Life

Photo By: Mr. Dickie

Anne Arundel Community College, Fall 2015

This is the true joy in life … being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one … being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy … I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It's a sort of splendid torch which I've got to hold up for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to the future generations.

(Words of George Bernard Shaw, page 49, in First Things First, by Stephen R. Covey)

Dying is something we human beings do continuously, not just at the end of our physical lives on this earth. The stages of dying apply equally to any significant change, e.g., retirement, moving to a new city, changing jobs, divorce; change is a regular occurrence in human existence. If you can face and understand your ultimate death, perhaps you can learn to face and deal productively with each change that presents itself in your life.

(Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, in The Art of the Possible, by Alexandra Stoddard, page 142.)

To know how to grow old is the masterwork of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.

(Henri Frederic Amiel, 8 Feb)

5 January 2016