Sadly we can not edit the posts and remove those http tags

Not sue if these are inspirational but they have help me to be more honest with myself.

”We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.” – Seneca

We would rather be ruined than changed
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.”
― W H Auden

Thank you, Shinnen, and a special thank you to you, Helcat, for choosing to honor me this way, re-posting my words. I nether expected nor anticipated it, so it was a surprise, and a pleasant, heart-warming surprise. Thank you, Helcat.

And Congratulations for the new addition to your family!!!

anita

“It occurred to me the other day. That what when difficulties occur, the problem is not necessarily the issue itself… For example, when two people have a disagreement about something. It is how they choose to treat each other that is important. Not the disagreement itself. The willingness for people to work together as a team is the only way to truly win. Being right, “winning the argument”, getting what you want is not important. It is treating each other with kindness and respect that is important.”

The quote above is from Helcat in a post submitted 6 hours ago. The emphasis on Kindness and Respect, on Teamwork Over Winning is a valuable reminder that mutual understanding and empathy are key to resolving conflicts. Thank you for this insightful reminder. It’s a great lesson for all of us to keep in mind.

Love and best wishes, always!

anita

An Old Irish Blessing …….
May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and the rains fall soft upon your fields;
and may God hold you in the palm of his hands;
and upon dying, may you arrive in heaven,
before the devil hears of you’re passing.*
*this line is the way I learned it when young.
My family are all teasers.

Defeat: By Kahlil Gibran

Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness;
You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs,
And sweeter to my heart than all world-glory.

Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance,
Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot
And not to be trapped by withering laurels.
And in you I have found aloneness
And the joy of being shunned and scorned.

Defeat, my Defeat, my shining sword and shield,
In your eyes I have read
That to be enthroned is to be enslaved,
And to be understood is to be leveled down,
And to be grasped is but to reach one’s fullness
And like a ripe fruit to fall and be consumed.

Defeat, my Defeat, my bold companion,
You shall hear my songs and my cries and my silences,
And none but you shall speak to me of the beating of wings,
And urging of seas,
And of mountains that burn in the night,
And you alone shall climb my steep and rocky soul.

Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage,
You and I shall laugh together with the storm,
And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us,
And we shall stand in the sun with a will,
And we shall be dangerous.

I was reminded of this quote Life of Pi while working though some past stories. I find it inspirational as it reminds me of our humanness, how hard we try, maybe sometimes try to hard… That it may be enough to speak our fear out load and doings so find ourselves surprised that were not alone.

I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread.

Fear next turns fully to your body, which is already aware that something terribly wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and your guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dead like an opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees to shake as though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear.

Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you’ve defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.

The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.
Life of Pi – Yann Martel