You can't have winners....

....and losers unless you have some kind of a competition going on. Despite the fact that we are encouraged from an early age, to see life as a race or a battle, our happiness is not dependent on point-scoring. 

True joy is not linked to the ability to get what you want. It stems from the ability to see that there's more to existence than material success.

Look back, and smile on perils past  (Walter Scott)

You aren't here forever....

....Some chances must either be seized fairly swiftly or forgotten about for all time. Your existence on this earth is not a mistake. It is a gift. Nor is it the only generous offering being made. 

You may feel as if you are surrounded by things and people that upset and annoy you, but there are chances, in and amongst all those nuisances, to fill your life with sources of deep and lasting joy. 

Don't doubt yourself or deny yourself happiness. Seize your chance.

Wit is educated insolence  (Aristotle)

Are you old enough to....

....remember all those early Hollywood westerns where the villains wore black hats and twirled their overly-extended moustaches? Back in those innocent days, when the only shades of grey were on the monochrome film stock, opinions were easy to form. 

These days, we know there are more than two sides to every story. Unless you're blinkered by prejudice you know that only in sport can we be gung-ho for one side or another. Never in life. Only breadth of vision will bring enlightenment and success.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing

 it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

I hope you don't mind....

....but I have a suggestion for you - Take a detour via the pet shop, buy your own black cat and train it to walk under your feet wherever you go. This will provide permanent protection from all future outbreaks of bad luck. 

It's strange really. We live in a supposedly sophisticated world, yet we are gripped by illogical fears and fantasies. Our ideas may be intelligent but our beliefs have changed little since the Stone Age. 

If you are presented with a wonderful new way to look at a tired situation, don't be too biased to see it.

Prejudice is the child of ignorance  (William Hazlitt)

Our ideas and opinions....

....alter with the passage of time and the deepening of understanding. We learn, we digest, we inwardly grow wiser and more experienced in the ways of the world. Yesterday's irritations become today's amusements. 

The anxious fears of the past become the acceptable realities of the present. 

Our tastes alter, along with our preferences. This is normal. Natural. Healthy. Only retentive people are doggedly consistent. Don't apologise for a new point of view. Celebrate it.

Turn your wounds into wisdom  (Oprah Winfrey)

Our brains are slow....

....and clumsy. Even the cleverest among us cannot think very fast, for our intellects are instruments of comprehension not creation. Our hearts are speedier. They know the answers to questions before the questions have even been asked. 

Nor are they ever wrong, even if our powers of logic and analysis insist that they must be. 

Into each life some rain must fall.   (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

A prayer from Syria

This prayer was written by a young man living in Syria.  He's married and has a child.


Thank you, Lord
For all that you have done and are doing.
I trust your will is always good and finally you will turn evil to good.
I know you are not silent, but patient....
But how long will it take, Lord?
I am looking forward to a new beginning amongst my people.
My own desire is that evil will stop
And that we will see your glory shine again in the darkness.
I'm longing for healing, for restoration.  I cry out to you, Lord.
I'm longing for a new generation to take their place in your kingdom,
To be the light and salt of this nation.
Help me to see my role in this transformation.
Protect me and be with me.
Carry me, day by day.

Amen

Opinions can be....

....dangerous and divisive. Truly wise people strive to keep them to a minimum. (Maybe, 'truly wise' should be underlined here.)  The deeper your belief, the stronger your point of view, the more you will encounter conflict with those who see life differently. You will also be more inclined to trust the people who seem to see things your way, even if they are really not so reliable. 

Opinions don't just expose us to problems with others. They make it much easier for us to hurt ourselves.

The fool wonders.  The wise man asks.  (Benjamin Disraeli)

A lot of us spend....

....a lot of our lives trying to figure out what it is that we are supposed to be doing. We want to get it right. We want to fulfil our purpose. It does not always occur to us that what we are supposed to be doing is wondering what it is that we are supposed to be doing! 

There is nothing wrong with uncertainty, nor is there any reason to feel that the best thing you can currently think of is anything less than the best thing you could possibly come up with. Ignore your doubt. Relax and be spontaneous.

Colours are the smiles of nature  (Leigh Hunt)

A hard heart is a heavy heart.....

....A closed mind is a mind no longer free to float on the ocean of possibility. (And I certainly know my fair share of them.)  Whilst there is always a danger that we can let ourselves drift too far or be receptive to those who might seek to take advantage of our generous spirit, we often do ourselves far more damage when we strive to protect ourselves. 

It is one thing to draw a line and try never to cross it again. It is another to build a wall or create a defensive barrier that leaves you isolated and imprisoned. Kindness is a key to comfort.

Fear is the mother of foresight   (Thomas Hardy)

Good things don't only happen....

.....to good people. Bad things don't only happen to bad ones. Arguably, though, the whole notion of good and bad is woefully oversimplified in most people's minds. People are not 'all bad' any more than they are 'all good'. Situations, similarly, are rarely as straightforward as we tend to think. 

Developments that can cause us problems may, ultimately, be of great benefit to us. Apparent windfalls can turn out to bring nothing but trouble.

Freedom lies in being bold   (Robert Frost)

Please do feel free to.....

....grow old disgracefully by all means. Remain rebellious, reckless, free-spirited and fun-loving. But learn from the past. Don't keep on making the same mistakes - make new ones instead! Modify your behaviour in accordance with experience. Then, as you grow old, you will also grow wise. 

Once you are truly wise, you will see that it is much more enjoyable to be old than it is to be young. The road to happiness involves breaking a habit. Hard though it may be, it's a small price to pay for a lot of freedom.

It takes a long time to become young.  (Pablo Picasso)

Fairgrounds and festivals....

....seemingly spring up in an instant. They vanish just as fast. They are here today, gone tomorrow, and that's what gives them their air of excitement. There is something most intimidating and inhibiting about a sense of permanence. So, what about you and me? 

Aren't our lives too short and too sweet to be spent upholding tedious traditions and respecting restrictive rules? Weren't we placed on this planet so that we could have at least some fun?

Any excuse will serve a tyrant.   (Aesop)

In the good old days....

....messages were sent by semaphore and smoke signals.  The trouble was that conveying even the shortest, simplest, message took great effort and concentration. Every letter in every word had to be spelt out carefully. In these modern times where we fire off texts and emails in moments, communication is much quicker. But is it any less prone to misunderstanding? 

There is a lot to be said for stopping and thinking before saying anything, to anyone, ever. And, just as there is a lot to be said for not saying a lot - there is a lot to be said for listening very carefully.

Dreams are necessary to life   (Anais Nin)

Blessed are they....

....who have no expectations for they shall not be disappointed. But then, nor shall they get excited very often. Expectations can, it's true, get us into trouble. They can wind us up and colour our judgement to the point where we reject a reality for no other reason than that. It does not fit our fantasy. 

Yet, every so often, if only by fluke, an expectation is met. And, oh, what rare and wondrous joy! 

Who seeks shall find   (Sophocles)

Are you lucky or unlucky?....

....That's not the question. Try asking whether something is wise or unwise. We can't, of course, always know this. Sometimes we do things that seem silly yet which turn out to have been very sensible. Sometimes a voice of caution prevents us from pursuing an essential impulse. 

If any of us really knew where luck was sure to come from, we could manipulate this information to our advantage and enjoy endless success. But we can, at least, identify the ideas least likely to be wise... or lucky. All you need, is discrimination. The luck you need, you actually already have. In abundance

Life is God's novel.  Let him write it.  (Isaac Bashevis Singer)

Don't tell the troops, but.....

....there is nothing silly about being silly. There is nothing futile about doing something pointless. The little things in life make the biggest difference. Efficiency is overrated. Pragmatism is oversold. 

We need a certain amount of it, of course, but just as you can survive quite happily on far less carbohydrate than you might imagine, it is amazing how rarely you ever really need to be sensible.

Hatred is blind, as well as love.  (Oscar Wilde)

There is always something....

....that isn't right. There is always a reason to worry or a factor to feel resentful about. That is just the way of the world. There will always be darkness. There will always be rain. Yet there will also, always, be something to celebrate, something to embrace or something to feel grateful for. 

There will always be a choice; an opportunity to notice what is seemingly bad and react to it or a chance to acknowledge what is good and to give it its due.

Politics have no relation to morals    (Niccolo Machiavelli)

There is no such thing....

....as perfection - present company included! When we strive for perfection we make our lives difficult. We become unnecessarily anxious. We create a rod for our own back. You may be keen to get something right. That's fine. But you may also be very keen not to get it wrong. That is not necessarily so good because you are impeding your own progress by setting a standard that it may prove impossible to live up to.

Be a little more tolerant and forgiving of yourself and be similarly understanding with others.

A forest bird never wants a cage.   (Henrik Ibsen)

There are many reasons....

....why we may want to avoid making a wholehearted commitment. Usually these all boil down to a fear of disappointment. We don't want to fail. We don't want to look foolish. We don't want to hurtle headlong into some pit of despair that we could have avoided had we only kept a few more psychological barriers intact. 

But, of course, if we don't put all we've got into whatever we are doing, we can't expect to get back all it might otherwise have to offer us. Take the risk. 

A riot is the language of the unheard.   (Martin Luther King Jr)

There are many things....

....we could have done or would have done. It doesn't harm to think about these from time to time. But we should always refrain from dwelling on the things we 'should' have done. Regret is most regrettable. There is never any point in feeling guilty. 

If you have mixed feelings about the past, sift them and sort them. Put aside sadness and focus only on what may yet prove relevant to the future.

A man is great by deeds, not by birth.  (Chanakya)

There is a very big difference....

....between something that you can't do - and something you can't do without a great deal of effort. The question is, how much effort are you willing to put in? 

Before you answer that, consider this: life is often the equivalent of effort. The circumstances we endure and the factors that we force ourselves to accept, all subtly shape our ability to achieve.

Calmness is the cradle of power.   (Josiah Gilbert Holland)

There is often a lot....

....to be said for a policy of restraint and caution. Wise people are forever telling us how many decisions made in haste are regretted at leisure. But yet sensible-sounding arguments like these are also often used to justify many a process of pointless prevarication. 

The real question is, 'What can't wait?' What regrettable consequences may ensue from allowing an unnecessary delay? That has to be the key concern. Don't create false urgency but where urgency is real, respect it.

Quality is not an act, it is a habit   (Aristotle)

There are reference books....

....on many topics. Great repositories of wisdom that we can consult. Explanations and diagrams. They make everything sound reasonable and easy enough to understand, if only you can apply sufficient concentration. 

So, what about love? What about emotions? What about inspiration? What about angst? Can we reduce all these to fact and formula? 

If there is a mood that you just can't shake now, maybe it's because you need to feel it, for a while at least till you learn something.

If youth knew; if age could.   (Sigmund Freud)

There's a term....

.... that gets used sometimes, about people who are overly keen to be helpful and agreeable. They are dismissed by less accommodating characters as 'people pleasers'. Actually, even the sharpest and the toughest among us, have to do a degree of people-pleasing from time to time. 

And they learn exactly the same as the more socially fluid and easier-going amongst us also eventually learn. There's simply no pleasing some people! Even so, it is often a very worthwhile thing to attempt.

I am still learning.   (Michaelangelo)

There's nothing sensible....

....about life on Planet Earth. We are not here because someone had a committee meeting and developed a careful plan. 

We exist in bodies that have not been approved by Health and Safety, and we make our most important decisions on the basis of irrational needs and fears.

As the twig is bent, the tree inclines   (Virgil)

Tomorrow never comes....

....It never goes, either. It just hovers, annoyingly, on the horizon. If you ignore it entirely, you get into trouble. If you pay it too much attention, you lose all sense of perspective.There may not be time machines but many certainly seem to be spending a lot of time thinking about a time other than the present. 

Don't look back. Don't look forward. Don't look at what appears to be happening right now, either! Look inside, instead. Look at, listen to - and be guided by - your heart.

Nothing can bring you peace, but yourself.   (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

You need to go out....

....into the wide world and seek your fortune. You can't just sit around waiting for change to come knocking on your door. You have to make an effort. You have to show some faith. You have to do whatever you can. That means running the risk of seeming silly if your endeavour proves fruitless or your plan turns out to be ill conceived. 

Remember that energy expended in pursuit of a worthwhile cause is never wasted, even if it fails to bring an immediately obvious result. 

Forgiveness is the final form of love   (Reinhold Niebuhr)

If you can't stand the heat....

....you don't have to get out of the kitchen. You can simply take fried food off the menu and prepare a plate of freshly chopped salad instead. That's probably a healthier option. We don't have to live in a state of constant pressure. We have options and choices - even if they do not seem especially easy to take or make. 

Take charge of your destiny. It may kick up an initial fuss, but if you are persistent, yet adaptable, it may soon bend to your will.

Time makes more converts than reason.   (Thomas Paine)

Don't push your luck....

....That's what people say. Strange, I must have had hearing problems if it was ever said to me.  Anyway, are they are right? A gentle push can create momentum where none might otherwise have developed. It is possible to push your luck too far, but there is a greater risk in not pushing it far enough. 

Ideally, though, you don't want to push your luck, you want to put yourself into a position in which your luck can push you. You want to be open, flexible and ready to roll with an opportunity if or when it arises.

Lost time is never found again.   (Benjamin Franklin)