Awaken your own life

 Years ago, when I started looking for my first job, wise advisers urged, "Barbara, be enthusiastic! Enthusiasm will

take you further than any amount of experience."
How right they were. Enthusiastic people can turn a boring drive into an adventure, extra work into opportunity and

strangers into friends.

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm," wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is the paste that helps you hang in

there when the going gets tough. It is the inner voice that whispers, "I can do it!" when others shout, "No, you can't."

It took years and years for the early work of Barbara McClintock, a geneticist who won the 1983 Nobel Prize in medicine,

to be generally accepted. Yet she didn't let up on her experiments. Work was such a deep pleasure for her that she never

thought of stopping.

We are all born with wide-eyed, enthusiastic wonder as anyone knows who has ever seen an infant's delight at the jingle

of keys or the scurrying of a beetle.
It is this childlike wonder that gives enthusiastic people such a youthful air, whatever their age.

At 90, cellist Pablo Casals would start his day by playing Bach. As the music flowed through his fingers, his stooped

shoulders would straighten and joy would reappear in his eyes. Music, for Casals, was an elixir that made life a never

ending adventure. As author and poet Samuel Ullman once wrote, "Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm

wrinkles the soul."

How do you rediscover the enthusiasm of your childhood? The answer, I believe, lies in the word itself. "Enthusiasm"

comes from the Greek and means "God within." And what is God within is but an abiding sense of love -- proper love of

self (self-acceptance) and, from that, love of others.

Enthusiastic people also love what they do, regardless of money or title or power. If we cannot do what we love as a

full-time career, we can as a part-time avocation, like the head of state who paints, the nun who runs marathons, the

executive who handcrafts furniture.

Elizabeth Layton of Wellsville, Kan, was 68 before she began to draw. This activity ended bouts of depression that had

plagued her for at least 30 years, and the quality of her work led one critic to say, "I am tempted to call Layton a

genius." Elizabeth has rediscovered her enthusiasm.

We can't afford to waste tears on "might-have-beens." We need to turn the tears into sweat as we go after "what-can-be."

   We need to live each moment wholeheartedly, with all our senses -- finding pleasure in the fragrance of a back-yard

garden, the crayoned picture of a six-year-old, the enchanting beauty of a rainbow. It is such enthusiastic love of life

that puts a sparkle in our eyes, a lilt in our steps and smooths the wrinkles from our souls.

The first encounter with the manatee

 Walking alone on a remote beach in southwest Florida, I was startled to hear splashes and a deep sigh coming from the

water just offshore.

As I squinted in the direction of the sounds, the rounded gray back of a sea creature rose amid a red froth, rolled

turbulently at the surface, then sank back into the Gulf. Moments later a broad nose emerged and exhaled in a great

snuffling breath. It was a manatee, and by the looks of the reddish-colored water and the way it was thrashing, it was

in trouble.

I had often watched manatees in these warm coastal waters, but I'd never seen one act like this before. Usually just

their big nostrils appeared for a gulp of air as they foraged on sea grasses or swam slowly to greener underwater

pastures. But I also knew how common it was for these lumbering giants to be gashed by boat propellers or entangled in

crab traps.


I wanted to help, but what could I do? There was no one else on the beach, and the nearest phone to call the Marine

Patrol was miles away.

Tossing my beach bag onto the sand, I began wading toward the animal, who continued to writhe as if in distress. I was

still only waist deep when I came close enough to make out the bristly whiskers on the manatee's muzzle as it thrust up

out of the sea. Then, to my surprise, a second muzzle, much smaller, poked up beside it.

I pushed on through the shoal water, but now the manatees were also moving toward me. Before I knew what was happening,

I was in chest-deep water encircled by not one or two, but at least three blimplike bodies. I felt elated and slightly

dizzy like the kid who is 'it' in a schoolyard game.

A bulbous snout emerged next to me. In the translucent water, I could clearly see the rest of the huge mammal, and

there, nestled close behind her, a smaller version of her massive body.

Then, with incredible gentleness for such an enormous creature, the larger manatee nudged the little one with her

paddle-shaped flipper and pushed it to the surface beside me. I wanted to reach out and touch the pudgy sea baby, but I

hesitated, not knowing the rules of this inter-species encounter.

As the two slipped back underwater, two other manatees moved in from behind and slid by, one on either side, rubbing

gently against my body as they swam past. They circled and repeated the action, this time followed by the mother and her

calf. Emboldened by their overtures, I let my hand graze the side of the small manatee, now clinging to the mother's

back, as they made their pass. Its skin felt rubbery and firm like an old fashioned hot water bottle.

The group completed several more circuits. Since they obviously enjoyed touching me, I began stroking each of them as

they sidled by. When one of them rolled over for a scratch, I knew I had made the right move.

Eventually my new friends made their way off towards deeper water. I stood anchored to the spot, not wishing to break

the spell, until finally the rising tide forced me back to shore.

I suppose I will never know exactly what took place that morning. I like to think that the manatees included me in their

celebration of a birth; that I was welcomed to meet the newest member of their tribe. But over time I have come to

cherish the experience without questions.

During that unexpected rendezvous, I felt more in tune with the rhythms of life on this vast planet than I ever have.

The memory has become a song I sing to myself when I have the blues, a dance I do to celebrate joy.

And each year, during the last week of May, I pack a lunch and head for that isolated stretch of beach for a quiet

little birthday picnic on the shore. After all, you never know who might show up for the party.

California's legend

When I was young, I went looking for gold in California. I never found enough to make me rich. But I did discover a beautiful part of the country. It was called “the Stanislau.” The Stanislau was like Heaven on Earth. It had bright green hills and deep forests where soft winds touched the trees. 　
Other men, also looking for gold, had reached the Stanislau hills of California many years before I did. They had built a town in the valley with sidewalks and stores, banks and schools. They had also built pretty little houses for their families.　
At first, they found a lot of gold in the Stanislau hills. But their good luck did not last. After a few years, the gold disappeared. By the time I reached the Stanislau, all the people were gone, too.

Grass now grew in the streets. And the little houses were covered by wild rose bushes. Only the sound of insects filled the air as I walked through the empty town that summer day so long ago. Then, I realized I was not alone after all.　
A man was smiling at me as he stood in front of one of the little houses. This house was not covered by wild rose bushes. A nice little garden in front of the house was full of blue and yellow flowers. White curtains hung from the windows and floated in the soft summer wind.
Still smiling, the man opened the door of his house and motioned to me. I went inside and could not believe my eyes. I had been living for weeks in rough mining camps with other gold miners. We slept on the hard ground, ate canned beans from cold metal plates and spent our days in the difficult search for gold.
Here in this little house, my spirit seemed to come to life again.
I saw a bright rug on the shining wooden floor. Pictures hung all around the room. And on little tables there were seashells, books and china vases full of flowers. A woman had made this house into a home.
The pleasure I felt in my heart must have shown on my face. The man read my thoughts. “Yes,” he smiled, “it is all her work. Everything in this room has felt the touch of her hand.”　　
One of the pictures on the wall was not hanging straight. He noticed it and went to fix it. He stepped back several times to make sure the picture was really straight. Then he gave it a gentle touch with his hand.
“She always does that,” he explained to me. “It is like the finishing pat a mother gives her child’s hair after she has brushed it. I have seen her fix all these things so often that I can do it just the way she does. I don’t know why I do it. I just do it.”　
As he talked, I realized there was something in this room that he wanted me to discover. I looked around. When my eyes reached a corner of the room near the fireplace, he broke into a happy laugh and rubbed his hands together.
“That’s it!” he cried out. “You have found it! I knew you would. It is her picture. I went to a little black shelf that held a small picture of the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. There was a sweetness and softness in the woman’s expression that I had never seen before.
The man took the picture from my hands and stared at it. “She was nineteen on her last birthday. That was the day we were married. When you see her…oh, just wait until you meet her!”　
“Where is she now?” I asked.　
“Oh, she is away,” the man sighed, putting the picture back on the little black shelf. “She went to visit her parents. They live forty or fifty miles from here. She has been gone two weeks today.”　
“When will she be back?” I asked. “Well, this is Wednesday,” he said slowly. “She will be back on Saturday, in the evening.”　
I felt a sharp sense of regret. “I am sorry, because I will be gone by then,” I said. 　
“Gone? No! Why should you go? Don’t go. She will be so sorry. You see, she likes to have people come and stay with us.”　　
“No, I really must leave,” I said firmly.　
He picked up her picture and held it before my eyes. “Here,” he said. “Now you tell her to her face that you could have stayed to meet her and you would not.”　
Something made me change my mind as I looked at the picture for a second time. I decided to stay. 　
The man told me his name was Henry.　
That night, Henry and I talked about many different things, but mainly about her. The next day passed quietly. 　
Thursday evening we had a visitor. He was a big, grey-haired miner named Tom. “I just came for a few minutes to ask when she is coming home,” he explained. “Is there any news?”　
“Oh yes,” the man replied. “I got a letter. Would you like to hear it? He took a yellowed letter out of his shirt pocket and read it to us. It was full of loving messages to him and to other people – their close friends and neighbors. When the man finished reading it, he looked at his friend. “Oh no, you are doing it again, Tom! You always cry when I read a letter from her. I’m going to tell her this time!”　
“No, you must not do that, Henry,” the grey-haired miner said. “I am getting old. And any little sorrow makes me cry. I really was hoping she would be here tonight.”　
The next day, Friday, another old miner came to visit. He asked to hear the letter. The message in it made him cry, too. “We all miss her so much,” he said. Saturday finally came. I found I was looking at my watch very often. Henry noticed this. “You don’t think something has happened to her, do you?” he asked me. 　
I smiled and said that I was sure she was just fine. But he did not seem satisfied.
I was glad to see his two friends, Tom and Joe, coming down the road as the sun began to set. The old miners were carrying guitars. They also brought flowers and a bottle of whiskey. They put the flowers in vases and began to play some fast and lively songs on their guitars.　
Henry’s friends kept giving him glasses of whiskey, which they made him drink. When I reached for one of the two glasses left on the table, Tom stopped my arm. “Drop that glass and take the other one!” he whispered. He gave the remaining glass of whiskey to Henry just as the clock began to strike midnight.
Henry emptied the glass. His face grew whiter and whiter. “Boys,” he said, “I am feeling sick. I want to lie down.”　
Henry was asleep almost before the words were out of his mouth. 　
In a moment, his two friends had picked him up and carried him into the bedroom. They closed the door and came back. They seemed to be getting ready to leave. So I said, “Please don’t go gentlemen. She will not know me. I am a stranger to her.”　　
They looked at each other. “His wife has been dead for nineteen years,” Tom said.　
“Dead?” I whispered.　
“Dead or worse,” he said.　
“She went to see her parents about six months after she got married. On her way back, on a Saturday evening in June, when she was almost here, the Indians captured her. No one ever saw her again. Henry lost his mind. He thinks she is still alive. When June comes, he thinks she has gone on her trip to see her parents. Then he begins to wait for her to come back. He gets out that old letter. And we come around to visit so he can read it to us. 　
“On the Saturday night she is supposed to come home, we come here to be with him. We put a sleeping drug in his drink so he will sleep through the night. Then he is all right for another year.”　
Joe picked up his hat and his guitar. “We have done this every June for nineteen years,” he said. “The first year there were twenty-seven of us. Now just the two of us are left.” He opened the door of the pretty little house. And the two old men disappeared into the darkness of the Stanislau.

To start a new life

Abraham Joshua Heschel was one of the leading American Rabbis, theologians, and social activists of the 20th century. He said something that I’ll never forget and that has stayed with me since the moment I heard it. In his book God in Search of Man, he wrote, “Life is routine and routine is resistance to wonder.”
There's a true story of a man I have worked with who has spent his entire life believing that his ears were not symmetrical and therefore sunglasses always looked crooked on his face. He came to accept this over time, until he came in touch with mindfulness practice.

One day as he was standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom he chose to take a moment to come down from his busy mind, become present, and really look at himself. What he noticed was astonishing.
He suddenly realized that he had not been standing straight and that one shoulder was slightly lower than the other. In that moment, he chose to stand up straight and low and behold his eyeglasses were no longer crooked on his face. All this time he thought his face was lopsided in some way when in effect, it was his posture.
This story is just a metaphor for the rest of us in our lives. Over time, what do we just get used to and learn to accept that keeps us limited in how we see things? What in our lives has become routine to a point that we have lost our sense of wonder in this world?
When dealing with a myriad of mental health conditions (e.g., stress, anxiety, depression, or addiction), we get stuck in routine ways of reacting to things. A challenge may arise and the automatic reaction is “who cares, I’ll never succeed anyway.” As we become accustomed to this, it can be likened to unknowingly walking around with crooked posture. Once we become aware of it, we can begin the process of straightening ourselves out.
It's a worthy question to explore: What do you notice in your life that's routine?
Do you watch TV every night? Do you take the same route to work every day? If you are in a relationship, do you sleep on the same side of the bed night after night or does only one of you cook the meals or clean? Do you often shoot down new ideas? Do you react to stress or pain with routine avoidance? Is this routine taking away the wonder in everyday life?”
To do: Pick one thing from your “routine list” and choose to begin becoming aware of it and switching it up.

We're Just Beginning

"We are reading the first verse of the first chapter of a book whose pages are infinite…”
I do not know who wrote those words, but I have always liked them as a reminder that the future can be anything we want to make it. We can take the mysterious, hazy future and carve out of it anything that we can imagine, just as a sculptor carves a statue from a shapeless stone.

We are all in the position of the farmer. If we plant a good seed, we reap a good harvest. If our seed is poor and full of weeds, we reap a useless crop. If we plant nothing at all, we harvest nothing at all.

I want the future to be better than the past. I don't want it contaminated by the mistakes and errors with which history is filled. We should all be concerned about the future because that is where we will spend the remainder of our lives.


The past is gone and static. Nothing we can do will change it. The future is before us and dynamic. Everything we do will affect it. Each day brings with it new frontiers, in our homes and in our business, if we only recognize them. We are just at the beginning of the progress in every field of human endeavor.

You!

Consider… YOU. In all time before now and in all time to come, there has never been and will never be anyone just like you. You are unique in the entire history and future of the universe. Wow! Stop and think about that. You're better than one in a million, or a billion, or a 1)gazillion…
You are the only one like you in a sea of infinity!!!
You're amazing! You're awesome! And by the way, TAG, you're it. As amazing and awesome as you already are, you can be even more so. Beautiful young people are the whimsey of nature, but beautiful old people are true works of art. But you don't become "beautiful" just by virtue of the aging process.
Real beauty comes from learning, growing, and loving in the ways of life. That is the Art of Life. You can learn slowly, and sometimes painfully, by just waiting for life to happen to you. Or you can choose to accelerate your growth and intentionally devour life and all it offers. You are the artist that paints your future with the brush of today.
Paint a Masterpiece.

God gives every bird its food, but he doesn't throw it into its nest. Wherever you want to go, whatever you want to do, it's truly up to you.

Peaches and Plums Do Not Have to Talk, Yet the World Beats a Path to Them--Natural Attraction

Duing the Western Han Dynasty(206 B.C.- A.D.24)Period, there was a very famous general whose name was Li Guang. He was very brave and skillful in battle, and had fought more than seventy battles with the Huns, an ancient nationality in China.Having made brilliant achievements in war, he was deeply loved and esteemed by the officers and men as well as the common people. However,he did not claim credit for himself and become arrogant,although he held a high post,commanding a big army,and had rendered outstanding service in defending the county. He was not only polite and amiable, but also shared weal and woe with the soldiers. He always had the troops under his commandat heart,and whenever gifts were bestowed to him by the imperial government,he distributed the gifts to his officers and men. When marching, he endured the torments of hunger and thirst as the soldiers did when food and water were in short supply. When fighting, he charged at the head of his men,and ,when he gave the order,every soldier advanced bravely to engage in fighting,not fearing death.

  When the sad news of the heath of General Li Guang reached the militaty camp,the officers and men of the whole army wept bitterly.