Ben Stein

The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want. - Ben Stein

The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead

"A newborn's hands tend to be held closed, but if the area between the thumb and forefinger is stroked, the hand clenches it and holds on with sufficient strength to support the baby's weight if both hands are grasping. This innate "grasp reflex" serves no purpose in the human infant but was crucial in the last prehuman phase of evolution when the infant had to cling to its mother's hair."

 

"If a baby is dropped, an immediate change from the usual curled posture occurs, as all four extremities are flung out in extension. The "startle reflex," or "embrace reflex," probably once served to help a simian mother catch a falling infant by causing it to spread out as fully as possible."

 

David Shields

Demian

"Sooner or later each of us must take the step that separates us from his father, from his mentors; each of us must have some cruelly lonely experience--even if most people cannot take much of this and soon crawl back. I myself had not parted from my parents and their world in a violent struggle, but had gradually and almost imperceptibly become estranged. I was sad that it had to be this way and it made for many unpleasant hours during my visits back home; but it did not affect me deeply, it was bearable."


"At this point a sharp realization burned within me: each man has his 'function' but none which he can choose himself, define, or perform as he pleases. It was wrong to desire new gods, completely wrong to want to provide the world with something. An enlightened man had but one duty--to seek the way to himself, to reach inner certainty, to grope his way forward, no matter where it led."



"I did not exist to write poems, to preach or to paint, neither I nor anyone else. All of that was incidental. Each man had only one genuine vocation--to find the way to himself. He might end up as poet or madman, as prophet or criminal--that was not his affair, ultimately it was of no concern. His task was to discover his own destiny--not an arbitrary one--and live it out wholly and resolutely within himself. Everything else was only a would-be existence, an attempt at evasion, a flight back to the ideals of the masses, conformity and fear of one's own inwardness."

Hermann Hesse

Marianne Williamson... Enchanted Love

"I love the sea, the blue and the green and the wet and the cool. If I have to choose between the sea, or you, I'll take you, but with sadness.

 My favourite thing is to swim with you, to put the crown on my head and spray water on your face, to see you when you laugh like that, and pretend that I'm a little girl. I love to see that look on your face when you register that I'm not.

 ... I know, I know, they always ask that, "Who are you exactly?"

 I just laugh and dive down deep, to find more pearls on the ocean floor. I will bring them back to you my love. I will always bring them back to you."

Life Goes On...

Life goes on. It goes on after birth. It goes on after death. It goes on after heartbreak. Or does it? People say that life goes on, but your life, which has been affected in some way or another, doesn’t just go on, it goes on differently.

Unless you are the Son of God, it is only reasonable that what you consider to be a

life-moving, monumental event doesn’t cause the earth to miss a revolution. No matter what happens to you during the entire sum of your existence, the sun always rises, the wind continues to blow, and those around you, those millions of beings that never come close to touching your life, never skip a beat. Routines don’t change… well, except for yours.

In fact, your life is not “going on” the same way at all. You are living differently. You are possibly sleeping less, eating more, working more, and wallowing in your self-pity. No matter how you slice it, apart from the essentials of a living, human being, breathing, eating, sleeping, your life is NOT going on at all. You are living a new life, learning a new routine, finding a new groove.

What resistance to change. What resistance to starting anew. Is it fear of another possible failure or success? Is it a bruised ego or a loss of comfort? Whatever it may be, your life is not your life-as-you-knew-it anymore. Times have changed. You may or may not have taken part in the decision, you may or may not have been the catalyst for the change, but in fact, your life is different.

So here you find yourself, at whatever age you currently are, wondering how on earth you got here. You question your motives, your emotions, your principles, and maybe even, your existence. All the while, the ones you love most find it in their hearts to pass on the same words that they were once told. “Life goes on.” And so it does.

The world is still turning. The people you never came to know in your entire presence on earth still find it in their hearts to go to work, shop, eat, and buy new furniture, regardless of your newfound joy or sadness. Children are born, family members pass on, pains come and go and before long, it dawns on you. Life just keeps happening. It may not be your life, but life, nonetheless. I hate to be the bearer of bad news in this seemingly perfect world, but regardless of what anyone may tell you, your life may never be the same.

 clm      10/18/05

Khalil Gibran

“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”  


“One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.”  

“I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.”  

“Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need. ”  

“The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.”

“You may forget with whom you laughed, but you will never forget with whom you wept. ”  

“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.”  

On Happiness...

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true. - Leon J. Suenes

Happiness is not a matter of events, it depends upon the tides of the mind. - Alice Meynell

Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.
Winnie the Pooh

Just because it didn’t last forever, doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth your while.
Unknown

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain

Perfect Timing

If you wait for the perfect moment when all is safe and assured, it may never arrive. Mountains will not be climbed, races won, or lasting happiness achieved. - Maurice Chevalier

“If you keep waiting for the right time, it may never happen. Sometimes you have to make the most of the time you have.”
― Priya Ardis   
The longer you wait for the future, the shorter it will be. -Loesje

The only person who is truly holding you back is you. No more excuses. It’s time to change. It’s time to live life at a new level. – Tony Robbins
 Life is like a camera. Focus on what’s important, capute the good times and develop from the negatives. If it doesn’t work, take another shot. – Anon

The trouble is you think you have time. – Buddha

May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears. – Nelson Mandela

You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth. – Evan Esar

Different and Different

If I do not want what you want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong.

Or if I believe other than you, at least pause before you correct my view.

Or if my emotion is less than yours, or more, given the circumstances, try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weakly.

I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you.

I may be your spouse, your parent, your offspring, your friend, or your colleague. If you allow me any of my own wants, or emotions, or beliefs, or actions, then you open yourself, so that some day these ways of mine might not seem so wrong and might finally appear to you as right - for me. To put up with me is the first step to understanding me. Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no longer irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness. And in understanding me you might come to prize my difference from you, and far from seeking to change me, preserve and even nurture these differences.

 

“I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may not know where you're going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you.”

C. Joybell

Fire In The Earth

It doesn’t interest me if there is one God or many gods.

 I want to know if you belong or feel abandoned.

 If you know despair or can see it in others.

I want to know if you are prepared to live in the world with its harsh need to change you. If you can look back with firm eyes saying this is where I stand.

 I want to know if you know how to melt into the fierce heat of living falling toward the center of your longing.

 I want to know if you are willing to live, day by day, with the consequence of love and the bitter unwanted passion of sure defeat.

I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even the gods speak of God.

 

Excerpt: Fire in the Earth, David Whyte

Steve Jobs

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

 

Steve Jobs ( Apple CEO )

Oriah Mountain Dreamer - The Dance

"I ache for shared silence, not the awkward lulls in conversation where we reach for something, anything, to cover the tension of trying to be with too much of the other and too little of ourselves, but the moments of fullness that let each of us unfold and know who we really are. I long for silences with another where there is nothing to forgive or explain or justify, where we agree to abandon quickly spoken words for a time so we do not abandon ourselves or each other, the silences where no one asks me to choose between belonging to myself and being with the world. And when these silences come, I feel how I am working my way home though whatever they hold -- terror or tenderness, grief or celebration -- spiraling ever closer to a sweetness I have ached for all my life."

The Call - Oriah Mountain Dreamer

This is a story about surrendering from a woman who has found surrender impossible. This is a story about stopping the war, my war, the one I have fought all my life, the one I have not been able to give up despite the fact that I have lost every battle and sincerely declared myself out of action over and over again. It's a story about stopping the war with what is within and around me because I have simply had enough of fighting, because I love my life and the world and have come to realize that in order to find the rest I ache for and the peace I want us to create together, I must give up the war I fight every time I allow my desire to create change, inner or outer, pull me into doing. Change will happen, change does happen, often as a result of our choices and our actions . But every time I let my actions be dictated solely or primarily by the desire to create change, every time I am attached to achieving a desired result, no matter how lofty or "spiritual" that hoped–for result may be, I am rejecting what is and so causing suffering in myself and in the world.

I thought that to heed the call, to know and embody the meaning of my life, I had to learn to do it differently. But what I had to learn, what I am still learning, was to stop doing altogether. I had to learn not-doing, something I had heard about years ago but dismissed as being at best an ideal beyond my humanness or at worst empty spiritual jargon. I remember the first time I heard a teacher, a Native American elder, tell a group of students that they had to learn the art of not-doing. I was a single mother with two small sons living on very little income, and I wondered just how not–doing would work when there are children to get up and dressed, breakfasts to prepare, lunches to pack, laundry to do, and a wage to be earned. I misunderstood. I assumed not-doing meant doing nothing–staring at a wall or sleeping–and there was precious little time for this in my life. Of course, even when we sit and stare at a wall or lie in bed sleeping we are usually doing something. We are thinking and feeling and sensing, if only in our dreams.

But not-doing does not depend on whether or not my body is moving or my mind is active. Not-doing is about letting any movement flow from an awareness of the deep and ever-present stillness that is what I am at the most essential level of being. It is here, in the awareness of my essential nature, that I find the meaning I seek in my life, not as an idea or an ideal but as an implicit knowing folded into my very being.

Follow Your Destiny, Wherever It Leads You

 

There comes a time in your life when you realize that if you stand still, you will remain at this point forever. You realize that if you fall and stay down, life will pass you by….

Life’s circumstances are not always what you might wish them to be. The pattern of life does not necessarily go as you plan. Beyond any understanding, you may at times be led in different directions that you never imagined, dreamed, or designed. Yet if you had never put any effort into choosing a path, or tried to carry out your dream, then perhaps you would have no direction at all.

Rather than wondering about or questioning the direction your life has taken, accept the fact that there is a path before you now. Shake off the “whys” and “what ifs” and rid yourself of confusion. Whatever was ~ is in the past. Whatever is ~ is what’s important.

The past is a brief reflection. The future is yet to be realized. Today is here…

Walk your path one step at a time ~ with courage, faith and determination. Keep your head up, and cast your dreams to the stars. Soon your steps will become firm, and your footing will be solid again. A path that you never imagined will become the most comfortable direction you could have ever hoped to follow. Keep your belief in yourself and walk into your new journey. You will find it magnificent, spectacular, and beyond your wildest imaginings…

~ Vicki Silvers ~