FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Everybody knows if you are too careful you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.
Gertrude Stein (1874 - 1946)

Learning to live in the present moment is part of the path of joy.
Sarah Ban Breathnach

I'd rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate. George Burns (1896 - 1996)

In life we don’t get what we want, we get in life what we are. If we want more we have to be able to be more, in order to be more you have to face rejection. Farrah Gray

TIME CHANGES THINGS

WHAT A DIFFERENCE 30 YEARS MAKE.
1979: Long hair
2009: Longing for hair

1979: KEG
2009: EKG

1979: Acid rock
2009: Acid reflux

1979: Moving to California because it's cool
2009: Moving to California because it's warm

1979: Trying to look like Marlon Brando or Liz Taylor
2009: Trying NOT to look like Marlon Brando or Liz Taylor

1979: Seeds and stems
2009: Roughage

1979: Hoping for a BMW
2009: Hoping for a BM

1979: The Grateful Dead
2009: Dr. Kevorkian

1979: Going to a new, hip joint
2009: Receiving a new hip joint

1979: Rolling Stones
2009: Kidney Stones

1979: Being called into to the principal's office
2009: Calling the principal's office

1979: Disco
2009: Costco

1979: Parents begging you to get your hair cut
20004: Children begging you to get their heads shaved

1979: Passing the drivers' test
2009: Passing the vision test

Tough Reality

Life is like a vapor which appears for a little while and then vanishes away. James 4:13-14

I conducted the funeral yesterday for my father-- age 91. I referenced the passage from James and made the following comment: Whether death comes at 9,19, or 91-- life is still short, just shorter for some than others.

Good Advice

Life must be lived forward but can only be understood by looking backward.

Soren Kierkegaard

Well Put...

Two things boggle the human brain-- trying to get rid of somebody who won't leave and trying to hold on to somebody who won't stay.

From War of the Roses

More About Not Giving Up...

An expert said of Vince Lombardi: "He possesses minimal football knowledge and lacks motivation." Lombardi would later write, "It's not whether you get knocked down; it's whether you get back up."

Michael Jordan and Bob Cousy were each cut from their high school basketball teams. Jordan once observed, "I've failed over and over again in my life. That is why I succeed."

Babe Ruth is famous for his past home run record, but for decades he also held the record for strikeouts. He hit 714 home runs and struck out 1,330 times in his career (about which he said, "Every strike brings me closer to the next home run."). And didn't Mark McGwire break that strikeout record? (John Wooden once explained that winners make the most errors.)

Hank Aaron went 0 for 5 his first time at bat with the Milwakee Braves.

Stan Smith was rejected as a ball boy for a Davis Cup tennis match because he was "too awkward and clumsy." He went on to clumsily win Wimbledon and the U. S. Open. And eight Davis Cups.

Tom Landry, Chuck Noll, Bill Walsh, and Jimmy Johnson accounted for 11 of the 19 Super Bowl victories from 1974 to 1993. They also share the distinction of having the worst records of first-season head coaches in NFL history - they didn't win a single game.

These Never Gave Up...

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because "he lacked imagination and had no good ideas." He went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland. In fact, the proposed park was rejected by the city of Anaheim on the grounds that it would only attract riffraff.

Charles Schultz had every cartoon he submitted rejected by his high school yearbook staff. Oh, and Walt Disney wouldn't hire him.

After Fred Astaire's first screen test, the memo from the testing director of MGM, dated 1933, read, "Can't act. Can't sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little." He kept that memo over the fire place in his Beverly Hills home. Astaire once observed that "when you're experimenting, you have to try so many things before you choose what you want, that you may go days getting nothing but exhaustion." And here is the reward for perseverance: "The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it's considered to be your style."

After his first audition, Sidney Poitier was told by the casting director, "Why don't you stop wasting people's time and go out and become a dishwasher or something?" It was at that moment, recalls Poitier, that he decided to devote his life to acting.

When Lucille Ball began studying to be actress in 1927, she was told by the head instructor of the John Murray Anderson Drama School, "Try any other profession."

From Soren Kierkegaard

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of potential -- for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible.

Pleasure disappoints; possibility never.

Prayer does not change God, but changes him who prays.

Soren Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855)

Life View of a Pessimist

Smile . . . tomorrow will be worse.

Everything goes wrong all at once.

Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value.

Enough research will tend to support whatever theory.

Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.

Nothing is as easy as it looks.

Everything takes longer than you think.

Everything takes longer than it takes.

If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.

Whenever you set out to do something, something else must be done first.

Every solution breeds new problems.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

1. Why do people constantly return to the refrigerator with hopes that something new to eat will have materialized?

2. Why is it that no plastic bag will open from the end you first try?

3. How do those dead bugs get into those closed light fixtures?

4. When we are in the supermarket and someone rams our ankle with a shopping cart then apologizes for doing so, why do we say, "It's all right?" Well, it isn't all right so why don't we say? "That hurt!!!!!!!"

5. Why is it that whenever you attempt to catch something that's falling off the table you always manage to knock something else over?

7. In winter why do we try to keep the house as warm as it was in summer when we complained about the heat?

8. How come you never hear father-in-law jokes?

9. If at first you don't succeed, shouldn't you try doing it like your wife told you to do it in the first place?

10. And my favorite...... The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends, if they're okay... yikes!!!!

Correction

I've been informed that Regina Britt is actually 52 years old rather than 90. But her life lessons are still good. Wonder what she'll have for us when she's much older?!

To Enter Heaven...

The ancient Egyptians believed in order to enter heaven you had to be able to answer YES to two questions:

1. Did you find joy in your life?

2. Did you bring joy to others?

With that criteria, how are you doing?