love the moment

    "No" is a word that does not equivocate.  "No" is a word that is crystal clear in it's meaning.  As opposed to "maybe" or "possibly", it terminates a particular line of inquiry and suspends the continuation of entreaties.     I think in the past, I had a very simplistic view of the word, and categorized it with other words I disliked - such as hate or steal or hurt.  But, hopefully, I've heeded some of life's lessons thus far - so I can now reconsider the value of the word.     When - as a child - my Mom said "no" to a movie, or a sleepover, or access to the family car - I could only see a word that separated me from my wants.  And at that foolish age, I equated what I wanted to what was best for me.  I had not yet learned that there was a greater good than my own foolish desires.     But I've found some measure of humility in the decades since, and I sometimes remember - or am reminded - of those lessons in start...

Do only those things that can be done with joy. Leave all those things that must be done out of obligation or fear to others. There are always many who willingly act with wrong motives... dg 6/19/2010

It is not the style of clothes one wears, neither the kind of automobile one drives, nor the amount of money one has in the bank, that counts.  These mean nothing.  It is simply service that measures success. Look about you.  Take hold of the things that are here.  Let them talk to you.  You learn to talk to them. There is no short cut to achievement.  Life requires thorough preparation - veneer isn't worth anything. Learn to do common things uncommonly well; we must always keep in mind that anything that helps fill the dinner pail is valuable. How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.

"The farther you go, the less you know." Tao 47 Master the smallest, simple things, like I have enough All the rest is needless chatter George Washington Carver dedicated his life to learning the secrets of the peanut 1000's of things, previously unknown What small and great thing Will you bring to the world today? dg http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventors/a/GWC.htm Sent from my iPad

"Just an unbroken dance of shadows" - a line from Tao 14.  It seems an apt description of our lives. As we strive and struggle to discern the future - where will we go? - or make sense of our past - what does it all mean? Rarely are the answers printed in black and white.  Instead, there are the blurred lines of recall, and the faded patterns of memory. It is hard to say - given our imperfect understanding - why our lives unfold as they do. Why this path abruptly ended - while another seems to meander forever. It is the story of our lives, and that story is unfinished.  I foolishly ask - sometimes demand - to know the epilogue - even though I'm barely half-way through the book. But on my better days, I'm happy to follow along - intrigued by the plot lines, and fascinated with the author's development of each character in the story. Contentment does not come easy to one schooled in the ways of performance-based living. My self-worth checklist is long and ever...