 
Delivered fresh on March 2nd, 2014
Greetings!
When so much talk in this world is cheap and while people still enjoy the priceless privilege of freedom of speech - you have the right to remain silent but you also have the opportunity to talk about something that really matters! You are inarguably entitled to keep your convictions all to yourself, but, when keeping quiet comes as a direct response to the fear of retribution and our "rights" and "entitlements" undermine the possibility that we might become who we really are, can we authentically claim to be free? There is definitely something to be said for quiet contemplation, especially when we pause to consider the consequences of the words that we choose to use, but when we allow ourselves to be silenced because we believe that to behave is to be left alone, and to be left alone is to be allowed to keep on getting by, we lose a little bit of our precious humanity, and humanity loses out on the contribution that will only be as a result of our courage and as a product of our sacrifice. Words will inspire and words will also provoke with the power to create and the ability to destroy; to give life to something or to cancel out its very existence. Dana DANA DELIVERED! User's Guide: 1) Open up your Dana Delivered! email. 2) Choose an article from the menu on the left hand side or just start from the beginning and read all the way through. 3) If you are reading an article and want to finish, Click on "Read More..." and you will be taken to our website. You can finish reading and while there, have a look around. Note: Dana's Dailies changes, well, daily so come back often. 4) Click on any of the words highlighted in red and you will be taken right to our site, DanaRoc.com. In INSPIRING PEOPLE: Dana talks with TransMedia Artist, Charles Reese. Enjoy Dana's EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with Charles Reese. Take a minute to read DANA'S WEEKLY INSIGHT and make sure that you listen to the AUDIO VERSION as well. There may be someone who needs you to pass that along. Check out DANA'S DAILIES for no other reason than to hopefully smile. And come back and visit the blog all week at www.danaroc.com/dailies. The special article FROM DANA'S GUESTS: this week is The Perils of Indifference: A Speech by Elie Wiesel. Holocaust concentration camp survivor, Elie Wiesel is an author and a humanitarian. He is a winner of the Noble Peace Prize and the Presidential Medal of honor among many other awards. Read (or listen) to his moving speech. His words are compelling and timely. Check out AUGUSTE ROC'S MY TWO CENTS (For Whatever It Is Worth). There is something in it for YOU! While it may be "Two Cents" but you'll find it's worth a whole lot more. Feel free to email your comments to Auguste at auguste@danaroc.com. This week's THE GOOD LIFE : BOOKS selection is How to Be an Explorer of the World: Portable Life Museum by Keri Smith. Something useful in THE GOOD LIFE : WEB SITES is Backyard Bill this week. Check it out! And there's more so sit back, grab a cup of coffee, relax and enjoy. As always, thanks for reading! Stay cool. Be hungry. Never look back. Always reach back. Fear not. Believe always, Dana Most Likely To Succeed
You never know when something might happen that will threaten to alter the way that you perceive your existing reality. Sometimes it's a big thing that happens like a career change or a job loss; a marriage or a divorce that will serve to re-inform and then reshape the certainty of your own private universe. Perhaps a significant introduction or maybe a serious illness will force you to have to reshuffle your deck and deliberately contemplate what you have been accepting as part of the absolute way that life "just is". Sometimes, however, it's a little thing that happens; a discreet, unassuming, yet intrusive little nudge, that beckons quietly and - in the middle of the night... I was sitting at my desk, mindlessly surfing the Internet in an attempt to unwind and relax when, with a single point and a double click, I found myself right back in the twelfth grade. I had Googled my way to yesterday via my high school class reunion website. Like magic and without warning I was seventeen years old again. Transported back to a time and a place that I intended to forget; that I thought I had left behind forever, I was grateful for the opportunity to simply remember. It took me more than a few minutes to recover from the sobering realization that, in my desperate haste to grow up and "get the show on the road", I let high school pass me by. So anxious to dismiss everything that was familiar to me in exchange for my chance to conquer the world, I plowed through my classes and my mid-terms and the parties and the proms and all of that delicious adolescent heartbreak, as if somehow, the future would get impatient and maliciously leave me stranded in my teens. Once recovered, I settled in for a trip down memory lane. I surveyed every inch of that website. Picture after picture, I struggled to put the names to the faces. Page after page the memories slowly returned and I tried to reconstruct that part of my life, as if in successfully doing so, I might be granted a chance to do it all over again. Imagine. After having tripped sufficiently, tired, I decided to conclude my journey. As I mentally prepared to make my reentry back to the future so I could go to bed, I decided to visit one more page. I hesitated and then I cautiously clicked: "In Memory Of" I was tentative because I was reluctant to learn which were the ones who were no longer with us, and why. I read each and every word of every single entry in an attempt to privately honor the lives that my classmates had lived. The more I read, the more I wondered about them and who they really were; about the stuff that wasn't written down. Had life lived up to their expectations? What would they have done differently if they could do it all again? I thought about the words that had been left unspoken; about the dreams that would remain unfulfilled. Time waits for no one. Time doesn't need our consent to march on and it doesn't require our attention to leave its unavoidable mark on our lives. That's not something that they teach you in high school. You never know when something might happen that will threaten to alter the way that you perceive your existing reality. I didn't expect when I woke up that morning that by the time I went to bed that night, my private little universe would be altered because I was able, for a moment anyway, to take a trip back to school. That high school class reunion website rocked my world because it provided me with a profound and meaningful opportunity to examine my life in a different way. It humbled my heart and renewed my commitment to live my life to the fullest. Remembering the people and the places of my childhood woke me up to the fact that I neglected to stop and smell the roses, and it forced me to deal with the reality that a "do-over" is something that we took for granted on the playground, once upon a time. Remembering reminded me of all the dreams that I had back then, and challenged me to confront the fact that I am not even halfway to where I want to be. And you? Why is it that we are always in such a hurry to get to someplace else? What stops us, along the way, from doing the things that we always dreamed of doing; the things that once, we never doubted we could do? Remember, and be reminded of those promises that you made to yourself senior year and consider that -- whatever could have been, can still be. Starting from where you are right now - Carpe diem! And stop to smell the roses while you still can. Make the very most of everything you've got while you pursue with a vengeance all the things that you still want... Dana Have a great week!
  TransMedia Artist, Charles Reese
DR: Charles, tell me about how you ended up basically dedicating so much of your life to the study of and the teaching of and the spreading knowledge of James Baldwin. I think it's fascinating. CR: It started actually when I was a freshman at Morehouse College. I met Baldwin one time in my life and that was strolling across Morehouse College campus during the late '80s when he was working on the Wayne Williams case in Atlanta, Georgia. Ironically, that was the year where Wayne Williams case was coming to a head. They were getting ready to go to trial and Baldwin was hired by a magazine to do a story around the Wayne Williams. So he was around interviewing people and doing what Baldwin does. At that time I knew, not a lot about Baldwin. I knew that he meant a lot to the literary world and the only thing I had read at the time was Go Tell it on the Mountain. So he saw me coming across campus and he said to me, "You have eyes like mine". I said, "Thank you" and then I ran. That's what you do when you're eighteen. You run because you don't know. I was in the middle of finding out who I was sexually - going through that whole process. Well actually, I knew but I was like well I'm on this campus how am I going to deal with all that? So, then I realized who I saw. Now I'm wondering, "Why didn't I. Why didn’t I..."
 Elie Weisel
Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate, Elie Wiesel, gave this impassioned speech in the East Room of the White House on April 12, 1999, as part of the Millennium Lecture series, hosted by President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Perils of IndifferenceMr. President, Mrs. Clinton, members of Congress, Ambassador Holbrooke, Excellencies, friends: Fifty-four years ago to the day, a young Jewish boy from a small town in the Carpathian Mountains woke up, not far from Goethe's beloved Weimar, in a place of eternal infamy called Buchenwald. He was finally free, but there was no joy in his heart. He thought there never would be again. Liberated a day earlier by American soldiers, he remembers their rage at what they saw. And even if he lives to be a very old man, he will always be grateful to them for that rage, and also for their compassion. Though he did not understand their language, their eyes told him what he needed to know -- that they, too, would remember, and bear witness. And now, I stand before you, Mr. President -- Commander-in-Chief of the army that freed me, and tens of thousands of others -- and I am filled with a profound and abiding gratitude to the American people. Gratitude is a word that I cherish. Gratitude is what defines...
 Goal Tending
Have you ever agreed to play a game, launch a project or complete a task and then found yourself having to deal with unexpected problems and issues that threaten the outcome? Games are designed fundamentally to include challenges. Every game that you will play will include roadblocks and obstacles, big and small, along the way. There are times when challenges will appear to be insurmountable and when every step taken will be met with a surprising blow, knocking you two steps backward for every one step that you've taken. And just when you get though the first difficulty, committed to going on no matter what, you find yourself having to deal with something all over again. Athletes train long and hard to prepare their mind and body to take on every obstacle -- planned and unplanned. They condition themselves to overcome and develop their ability adjust to every possible situations, believing that they will ultimately succeed. In 1986, French champion Savate martial artist, Gilles le Duigou, broke both his arms in attempting to block a roundhouse kick during a championship match. Despite urges for him to stop the fight, Gilles continued without the use of his arms, and went on to knockout and defeat his opponent with a whip kick. Years later in a television interview, when asked why he chose to not quit during that fight, he responded: "My desire and will to win was the most overwhelming thing." For world class athletes, winning is more important than the obstacles that they must overcome. Keep your eye on the prize. That's my two cents (for whatever it's worth). Auguste Roc
 The 100 Years Project - Carrie Mitchell
Name: Carrie Mitchell Age: 33 years old Where do you live: I live in Nolita. In Manhattan. I am originally from the West Coast of Canada Occupation: I have my own media company. I specialize in written and digital content. I work mostly with artists and I work a lot with the fashion industry. 100 Years from now what do you want to be remembered for: That's an interesting question. It can be either serious or frivolous. I would like to be remembered as being at the forefront of emerging media. There is a whole new era happening. I don’t want to say that I'm MTV in the early 80's but, kind of what I am doing is progressive and allows people and their work to be seen to a mass audience around the world.  Backyard Bill
Why I am recommending Backyard Bill: I love to people watch. I like to discover what makes interesting people tick. I like great photos. I like Backyard Bill’s point of view.
 How to Be an Explorer of the World: Portable Life Museum
Why I am recommending this book: Because it encourages the reader to examine their personal world with fresh eyes and to begin to think differently about what might be taken for granted. Click here to purchase this book.
Click here to purchase this book.
 
Envy destroys. It undermines respect and cooperation. It eclipses kindness. It suppresses love. Consider ENVY an intruder that must never, ever be entertained.
 
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