Wise Words: 82 year old looking back on her life - A MUST READ

OG Mandino shares an interesting story:

One final secret and I pray that you think about this tonight and tomorrow and next week as you and all the rest of us keep chasing after those two elusive butterflies called success and happiness. Please take this away with you let it be my late valentine to all of you with my love.

Failures spend so much of their time reliving their past mistakes or worrying about tomorrow’s problems that they let this beautiful day which is all we have, slip away.

An 82 year old looking back on her life;

“If I had my life to live over I’d try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax. I would limber up. I would be crazier than I’d been on this trip. I know very few things I’d take seriously anymore. I’d certainly be less hygienic. I would take more chances. I would take more trips, I would scale more mountains, I would swim more rivers and I would watch many more sunsets. I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. You see I was one of those people who lived sensibly and sanely hour after hour and day after day. I had my moments and if I had it to do it over again i’d have many more of them. In fact I’d try not to have anything else, just moments, one after another, instead of living so many days ahead of my day. I’d be one of those people who never went anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a goggle, a rain coat and a parachute. If I had it to do all over again I’d travel lighter, much lighter than I have. I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and I’d stay that way later in the fall and I would ride more merry go rounds and catch more gold rings and greet more people and pick more flowers and dance more. If I had it to do all over again but you see, I don’t.”

Like that old Japanese mother breaking branches I hope I have been able to break a couple for you today. Mr X and Miss X if you’re out there please don’t give up you’re much too precious to lose. Grab a life preserver and please all of you, don’t allow that neighbour leaning over the back fence to make fun of your dreams or that cynical worker to tell you that your goals will never be accomplished. With friends like that you don’t need any enemies. They wanna be buried in failure let them just don’t let them drag you down with them. Just remember you’re a special miracle and your destiny is in your hands and your hands alone.

I love you all, you have a good life.

God Bless You.

The Rose that Grew from Concrete

Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? 

Proving nature's law is wrong

 it learned to walk without having feet. 

Funny it seems, but by keeping it's dreams, 

it learned to breathe fresh air. 

Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared.

By Tupac Shakur

Success

To laugh often and much;

To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;

to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends

to appreciate beauty,

to find the best in others,

to the leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child,

A garden patch or a redeemed social condition;

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.

This is to have succeeded.

by: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don't Quit

When things go wrong as they sometimes will,

When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,

When the funds are low and the debts are high,

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh.

When the care is pressing you down a bit.

Rest, if you must, but don't quit.

Life is queen with its twists and turns

As everyone one of us sometimes learns.

And many a failure turns about

When he might have won had he stuck it out

Don't give up though the pace seems slow,

You may succeed with another blow.

Success is failure turned inside out

The silver tint of the clouds of doubt.

And you never know how close you are.

It may be near when it seems far,

So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit

It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

Author unknown

INVICTUS

Out of the night that covers me, 

Black as the Pit from pole to pole, 

I thank whatever gods may be 

For my unconquerable soul. 

  

In the fell clutch of circumstance 

I have not winced nor cried aloud. 

Under the bludgeonings of chance 

My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

  

Beyond this place of wrath and tears 

Looms but the Horror of the shade, 

And yet the menace of the years 

Finds and shall find me unafraid. 

  

It matters not how strait the gate, 

How charged with punishments the scroll, 

I am the master of my fate; 

I am the captain of my soul.

by: William Ernest Henley

The Victor

If you think you are beaten you are,

If you think you dare not you don't,

If you like to win but think you can't,

It's almost a cinch you won't.

If you think you'll lose you, you're lost,

For out in the world we find,

Success begins with a fellow's will

It's all in the state of mind

If you think you're outclassed you are,

You've got to think to rise,

You've got to be sure of yourself before,

You can ever win the prize

Life's battles don't always go,

To the stronger or faster man,

but sooner or later the man who wins,

Is the man who thinks he can.

By: C.W. Longenecker

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference

By Robert Frost

I Will Persist

I will persist until I succeed.

I was not delivered unto this world in defeat, nor does failure course in my veins. I am not a sheep waiting to be prodded by my shepherd. I am a lion and I refuse to talk, to walk, to sleep with the sheep. I will hear not those who weep and complain, for their disease is contagious. Let them join the sheep. The slaughterhouse of failure is not my destiny.

I will persist until I succeed.

The prizes of life are at the end of each journey, not near the beginning; and it is not given to me to know how many steps are necessary in order to reach my goal. Failure I may still encounter at the thousandth step, yet success hides behind the next bend in the road. Never will I know how close it lies unless I turn the corner.

Always will I take another step. If that is of no avail I will take another, and yet another. In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult.

I will persist until I succeed.

Henceforth, I will consider each day's effort as but one blow of my blade against a mighty oak. The first blow may cause not a tremor in the wood, nor the second, nor the third. Each blow, of itself, may be trifling and seem of no consequence. Yet from childish swipes the oak will eventually tumble. So it will be with my efforts of today.

I will be liken to the rain drop which washes away the mountain; the ant who devours a tiger; the star which brightens the earth; the slave who builds a pyramid. I will build my castle one brick at a time for I know that small attempts, repeated, will complete any undertaking.

I will persist until I succeed.

I will never consider defeat and I will remove from my vocabulary such words and phrases as quit, cannot, unable, impossible, out of the question, improbable, failure, unworkable, hopeless and retreat; for they are the words of fools. I will avoid despair but if this disease of the mind should infect me then I will work on in despair. I will toil and I will endure. I will ignore the obstacles at my feet and keep mine eyes on the goals above my head, for I know that where dry desert ends, green grass grows.

So long as there is breath in me, that long will I persist. For now I know one of the greatest principles of success; if I persist long enough I will win.

I will persist.

I will win. 

I will persist until I succeed.

by: OG Mandino