Written By Regina Brett, 90 years of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio
“To celebrate growing older, I wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I’ve ever written.”
1.Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step. (the best advice)
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.
5. Pay off your credit every month.
6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.
8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first pay cheque.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present. (essential yet so difficult)
12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about. (the reason why jealousy serves no purpose)
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it. (very true)
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry; God never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you no one else.
20. When it to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion, today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words ‘In five years, will this matter?
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time. (not always, some feuds last for generations)
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change. (thank god for it)
32. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing beats the alternative — dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.
41. Envy is waste of time. You already have all you need. (important lesson)
42. The best is yet to come
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.
Showing posts with label circle of life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label circle of life. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Circle of life
It's the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle of Life
Death has a way of sneaking up on you, grabbing you by the balls and forcing to face the undeniable truth: you can't stop time, you can't stop aging, you can't stop the fact that one day you will turn to dust and people will forget you. A horrid truth, something we shove at the back of our head to be able to stay sane, we have a calculated memory loss, how else would we be able to survive the day to day mundane life. Really how? Death can make everything you do seem worthless and empty, trivial to the point of absurdity.
So is forgetting death the only way to lead a "normal life"?
I think there are ways to look at death, ways to experience the death of other people and to contemplate our own, that allow us to feel the value of life without denying the finality of death.
My great sense of comfort comes from my belief in a higher being, in my belief of having a soul, that there is something after my death. I will not die after my heart starts beating, I will simply join the universe and feel a sense of contentment that is divine, a peace that I do not experience anymore. Death is not something to be scared of, to be feared, it is a way of expanding myself to the whole universe. There are far more sufferings in this living world than after it. This is my faith. Is there than a reason to mourn the dead, the people who have attained blissful happiness. Is not my aching for them, when I cry out for them am I not crying for myself. For my wish for them to be with me, to comfort me, for me to comfort them. My own selfish reasons, my longing for their company. But they do not need me, I need them. They have reached the perfect place, a place where their is no misery. They have gone. Gone to another place where honoring their memory does not hold value for them but for our own guilt ridden conscious of how we are living and they are not.
To end this post I leave you with this poem by Mary Frye:
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I have not left.
Disclaimer: I am not sad or depressed. I am not jealous of the dead, it's what I have felt in the past. Death brings an a chasm of unexplainable grief. And it's with time and perspective that I have been able to put words on the pain.
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle of Life
Death has a way of sneaking up on you, grabbing you by the balls and forcing to face the undeniable truth: you can't stop time, you can't stop aging, you can't stop the fact that one day you will turn to dust and people will forget you. A horrid truth, something we shove at the back of our head to be able to stay sane, we have a calculated memory loss, how else would we be able to survive the day to day mundane life. Really how? Death can make everything you do seem worthless and empty, trivial to the point of absurdity.
So is forgetting death the only way to lead a "normal life"?
I think there are ways to look at death, ways to experience the death of other people and to contemplate our own, that allow us to feel the value of life without denying the finality of death.
My great sense of comfort comes from my belief in a higher being, in my belief of having a soul, that there is something after my death. I will not die after my heart starts beating, I will simply join the universe and feel a sense of contentment that is divine, a peace that I do not experience anymore. Death is not something to be scared of, to be feared, it is a way of expanding myself to the whole universe. There are far more sufferings in this living world than after it. This is my faith. Is there than a reason to mourn the dead, the people who have attained blissful happiness. Is not my aching for them, when I cry out for them am I not crying for myself. For my wish for them to be with me, to comfort me, for me to comfort them. My own selfish reasons, my longing for their company. But they do not need me, I need them. They have reached the perfect place, a place where their is no misery. They have gone. Gone to another place where honoring their memory does not hold value for them but for our own guilt ridden conscious of how we are living and they are not.
To end this post I leave you with this poem by Mary Frye:
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I have not left.
Disclaimer: I am not sad or depressed. I am not jealous of the dead, it's what I have felt in the past. Death brings an a chasm of unexplainable grief. And it's with time and perspective that I have been able to put words on the pain.
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