Happy New Year....

....I hope and pray that 2015 is very good to all of you

Love comes to everyone....

....Sooner or later, it makes its way into every life, no matter how bleak or how loveless. When love comes knocking on our door though, we are not obliged to let it in. We can close the curtains and pretend we are not at home. Or we can act so unlovable, for so long, as to drive away all who might otherwise stop to offer affection. Love, too, takes many forms of which romance is but one.

 

 

 

We should never dismiss an emotional connection just because it operates at one level and not another.

Everyone wants happiness. No one wants pain. But you can't have a rainbow, without a little rain.

'Concentrate. Focus. Think hard....

....Chocolate. Pay attention. Work. Detail. Diligence. Haircuts. Responsibility. Commitment. Dedication. Dance music...'   It is not always easy to keep our minds fixed on a single matter. We are bound to be distracted and it is inevitable that events will oblige us to divide our time - especially at this time of year.

 

 

 

Do not be too hard on yourself if you cannot achieve all you want to.  Just do your best.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Someone is praying for the things you take for granted.

Who is the current....

....Chancellor of the Exchequer? What year is it? How would you get home from here?   With questions like these, "experts" sometimes have to make a rough and ready assessment of somebody's state of mental clarity. As long as they can give clear answers, it hardly matters how off-the-wall they may be in other respects. Yet the true gauge of sanity is a little more complex and subtle.

 

 

Even if you can't fully articulate your reasons for making a particular choice, it doesn't automatically follow that you are wrong.

 

 

The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.     (Epicurus)

Contrary to a widely held belief....

......(And far be it for me to be contrary.  Perish the thought.)  Leopards can change their spots. They just need to crossbreed. This is the 21st century. We are decoding the secret of DNA, cloning creatures, defying the laws of gravity and generally breaking all the traditional physical boundaries and barriers. Are we, in the process of doing all this, becoming any more psychologically sophisticated?

 

 

Of course not. Leopards, we can change; but people remain as mysterious to us as ever.

 

 

 

Don't let the burdens of your past be obstacles of your future; even though there may people who work in the attempt to make you do so.

This coming Christmas marks.....

....the 100th anniversary of a amazing events that took place amid the carnage of WW1.  So it seems only right to repeat this in the run up to that anniversary -

 

At Christmas, during the First World War, British and German troops stopped shooting. They went over to each other's trenches and exchanged seasonal gifts. Some even sang carols and played football. The next day, they got back into their positions and continued with the carnage. Stories like this often leave us wondering whether to laugh or cry.

 

 



Through our choices and our actions, we can take what is bad and make it good.

 

 

 

Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.      (William Faulkner)

 

 

 

What way would you...

....like to go? Forward? Backward? Off to the side? There's no right or wrong. Reversals often carry a certain stigma but they really should not, there's nothing wrong with revisiting a part of your past. It's fine to recognise, with hindsight, the true value of something you once took for granted. Nor, though, is there any shame in abandoning one objective and embracing a new one entirely.

 

 

 

Do whatever you truly want to do. Don't do what others think you should.