Your Life

You are the only person who has control of your life.

There are hundreds if not thousands out there that have the

same degree as you or do what you do for a living. But you will be the only

person alive who has soul custody of your life. Your paticular life. Your entire life.

Not just your life at a desk, or your life on a bus, in a car, or at the computer.

Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts

but also your soul.

People don't talk about the soul much anymore. It's so much easier to write a resume

than to craft a spirit. But a resume is cold comfort on a winters night, or when your sad,

or broke, or lonly or when you receive your test results and they aren't very good.

Here is my resume:

I am a good father to five children. I have tried to never let my work stand

in the way of being a good parent. I no longer concider myself the centre of the universe.

I show up, I listen, I try to laugh. I'm a good friend to my loved one. I have tried to make

my marriage vows mean what they say. I am a good friend to my friends and they to me.

Without them I would be a cardboard cutout. I call them on the phone and meet them for lunch.

I would be rotten at best mediocre as a friend if these things were not true.

You cannot be first rate at your work if your work is all you are.

So get a life and I mean a real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion,

the bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think they would matter

if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon or found a lump in your breast?

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself

on the breeze on the seaside, a life in which you stop and notice a red tailed

hawk circle over the water, or the way a baby scowls with concentration

when she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb and first finger.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love and who love you.

Remember love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone, send a letter, write an email.

Get a life in which you are generous, and realize that life is the best thing ever

and you have no rite taking it for granted. Care so deeply about it's goodness that you

want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beer and give it to charity.

Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother, a big sister. We all want to do good but doing

well will never be enough. It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes.

It is so easy to take for granted the colour of our childrens eyes, the way the sun rises,

or the sound of a bird singing. The way in whice the melody in a syphony rises and falls

and disapears and then rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of to live.

I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned it isn't a dress rehearsal

and that today is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good

in the world and try to give some of it back because I believe in it completely and utterly

And I try to do that in part by telling others of what I have learned.

Learn to be happy. Think of life as terminal illness, because if you do, you will live

it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived.

Author Unknown..