways I’ve learned to deal with negativity in practical, everyday life. As a worker, I am often presented with problems to be solved. I’ll bet your job is much the same. You are given a problem, your job is to find a solution, and fix it. Then you move on to the next problem. You don’t cry and whine it can’t be done – you find a way to do it or you don’t have your job for very long.

I’ve chosen to accept criticism since I am also a performer. I’ve acted in dozens of stage productions, commercials, and films. When the director offers criticism of my performance, I accept it with a polite “thank you” and figure a way to improve. If that doesn’t work, the director gives me another suggestion, which I accept with “thank you” and the process continues. I don’t throw a tantrum and crawl on the floor, blaming everyone but myself. I accept the shortcoming, and look for ways to overcome it.

Much better than mud throwing.

You can change the channel – can you tune away from the negative and find a way to channel some positivity? You’ll be surprised how optimistic you’ll become listening to your favorite music or watching an inspiring movie or program instead of the continual broadcast of trash talk.

Give thanks – rejecting negativity doesn’t have to be rude. You can remove yourself from the conversation or change the subject. But don’t forget to say “thanks” for the efforts of others. Remember, being positive doesn’t mean throwing mud back. We can choose not to participate, and instead focus on how to fix perceived problems.

Be a solver -- start a solution. I have my way of trying to make the world a better place, and so do you. I hope what you achieve is more than just the same-old name-calling. It’s one of the reasons you are here. We need your help and creativity, not negativity. Why whine, when you can create? Why moan when you can move toward a solution? Let the mud-throwers enjoy themselves as they throw mud, but don’t forget to invite them to the celebration of your success.

There was a time when Dale Carnegie told us to get a “positive attitude”. I know that ingenuity, faith, trust, hope and hard work will always defeat fear. If you are with me, turn this resolution into a physical act. Clean off your screen as a reminder to make the change. Or just wipe that mud off your face.

Make A Positive Contribution -- part one

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My Best Self

by Dane Allred



M -- Make a Positive Contribution


Eleanor Roosevelt once said “When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.”

We are here for a reason. There is something only we can do, because the universe decided we needed to be here at this time, occupying this body in the place we appeared. There was no one else who could be us, with our unique collections of experiences, problems, pains and perceptions. We are the amalgamation of all that we have experienced. Our unique perspective from which we see the world as we look out at all the other people in the world is truly only our own.

The M in My Best Self is a great starting point to reaching our best self because it makes us get outside ourselves. To be our best self, we may need to consider what we do for all the others who are on this spinning marble with us.

This doesn’t mean your positive contribution can’t be something you are doing all the time, or that you can’t make money doing it. But making a positive contribution is more than having a job which will generate taxes for governments to use for others. It means specifically thinking about making this world a better place not just for ourselves, but for others, too.

These don’t have to be world changing events. They can be small, medium or large, but the impact is still the same for us. We are doing something we value and trying to make a positive contribution to one person or more. It doesn’t matter if it changes the world; it may only matter because it changes us.

Your contribution may be something small, and though it may seem small to you, it should mean something to someone else besides you.

I like to garden. I have plenty of free time in the summer since I’m a school teacher. I have a nice yard, and time to do the things it needs. People often ask me in a joking way to come over to their house when I’m done if I want some more yard work.

It’s funny, but it does prove the point. Most people don’t like doing yard work like I do, or maybe I just have a positive attitude about doing something I know needs to be done. I also know that if I do it, I’ll feel better about myself and the yard – a true win/win.

This week I weeded around my mailbox, but since I have been taking care of it for a while, there wasn’t much to do. Technically, my mailbox is right on the edge of my neighbor’s yard, but I couldn’t let the bare patch of weeds stay that way for long. As the flowerbed around the mailbox grew, let’s just say the only direction it could grow was away from my house.

So when neighbors saw me outside weeding a flowerbed in front of my neighbor’s house, they actually said to me, “Why are you weeding someone else’s yard?” To myself I said, “Why not?” If the neighbor didn’t like it, they could tell me to stop.

I spent another couple of hours this week weeding another flowerbed we share along the property line by the mailbox. The couple who owns the house is away during the summer, and I took it upon myself to make what could be a weedy patch look more like a flower garden. A little at a time, I have weeded, planted and watered this strip until it really compliments both of our yards.

And some may say I was doing this only to make my own yard look better, but making a positive contribution can also benefit us. It may not seem selfless, but I really didn’t have to do it. I just wanted to. I put in a couple of hours, and for the rest of the summer, everyone will get to enjoy some flowers instead of the weeds.

Here’s a medium example along the same lines. My neighbor around the corner fell and hurt his back at work, and though he probably could have hired someone to mow his lawn, I decided to do it instead. I didn’t ask him for permission, but just mowed it one day. No one came outside and protested, so I did it again the next week.

It’s more than a couple of hours weeding, but it really isn’t a tremendous amount of time. My lawn is huge, so I spend an hour cutting my lawn every week. Mowing his added about fifteen minutes to my lawn-mowing. But that fifteen minutes were incredibly productive.

It made me feel good, and it made a positive contribution to his life, too. I probably mowed it twenty times during the summer. I didn’t mow it the next summer, but by then he was able to take care of it himself.

So the difference we make doesn’t have to be a lifetime commitment. It may be an afternoon weeding, or a summer mowing. I like to perform, and I feel my talents are best used when I get the chance to bring some of the characters from the stage to life for others. There is a great feeling when you perform, and it’s not just the endorphins rushing through your body. I feel at home on the stage, and delight in making people laugh.

But I don’t usually get paid to perform. I have acted in dozens of stage plays and musicals, and the majority of them have been my volunteered time. The venues do collect money for the performances, but most stages work with thread-bare margins so those would be wiped out by paying a salary. So most of the people I work with in stage productions are also not paid.

So perfecting a role for the stage is probably a medium effort, since it involves many weeks of rehearsals at night and on week-ends, plus the time spent during performances. The show I am currently doing started rehearsals about four months ago. We spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights rehearsing, plus some time on Saturday mornings. As the performances approached, we were rehearsing every night for three or four hours. Now that the show is up, we are performing three times a week – about nine or ten hours total.

But the rewards of this kind of effort are off the scale in terms of returns. I am having the time of my life, playing a part I have really want to play. The theatre is enjoying the fruits of our labors, and may be able to continue as a community theatre for another fifty years. This kind of a contribution can extend into the future, but if it shut down tomorrow I would still have volunteered the time.

Plus the audiences get to see a good show – even if it is vain of me to say so. We are getting so many great plaudits from audience members I want to remind them they paid to come and see this and deserved a good show. But in some way, they know they are getting more than their money’s worth, and they want to acknowledge it.

No One On Line Four

Go to Abundance for more selections, including other original pieces by Dane Allred and his audio versions of many famous novels, short stories and poems called Literature Out Loud, plus lots more!!

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A short reminder that sometimes no one is there.