Self-respect
/This particular lesson took too long to finally sink in.
– Robert Tew
Simply profound
/What you seek is seeking you.
– Rumi
Change
/We cannot change what we are not aware of, and once we are aware, we cannot help but change.
– Sheryl Sandberg
The only things that matter
/Recently I've caught a few episodes of a show in which the main character—who was alive during the American Revolutionary War—is brought back to life in present day. Various movies and books play with the same theme, but I found this show to have decent writing and a clever way of juxtaposing past and present so it reminds us just how fortunate we are to be alive—how much we have, yet take for granted.
Make it gold
/It's a few minutes before New Year's.
I remember one year I celebrated with my father and my cousin Charlie, who was several years older than I was (thirteen at the time). Minutes after the clock struck 12, I asked my cousin, "What does it feel like to live in the 90's?" He paused for a second and said, "Exactly the same as it did in the 80's."
As little as it was, my bubble burst. I was clinging to some illusion that time could change something. But time doesn't change anything. We do.
Here's to a new year. Here's to making it golden.
Infinities
/Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.
– Albert Einstein
Forever
/Beyond those clouds, it just goes on forever.
Foot for thought
/The timing of events can be eerie sometimes. I was having a conversation with a couple of friends earlier today on being right. We weren't talking about your regular, run-of-the-mill rightness; no, this was the wrong type of right—I'm talking stealth, ninja, smokescreen, the works. When you're on the receiving end, you feel something is terribly wrong, but it's hard to put your finger on it because what the person says is seemingly reasonable. And when you're the giver, even if you're aware you've just put your entire foot in your mouth, you go right ahead and reach for the other one.
A few hours later this little gem arrived from my friend, Sean. (I wasn't able to find the author of this image, so if you know the source, please let me know.) Aaah timing!
Painfully beautiful
/I'm a fan of C.S. Lewis, even though I've read very little of his work. Truly I'm a fan of anyone who can take a crude amalgam of thoughts, feelings and experience, and, with a few simple words, crystalize them into something painfully beautiful.
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
– C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
Always
/When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it—always.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Time to choose
/I have a soft spot for duality, for opposites, contrast. Invariably, regardless of the art or mode of expression, I'm drawn in.
There's a part in Neale Donald Walsch's book, Conversations with God, that talks about every choice coming down to love or fear—nothing in between. It's not the first time I've heard this, but the manner in which it was delivered stirred up experiences past.
Language can be boiled down to its most essential building blocks. Take the most basic computer language: nothing but zeros and ones. If there were a language behind the universe—creating, morphing, dissolving it—it would be this. At least as humans are concerned, may be that's all there is: love or fear.
We choose all the time. It's time to choose differently.