Don't Let Me Be a Chair

 Ever see the movie A Thousand Clowns? The protagonist sums it up in one brief soliloquy. Don't be a chair.
" I just want him to stay with me until I can be sure he won't turn into Norman Nothing. I want to be sure he'll know when he's chickening out on himself. I want him to get to know exactly the special thing he is or else he won't notice it when it starts to go. I want him to stay awake and know who the phonies are, I want him to know how to holler and put up an argument, I want a little guts to show before I can let him go. I want to be sure he sees all the wild possibilities. I want him to know it's worth all the trouble just to give the world a little goosing when you get the chance. And I want him to know the subtle, sneaky, important reason why he was born a human being and not a chair."

Stop Resisting What Is

Stop resisting what is.
Life is a series of continuous natural events and changes. Don’t resist them; doing so only creates unnecessary stress. Let the reality of these events and changes take place. Let them flow. Or as Henry Wadsworth once said, “For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain.”

To move forward in life you must first accept the reality of what it is. This acceptance provides you with an important starting point from which you can move in any direction you choose. To deny this reality or to fight against the past will merely waste your time and energy. To wish that things were different, or to pretend that they are, gets you nowhere.

Acceptance is letting go and allowing things to be the way they truly are. It doesn’t mean you don’t care about improving the realities of life; it’s just realizing that the only thing you really have control over is yourself in the present moment. This simple understanding is the foundation of acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be peace and growth in your life.

Forgiveness is a big part of this process. Forgiveness is the acceptance of the present moment, as it is, without attachment to any other time, place, or circumstance. Almost all negativity is caused by a lack of forgiveness and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, guilt, tension, stress, worry, and resentment – all forms of unhealthy attachment – are caused by too much past and future, and not enough presence.

Life is Difficult

If You Think---

I Will Survive

Stupid

Knife Control

Prison

Integrity

You Alone

The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours - it is an amazing journey - and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins.
- Bob Moawad

Favorite Teaching Quote

Don't Feel Bad

Struggle

The Difference

“The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war.”
― Sydney J. Harris

Proof

Guaranteed Peace of Mind

Faith or Superstition

Both Sides Are Bad?

Let's Not Make Waves?

Sick of Politics?

Disappointed

"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."

Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

MLK - Letter from a Birmingham jail.

No Amount of Belief

No amount of belief makes something a fact. -James Randi, magician and skeptic

Choice

Questions

"It's more important to question answers, than to answer questions."

Best Days

This Moment

Imaginary

You Can't Win

Your Own

“The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours - it is an amazing journey - and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins.” ~ Bob Moawad

Kindness Results

Once people feel nourished and refreshed, they cannot help but be kind; just so, the world aches for the generosity of a well-rested people.
Wayne Muller

Relationship

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.
Pema Chödrön

What I Know For Sure

I love Oprah's writing on what she knows for sure. Anne Lamott has done something similar so I decided to make my own list.

1-If you are growing, your questions and doubts will increase as you get older, not get less. Your ideas can be pretty drastically changed from what they were decades before.

2-The nicest people to be around are those who don't believe in absolutes.

3-Time you enjoy wasting is never wasted.

4-Laughter is healing.

5-True friends help you feel good about life.

6-Healthy pleasure seeking and avoidance of unhealthy pain is the basis of a life well lived.

7-One of the highest pleasures in life is to know you had a hand in leaving the world a better place. Particularly leaving the next generation as good and decent and moral as possible. 

8-What works for one person does not work for everyone. See #2.

9-If something works for someone and causes no harm, let them be!

10-Everyone's world, whether they admit it or not, revolves around their pursuit of #6.

11-People have a happiness set point. I don't know how that set point is set, but I am pretty sure of it.

12-Your definition of joy will change throughout life. At one point it may require excitement, at another point it may be all about contentment.

13-Parenting is one of the most important jobs in the world. Done well it could change the world. This does not imply everyone should be parents.

14-Intention is huge. Give people the benefit of the doubt when it comes to intention unless they show a pattern that is clear.

15-Unconditional love is not always healthy.

16-Setting your own boundaries is how you own your own life.

17- What I know for sure, I don't really know for sure.

Do NOT Tell Me To Be Quiet

Janis Ian

13 hrs · 

In the past 48 hours I have been told to "get over it" and "suck it up" by more than 100 people on my own page.
Here is my response. I will continue to post as many political comments and memes as I like. I will also continue to post as many free downloads, funny photos, and interesting quotes as I like. Why? Because this is my page.
This is also my country. My grandparents did not watch their families slaughtered by Cossacks and gutted by so-called Russian "patriots", then WALK across Russia and Ukraine, endure unimaginable hardships, and finally arrive at the Statue of Liberty - and then learn a new language, a new way of life, a new way of government - so I could give up the right to dissent.
That is why my family came here. That is why my grandfather bagged groceries and my grandmother ran a boarding house and my other grandmother took in mending. That is why my father went into the service and then to college on the G.I. bill, why my mother took night courses, why everyone and everything in my family was geared toward thinking and questioning and moving forward. So that I, a second-generation American, could, through merit and hard work, become "the American dream".
So here is my answer to those of you who would normalize what is happening around us right now. 

Dear James (and Elizabeth, and Harold, and all the rest) -
Thank you for posting. I appreciate your suggesting that I now "let it go" and "suck it up" because "like it or not, he's our president." (Or in the case of all the Australians and New Zealanders chiming in for some reason, "he's your president now.")
All right! Which part would you like me to let go of? Shall I drop the "grab pussy" part? or maybe the "gay people need conversion therapy" part, since Pence said it, not Trump?
How about the Muslim registry, so wonderfully reminiscent of that bright yellow star my forebears had to sew on their coats? Or maybe I should heed Trump's statement "It's cold in New York - we need global warming".
Wait. I can suck it up and try to forget the part where he dodged the draft, then said of John McCain "I like people who weren't captured" Wouldn't that be patriotic?
And as a Jersey girl, I could just "suck up" and "let go" of the part where he said "thousands and thousands of people" in Jersey City were cheering as the World Trade Center buildings fell.
Wait, I know! Let's forget freedom of the press, his veiled threats to allow White House briefing access only to periodicals that agree with him. Suck on that, you liberal swine. Maybe I can also let go of the part where he threatens newspapers with changes in the libel laws, so he can sue them - and I can suck up to the National Enquirer, owned and run by Trump's dear friends.
Wait! My grandparents were always terrified they'd have to prove they had a right to be in America, so even though it was always illegal to require it, they carried their "papers" with them everywhere. Yeah, if there'd been a Jew Registry, they could already have been counted.
How about I about I let go of him saying “An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that Barack Obama’s birth certificate is a fraud”? Or when he said Mexico would pay for "the wall", except now we have to front the money?
Or my personal favorite, the part where he promises and promises to release his tax returns if he's elected....
C'mon, James. Which part should I let go of first?
No no no!!! I take it all back! I want to let go of this part, because somehow, I can't un-hear it. I can't un-see it. And I sure as hell can't "suck up to it":
"I did try and fuck her. She was married. I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look. I’ve gotta use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything… Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything." Donald J. Trump
Nice. Go after married women. Cheat on your first two wives (at least). Kiss someone who doesn't invite it and consider yourself a "magnet". How presidential.
Yes, folks. I'll "suck it up" and "let it go". When hell freezes over.
You don't like it? Get off my page.