When Pablo Casals was 95, he would practice his cello six hours a day. Someone asked him ‘Why do you do that?’
He said, ‘Because I think I’m making progress.’
Tag: wisdom Page 2 of 3
“We all have chosen the “wrong” decision at some time or another which has drastically affected our lives. You can’t change any of those things. I wouldn’t so much dwell on the past. I’d put that same energy and time into changing things now. We learn from our mistakes and try not to make them again.”
–Becca Allen (chirosinger)
In response to my last post, eiblyn mentioned having the Thoreau quote on a magnet on her fridge, which reminded me of the magnet I have on my fridge and I thought I’d post it.
“live with intention.
walk to the edge.
listen hard.
practice wellness.
play with abandon.
laugh.
choose with no regret.
continue to learn.
appreciate your friends.
do what you love.
live as if this is all there is.”
–mary anne radmacher
As a credo, I could do much worse.
I keep a quotes file. I’ve kept a quotes file since I was in college, although my original one was in a notebook and got lost in the fire, so the one I have currently only dates back a few years. In it, I note things that strike me as either funny or profound. Some of them are from famous people, but many of them are just things that see in the course of reading Livejournal or Usenet or mailing lists or whatever i happen to be perusing.
Sometimes, I go through it to see what jumps out at me, and then I ponder that for a while. It’s a good way of focusing my mind, and sometimes I’ll find that something hits me with a different or deeper meaning than it did when I first selected it.
“The struggle is good. Being unsure of what God is calling you to is good.
Wrestling with angels and demons in the wilderness is good. Not knowing is
good. Being afraid is good. Being real and human and wanting truth so bad
that you can taste it is good.”
–Gordon Atkinson (Real Live Preacher)
I got this in e-mail. You may have seen it before. Some of it is trite. But it’s all good advice, and I feel like pondering it awhile.
HOW TO STAY YOUNG
1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctor worry about them. That is why you pay him/her.
2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.
3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle.
4. Enjoy the simple things.
5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.
6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.
7. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it’s family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.
8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.
9. Don’t take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, to the next county, to a foreign country, but NOT to where the guilt is.
10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.
…AND ALWAYS REMEMBER: Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
It is, perhaps, the cruelest of this life’s many injustices that idealists are forced to live in the real world.
Garrison Keillor writes about our values:
This is Democratic bedrock: we don’t let people lie in the ditch and drive past and pretend not to see them dying. Here on the frozen tundra of Minnesota, if your neighbor’s car won’t start, you put on your parka and get the jumper cables out and deliver the Sacred Spark that starts their car. Everybody knows this. The logical extension of this spirit is social welfare and the myriad government programs with long dry names all very uninteresting to you until you suddenly need one and then you turn into a Democrat. A liberal is a conservative who’s been through treatment.
(thanks to filkertom for the link)
I posted this back in 2002, because I liked it, and I think it’s worth repeating again during these uncertain times:
Seething Bilious Hate, Down 3% – Where is all the good news? Why is the media so obsessed with horror and misery? Herein, some possible salve
” Thus we come to the fourth law of success and happiness …for I gave you one more power, a power so great that not even my angels possess it.
I gave you … the power to choose.
With this gift I placed you even above my angels … for angels are not free to choose sin. I gave you complete control over your destiny. I told you to determine, for yourself, your own nature in accordance with your own free will. Neither heavenly nor earthly in nature, you were free to fashion yourself in whatever form you preferred. You had the power to choose to degenerate into the lowest forms of life, but you also had the power, out of your soul’s judgement, to be reborn into the higher forms, which are divine.
I have never withdrawn your great power, the power to choose.
What have you done with this tremendous force? Look at yourself. Think of the choices you have made in your life and recall, now, those bitter moments when you would fall to your knees if only you had the opportunity to choose again.
What is past is past … and now you know the fourth great law of happiness and success … Use wisely your power of choice.
Choose to love … rather than hate.
Choose to laugh … rather than cry.
Choose to create … rather than destroy.
Choose to persevere … rather than quit.
Choose to praise … rather than gossip.
Choose to heal … rather than wound.
Choose to give … rather than steal.
Choose to act … rather than procastinate.
Choose to grow … rather than rot.
Choose to pray … rather than curse.
Choose to live … rather than die.”
— Og Mandino, The God Memorandum