[Image: “Christmas Shopping 216 (DuPage Children’s Museum),” by Michael Kappel. (Found on Flickr; used here under a Creative Commons license — thank you!)]

From whiskey river:

Rule 8:
…for a Better Way to Live

Never again clutter your days or nights with so many menial and unimportant things that you have no time to accept a real challenge when it comes along. This applies to play as well as work. A day merely survived is no cause for celebration. You are not here to fritter away your precious hours when you have the ability to accomplish so much by making a slight change in your routine. No more busy work. No more hiding from success. Leave time, leave space, to grow.

(Og Mandino [source])

…and:

The Christmas Letter

Wherever you are when you receive this letter
I write to say we are still ourselves
In the same place
And hope you are the same.

The dead have died as you know
And will never get better,
And the children are boys and girls
of their several ages and names.

So in closing I send you our love
And hope to hear from you soon.
There is never a time
Like the present. It lasts forever
Wherever you are. As ever I remain.

(John N. Morris [source: nothing canonical; earliest other citation I could find is here — but evidently appeared in the poet’s collection, The Glass Houses])

[Read more…]