“Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty, so that, when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained…
Newport, Rhode Island is known its notable music scene with world-renowned folk and jazz festivals, as an epicenter of sailing culture (longtime home of the America’s Cup) and the party town any sailor would want in a home port, for the Tennis Hall of Fame, but mostly, Newport is famous for its mansions. Those mansions,…
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” — Lao Tzu We are time travelers, landing from one stage of life to the next. Each leap offers a landing, each landing offers a…
After dinner with my bride at a local tavern, she saw a neighbor across the room and went over to say hello. We would see this woman and her husband now and then at restaurants and joke that we never seemed to see them in the neighborhood, where they lived just across the street from…
“To change one’s life:1. Start immediately.2. Do it flamboyantly.3. No exceptions.”― William James Some of us think of radical change but do precious little of it in practice. Instead we opt for incremental change by changing habits or jobs or the way we commute to work. There’s a strong case for incremental change in our…
My sorrow, when she’s here with me,Thinks these dark days of autumn rainAre beautiful as days can be;She loves the bare, the withered tree;She walks the sodden pasture lane. Her pleasure will not let me stay.She talks and I am fain to list:She’s glad the birds are gone away,She’s glad her simple worsted greyIs silver…
“Remember that there is only one important time and that is now. The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion. The most important person is always the person you are with, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future?…
“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among…
“Work is only a part of life. But work is life only when done in mindfulness. Otherwise, one becomes like the person “who lives as though dead.” We need to light our own torch in order to carry on. But the life of each one of us is connected with the life of those around…
Now there’s a beautiful river in the valley aheadThere ‘neath the oak’s bough soon we will be wedShould we lose each other in the shadow of the evening treesI’ll wait for youAnd should I fall behindWait for me— Bruce Springsteen, If I Should Fall Behind “The wand chooses the wizard, Mr. Potter.” — J. K….