Love Your Life
Springs are not always the same. In some years, April bursts upon Virginia hills in one prodigious leap – and all the stage is filled at once, whole choruses of tulips, arabesques of forsythia, cadenzas of flowering plum. The trees grow leaves overnight. In other years, spring tiptoes in. It pauses, overcome by shyness, like my grandchild at the door, peeping in, ducking out of sight, giggling in the hallway. "I know you're out there," I cry. "Come in!" And April slips into our arms. The dogwood bud, pale green, is inlaid with russet markings. Within the perfect cup a score of clustered seeds are nestled. One examines the bud in awe: Where were those seeds a month ago? The apples display their milliner's scraps of ivory silk, rose-tinged. All the sleeping things wake up – primrose, baby iris, blue phlox. The earth warms – you can smell it, feel it, crumble April in your hands. Look to the rue anemone, if you will, or the pea patch, or to the stubborn weed that thrusts its shoulders through a city street. This is how it was, is now, and ever shall be, the world without end. In the serene certainty of spring recurring, who can fear the distant fall? Declarations of undying devotion will flash across Paris's municipal bulletin boards every 20 seconds next month as the French capital invents a new way to say "I love you" on Valentine's Day. Bertrand Delanoe, the left-wing mayor known for his innovative city festivals, said the electronic boards would carry the best short love letters on February 14 - Valentine's Day - and throughout that weekend, adding that they would "help Parisians tell each other' I love you'". He urged Parisians to send in their messages with a note indicating which neighbourhood they wanted them to be posted in. A special committee would pick out the best ones to display. The illuminated boards, which normally announce everything from city festivals to traffic warnings, stand at key squares and intersections all around the French capital.
To forgive may be divine, but no one ever said it was easy. When someone has deeply hurt you, it can be extremely difficult to let go of your grudge. But forgiveness is possible -- and it can be surprisingly beneficial to your physical and mental health. "People who forgive show less depression, anger and stress and more hopefulness," says Frederic, Ph.D., author of Forgive for Good. "So it can help save on the wear and tear on our organs, reduce the wearing out of the immune system and allow people to feel more vital." So how do you start the healing? Try following these steps: Calm yourself. To defuse your anger, try a simple stress-management technique. "Take a couple of breaths and think of something that gives you pleasure: a beautiful scene in nature, someone you love," Frederic says. Don't wait for an apology. "Many times the person who hurt you has no intention of apologizing," Frederic says. "They may have wanted to hurt you or they just don't see things the same way. So if you wait for people to apologize, you could be waiting an awfully long time." Keep in mind that forgiveness does not necessarily mean reconciliation with the person who upset you or condoning of his or her action. Take the control away from your offender. Mentally replaying your hurt gives power to the person who caused you pain. "Instead of focusing on your wounded feelings, learn to look for the love, beauty and kindness around you," Frederic says. Try to see things from the other person's perspective. If you empathize with that person, you may realize that he or she was acting out of ignorance, fear -- even love. To gain perspective, you may want to write a letter to yourself from your offender's point of view. Recognize the benefits of forgiveness. Research has shown that people who forgive report more energy, better appetite and better sleep patterns. Don't forget to forgive yourself. "For some people, forgiving themselves is the biggest challenge," Frederic says. "But it can rob you of your self-confidence if you don't do it."
However mean your life is, meet it and live it ;do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. The town's poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. May be they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it often happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means. which should be more disreputable. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends, Turn the old, return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. The thermometer had dropped to 18 degrees below zero, but still chose to sleep in the porch as usual. In the evening, the most familiar sight to me would be stars in the sky. Though they were a mere sprinkle of twinkling dots, yet I had become so accustomed to them that their occasional absence would bring me loneliness and ennui. It had been snowing all night, not a single star in sight. My roommate and I, each wrapped in a quilt, were seated far apart in a different corner of the porch, facing each other and chatting away. She exclaimed pointing to something afar, “Look, Venus in rising!” I looked up and saw nothing but a lamp round the bend in a mountain path. I beamed and said pointing to a tiny lamplight on the opposite mountain, “It’s Jupiter over there!” More and more lights came into sight as we kept pointing here and there. Lights from hurricane lamps flickering about in the pine forest created the scene of a star-studded sky. With the distinction between sky and forest obscured by snowflakes, the numerous lamp-lights now easily passed for as many stars. Completely lost in a make-believe world, I seemed to see all the lamplights drifting from the ground. With the illusory stars hanging still overhead, I was spared the effort of tracing their positions when I woke up from my dreams in the dead of night. Thus I found consolation even on a lonely snowy night !