I am one
Who eats his breakfast,
Gazing at the morning-glories.– Basho
Laugh a Little Bit
Here’s a motto, just your fit— Laugh a little bit.
When you think you’re trouble hit, Laugh a little bit.
Look misfortune in the face. Brave the beldam’s rude grimace; Ten to one ’twill yield its place, If you have the wit and grit
Just to laugh a little bit.
Keep your face with sunshine lit, Laugh a little bit.
All the shadows off will flit,
If you have the grit and wit
Just to laugh a little bit.
Cherish this as sacred writ— Laugh a little bit.
Keep it with you, sample it, Laugh a little bit.
Little ills will sure betide you, Fortune may not sit beside you,
Men may mock and fame deride you, But you’ll mind them not a whit
If you laugh a little bit.Edmund Vance Cooke.
Today
So here hath been dawning Another blue day;
Think, wilt thou let it Slip useless away?
Out of Eternity
This new day is born;
Into Eternity,
At night will return.
Behold it aforetime No eye ever did; So soon it for ever
From all eyes is hid.
Here hath been dawning Another blue day;
Think, wilt thou let it Slip useless away?
Thomas Carlyle.
Rules for the Road
Stand straight:
Step firmly, throw your weight:
The heaven is high above your head,
The good gray road is faithful to your tread.
Be strong:
Sing to your heart a battle song:
Though hidden foemen lie in wait, Something is in you that can smile at Fate.
Press through:
Nothing can harm if you are true.
And when the night comes, rest:
The earth is friendly as a mother’s breast.
Edwin Markham.
“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.
If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him.
If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought,
happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him. “
– Buddha
Tis not by wishing that we gain the prize, Nor yet by ruing,
But from our falling, learning how to rise, And tireless doing.
The idols broken, nor our tears and sighs, May yet restore them.
Regret is only for fools; the wise Look but before them.
Nor ever yet Success was wooed with tears; To notes of gladness
Alone the fickle goddess turns her ears, She hears not sadness.
The heart thrives not in the dull rain and mist Of gloomy pining.
The sweetest flowers are the flowers sun-kissed, Where glad light’s shining.
Look not behind thee; there is only dust And vain regretting.
The lost tide ebbs; in the next flood thou must Learn, by forgetting.
For the lost chances be ye not distressed To endless weeping;
Be not the thrush that o’er the empty nest Is vigil keeping.
But in new efforts our regrets to-day To stillness whiling,
Let us in some pure purpose find the way To future smiling.
James W. Foley.
I Am Me
In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me
Everything that comes out of me is authentically me
Because I alone chose it – I own everything about me
My body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions,
Whether they be to others or to myself – I own my fantasies,
My dreams, my hopes, my fears – I own all my triumphs and
Successes, all my failures and mistakes Because I own all of
Me, I can become intimately acquainted with me – by so doing
I can love me and be friendly with me in all my parts – I know
There are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other
Aspects that I do not know – but as long as I am
Friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously
And hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles
And for ways to find out more about me – However I
Look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever
I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically
Me – If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought
And felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is
Unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that
Which I discarded – I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do
I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be
Productive to make sense and order out of the world of
People and things outside of me – I own me, and
therefore I can engineer me – I am me and
I AM OKAY
My Life Has Been the Poem
My life has been the poem I would have writ,
But I could not both live and utter it.By: Henry David Thoreau
My Star
All that I know
Of a certain star
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue;
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,
My star that dartless the red and the blue!
Then it stops like a bird; like a flower hangs furled:
They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.
What matter to me if their star is a world?
Mine has opened its soul to me, therefore I love it– Robert Browning
ALMOST!
by Emily Dickinson
Within my reach!
I could have touched!
I might have chanced that way!
Soft sauntered through the village,
Sauntered as soft away!
So unsuspected violets
Within the fields lie low,
Too late for striving fingers
That passed, an hour ago.
