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The first thing you learn in life is you're a fool. The last
thing you learn is you're the same fool. Sometimes I think I
understand everything. Then I regain consciousness.
-- Ray Bradbury
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1) See and hear what is here now instead of what should be, was, or will be.
2) Feel what you feel instead of what you think you ought to be feeling.
3) Say what you feel and think instead of what you imagine is expected of you.
4) Ask for what you want instead of hoping it will be offered.
5) Take risks on your own behalf instead of settling for the status quo.
-- Virginia Satir
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Cultivate simplicity. When you use words, have them say what you mean. If there's a key to your mystery, let people have it so they can understand you. Act in fresh, spontaneous, freeing ways.
Break a heavy silence. Place on paper a letter that's long been written in your mind. Speak to someone who appears forbidding. Ask the hard question. Even try to do what is clearly impossible for you.
Forgive. When you don't, the loss of your energy in harboring resentment and hate is incalculable. Do not be destroyed by your own inability or refusal to forgive.
Risk everything. What is there to save? In this world of present shock and constant change, security is the most ironic illusion, so why sell your soul?
Understand the meaning of the failure of success -- what appears to be failure often is the best teacher we have. Trappings of success have a way of masking unhappiness and absence of fulfillment. I know people who live in hell, but they have to get over the next three years of doing this for success, and then after that everything is going to be all right. But of course it isn't going to be all right because they're changing.
In your imagination, walk up the mysterious street you have long wondered or dreamed about. Imagine a lamppost and dream colors, forms, patterns.
Be open and vulnerable -- it's better than to close in on yourself. Don't worry about what other people think -- most of them are thinking about themselves. I remember as a kid, I'd have a pimple with pus in it on my face and think everybody's looking at it. Nobody's looking at it.
In love, hold nothing back. Give yourself completely, generously accept the other without reservation. Nurture love with kindness, spices and gratitude, and don't limit love. Be sure to include friendship and cultivate it.
Find a quiet place, at least within you. Take three deep breaths, exhale them slowly, and quiet the mind. If you're at ease with yourself, others can be at ease with you, too.
Since no one is an island, quit acting like one. Reach out for help, ask for it and humbly admit your need. When help is given, do not act as if you are strong. Accept it tenderly.
Recognize that personal and social spheres of life have been thrust together, forcing a new kind of wholeness upon us. We have the opportunity to make our lives, our common life, the best anyone ever knew. Even to become what humankind always wished and strove for through all the ages of darkness and all the epiphanies of light.
And finally, make a clear decision. Drop the other shoe. Strip and dive into the water. Get on with it. Our lives are brief, measured by a few decades. Do you realize how few decades we have? We don't really start til we're 20. There aren't many decades. While we're here, our lives can either be unhappy, self-destructive, unproductive and lacking fire, or celebratory, loving, creative, and filled with spiritual energy.
To life. To life. To life.
-- Malcolm Boyd
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