March 19th, 2017
Affirmation: I enjoy the colors, smells, and feel of life around.
Word of the Day: chaffer (v):
1. haggle, exchange, or barter.
2. to bargain for.
Dissolver of sugar, dissolve me,
if this is the time.
Do it gently with a touch of a hand, or a look.
Every morning I wait at dawn. That's when
it has happened before. Or do it suddenly
like an execution. How else
can I get ready for death?
You breathe without a body, like a spark.
You grieve, and I begin to feel lighter.
You keep me away with your arm,
but the keeping away is pulling me in.
____
The Lake
When we are born, we are all assigned a lake. This lake represents our life. We do not know how big our lakes are or how long it will take us to walk their perimeters, at which point, we will have come to the end of our living days.
And so we begin to walk. At different times in our lives we run, as though being chased. Sometimes we crawl. Sometimes the lake is calm, and we can see our reflection in its waters. At other times, the lake is violent, its water thrashing against the shore, drenching us, causing us to slip and slide. At other times, the lake is playful: it gurgles and bubbles and teasingly sprays us.
All the while, we move forward along the edges of our lakes, abutting their rims. Most of us finish circling our lakes unexpectedly. For most of us, the journey that seemed never-ending and arduous ends abruptly and far before we feel ready or willing to be done with it. Many of us can only see our endpoint when we are within feet of it, while others don't see it at all. We thus look back upon our journeys, reminiscing about the pleasant days as well as the ones we wished away at the time.
Not every person's journey ends in this way, however. While the rest of us are tracing our lakes' edges, some choose to jump in. To take the plunge. To test the boundaries of the familiar and to explore new horizons.
It has been said that one of the most tragic things about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. Whether out of fear or habit or self-imposed expectations, we often blindly or consciously find ourselves following rules and living our lives without intention or direction, without passion or purpose, without creativity or heart.
So be brave and take risks. You don't have to have it all figured out in order to move forward. Opportunities will come and go, but if you don't do anything about them, so will you. Intentional living is the art of making our own choices before others' choices make us. The past may explain how you got here, but the future really is up to you.
PS Here are some of my very favorite quotes on this topic:
Affirmation: I enjoy the colors, smells, and feel of life around.
Word of the Day: chaffer (v):
1. haggle, exchange, or barter.
2. to bargain for.
Dissolver of Sugar
Dissolver of sugar, dissolve me,
if this is the time.
Do it gently with a touch of a hand, or a look.
Every morning I wait at dawn. That's when
it has happened before. Or do it suddenly
like an execution. How else
can I get ready for death?
You breathe without a body, like a spark.
You grieve, and I begin to feel lighter.
You keep me away with your arm,
but the keeping away is pulling me in.
____
The Lake
When we are born, we are all assigned a lake. This lake represents our life. We do not know how big our lakes are or how long it will take us to walk their perimeters, at which point, we will have come to the end of our living days.
And so we begin to walk. At different times in our lives we run, as though being chased. Sometimes we crawl. Sometimes the lake is calm, and we can see our reflection in its waters. At other times, the lake is violent, its water thrashing against the shore, drenching us, causing us to slip and slide. At other times, the lake is playful: it gurgles and bubbles and teasingly sprays us.
All the while, we move forward along the edges of our lakes, abutting their rims. Most of us finish circling our lakes unexpectedly. For most of us, the journey that seemed never-ending and arduous ends abruptly and far before we feel ready or willing to be done with it. Many of us can only see our endpoint when we are within feet of it, while others don't see it at all. We thus look back upon our journeys, reminiscing about the pleasant days as well as the ones we wished away at the time.
Not every person's journey ends in this way, however. While the rest of us are tracing our lakes' edges, some choose to jump in. To take the plunge. To test the boundaries of the familiar and to explore new horizons.
It has been said that one of the most tragic things about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. Whether out of fear or habit or self-imposed expectations, we often blindly or consciously find ourselves following rules and living our lives without intention or direction, without passion or purpose, without creativity or heart.
So be brave and take risks. You don't have to have it all figured out in order to move forward. Opportunities will come and go, but if you don't do anything about them, so will you. Intentional living is the art of making our own choices before others' choices make us. The past may explain how you got here, but the future really is up to you.
Life is like a lake. And few jump in. Will you be one of the few? Come, join us!
PS Here are some of my very favorite quotes on this topic:
“She is free in her wildness, she is a wanderess, a drop of free water. She knows nothing of borders and cares nothing for rules or customs. 'Time' for her isn’t something to fight against. Her life flows clean, with passion, like fresh water.”
― Roman Payne
― Roman Payne
“You must give everything to make your life as beautiful as the dreams that dance in your imagination.”
― Roman Payne
― Roman Payne
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”
― Henry David Thoreau
― Henry David Thoreau
“Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.”
― Albert Camus
“Live life fully while you're here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You're going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process. Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. Don't try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human.”
― Anthony Robbins
― Anthony Robbins
“Live each day as if it's your last', that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Go out there with your passion and your electric typewriter and work hard at...something. Change lives through art maybe. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.”
― David Nicholls
― David Nicholls
“The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.”
― Louis E. Boone
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the things you did.”
― Mark Twain
“Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid. In the past, whenever I had fallen short in almost any undertaking, it was seldom because I had tried and failed. It was because I had let fear of failure stop me from trying at all.”
― Arthur Gordon
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