Anyone who did even rudimentary....

....physics at school will know that hot air rises.  That's why attics tend to be warmer than basements, especially in houses that are heated. It is also why passenger balloons fly. Not only does it rise, it expands. Much the same can be said of the kind of hot air that people spout when they are debating controversial and emotive issues. Enough hot air for a fleet of Zeppelins!

The more we discuss any subject, the more discussion it seems to merit. Small differences of opinion become bigger. Quite often we ought to deflate unnecessary arguments. It really is a question of least said, soonest mended.

Maturing is realizing how many things don't require your comment.

We all understand, and then conveniently....

.... (or rather, inconveniently) forget that in war, there are no winners and in love, there are no losers. Instead, we convince ourselves that if we fight with all our might for a cause that we believe to be right, we will emerge victorious and vindicated - rather than scarred forever by our tragic losses. And, because we mistake love for 'ownership', we associate it with pain.

But a genuinely generous and giving heart can never be broken.

Your past is not your potential. In any hour you can choose to liberate the future. 

(Marilyn Ferguson)

He knew.....

....Oh how he knew -

The world is full of people....

....who think they know how things need to be, how actions should be performed, how judgements ought to be made and how problems have to be solved. Yet, even if we choose to listen to the folk who hold these opinions so strongly, we have to acknowledge that there is no great consensus. Those big, powerful ideas and views differ wildly from place to place and person to person.

That's all the more reason for you to trust your own thoughts and feelings.

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, 

but what is woven into the lives of others.

Passions and moods....

....are not logical. We don't sit down and plot the emotions that we intend to feel soon. Our feelings sneak up on us when we least expect it and rarely do they ask reasonable questions like, 'Have you got time for this, right now?' You can't change, nor fully control some of your deepest yearnings and most profound reactions but you can at least negotiate with them.

They can take over a large part of your heart if they really need to. But they must agree not to absorb all of your energy and attention.

The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.   (Eugene Delacrois)

There's a phrase that gets....

....used sometimes, about people who are overly keen to be helpful and agreeable. They are dismissed by less accommodating individuals as 'people pleasers'. The thing is, though, 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.

A kind deed a day, like little drops of rain, makes a mighty ocean 

and a gracious nation.     (Lin Hsiu Nei)

We all have aspects of....

.....our past that we now rather regret. There are invariably things we wish we had never done - or said. That's why we should always be just a little gentle when we find out facts about someone else's history and feel inclined to think, 'How could they ever have thought that that was okay?' Could not someone else point an accusing finger at you and ask an identical question?

You can be sure of only two things - You don't know anyone, and have never known anyone, who has any right to sit in judgement.  And an intense focus on the events of yesteryear will afford you no real progress or satisfaction.

You will begin to heal when you let go of past hurts, forgive those who have wronged you and learn to forgive yourself for your mistakes.