“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…
“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…
“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…
“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?…
“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…
“Drink without getting drunkLove without suffering jealousyEat without overindulgingNever argueAnd once in a while, with great discretion, misbehave”― Dan Buettner, Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way This world may just be a complicated mess. This world may be a miracle of experience and wonder. We skate between the two hoping to hold our optimal…
“The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.” ― Kahlil Gibran, The Broken Wings Who said that every wishWould be heard and answeredWhen wished on the morning starSomebody thought of thatAnd someone believed itAnd look what…
“Mr. Alcott seems to be reading well this winter: Plato, Montaigne, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Sir Thomas Browne, etc., etc. ‘I believe I have read them all now, or nearly all,’ — those English authors. He is rallying for another foray with his pen, in his latter years, not discouraged by the past, into…
To live in this worldyou must be ableto do three things:to love what is mortal;to hold itagainst your bones knowingyour own life depends on it;and, when the time comes to let it go,to let it go.— Mary Oliver, In Blackwater Woods This is the time of year when the leaves release from the trees and…
“All morning I lay down sentences, erase them, and try new ones. Soon enough when things go well, the world around me dwindles: the sky out the window, the furious calm of the big umbrella pine ten feet away, the smell of dust falling onto the hot bulb of the lamp. That’s the miracle of…