Focusing on negativity doesn't make any of us better

"The moment is never improved or helped by negativity, although we are programmed to think our negative thoughts, worries, and fears serve a useful function.  When you really examine this idea, however, you see that negativity doesn't serve.  Focusing on negativity and fears doesn't make anyone a better person, nor does doing that help us function better in the world.  In fact, the truth is quite the opposite." ~ From, What about Now? Reminders for Being in the Moment, by Gina Lake

I have learned that no matter what happens...

"I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad itseems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I've learned thatyou can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things:a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I've learned thatregardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them whenthey're gone from your life. I've learned that making a "living" isnot the same thing as making a "life." I've learned that lifesometimes gives you a second chance. I've learned that you shouldn't go throughlife with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throwsomething back. I've learned that whenever I decide something with an openheart, I usually make the right decision. I've learned that even when I havepains, I don't have to be one. I've learned that every day you should reach outand touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.I've learned that I still have a lot to learn. I've learned that people willforget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will neverforget how you made them feel." — Maya Angelou, American Poet/Author

The Only Thing I'd Really Like To Be

"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be." — From Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

Annie Lennox - Universal Child

What is Family?

"What is family? They were the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they were the ones who showed up, who stayed in there, regardless. It wasn't just about blood relations or shared chromosomes, but something wider, bigger. We had many families over time. Our family of origin, the family we created, and the groups you moved through while all of this was happening: friends, lovers, sometimes even strangers. None of them perfect, and we couldn't expect them to be. You can't make any one person your world. The trick was to take what each could give you and build your world from it." ~ From the novel, Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen

A Poem of a Father by Mary Oliver

A Visitor

My father, for example,
who was young once
and blue-eyed,
returns
on the darkest of nights
to the porch and knocks
wildly at the door,
and if I answer
I must be prepared
for his waxy face,
for his lower lip
swollen with bitterness.
And so, for a long time,
I did not answer,
but slept fitfully
between his hours of rapping.
But finally there came the night
when I rose out of my sheets
and stumbled down the hall.
The door fell open

and I knew I was saved
and could bear him,
pathetic and hollow,
with even the least of his dreams
frozen inside him,
and the meanness gone.
And I greeted him and asked him
into the house,
and lit the lamp,
and looked into his blank eyes
in which at last
I saw what a child must love,
I saw what love might have done
had we loved in time.

from Dream Work (1986). © Mary Oliver.