I HOPE YOU LEARN TO DIG in the dirt and read books. And, along with using a computer, I hope you learn to add and subtract in your head.
- I hope you have to walk uphill to school with your friends, and that you live in a town where you can do it safely.
- I hope you get a black eye fighting for something you believe in.
- I’d like you to experience hand-me down-clothes and homemade ice-cream and leftover meat-loaf sandwiches.
- I hope you learn to make your own bed and mow the lawn. And I really hope nobody gives you a new car when you’re 16.
- It’ll be good if, at least once, you can see puppies born and your old dog put to sleep.
- I hope you need to share a bedroom with your younger brother. And if he wants to tag along when you go to the movies, I hope you’ll let him.
- I don’t care if you try a beer once, but I hope you don’t like it. And if a friend offers you dope or a joint, I hope you realize he’s not your friend.
- I sure hope you make time to sit on a porch with your grandma or grandpa, and go fishing with your uncle.
- I hope you get teased by your friends when you get your first girlfriend. And when you talk back to your mum, I hope you learn what soap tastes like.
- And may you feel sorrow at a funeral and joy during the holidays.
- These things I wish for you: tough times and disappointment, hard work and happiness.
- To me, it’s the only way to appreciate life.
PAUL HARVEY – (LATE) U.S. BROADCASTER
AMAZING!
If we could spread love as quickly as we spread hate and negativity, what an amazing world we would live in!
UNKNOWN
MARRIAGE RULEZ
I’ve learned this much about marriage: You get tested. You find out who you are, who the other person is, and how you accommodate or don’t.
If you can’t respect the other person, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don’t know how to compromise, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can’t talk openly about what goes on between you, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don’t have a common set of values in life, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble.
Your values must be alike. And the biggest one of those values? Your belief in the importance of marriage.
Marriage: you’re missing a hell of a lot if you don’t try it …
MORRIE SCHWARTZ – ‘TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE’
HUG-A-THON
The average length of a hug between two people is three seconds. But researchers have found something fantastic. When a hug lasts 20 seconds, there is a therapeutic effect on the body and mind.
The reason is that a sincere hug produces a hormone called ‘ocytocin’ – also known as the love hormone. This substance has many benefits for our physical and mental health, calming our fears and anxieties, and helping us relax and feel safe.
This wonderful calming is offered free of charge every time we hug someone well … put our arm around the shoulders of a friend … cradle a child … dance with our partner … or even cherish a dog or cat.
DO IT – AND DO IT NOW!
The
only
person
who
is
with
you
your
entire
life
is
yourself.
SO LIVE WHILE YOU’RE STILL ALIVE!
LIGHTEN UP!
Stop being mad at yourself for being exhausted, for crying, losing patience, or not having the time or energy to do absolutely everything. Stop being so tough on yourself. All of this is incredibly hard. You’re doing okay.
EMILY COXHEAD
THE SPECTACULAR YOU
Dull …
Tedious …
Archaic …
I’m afraid, God,
you have a very bad image.
You thought up all sorts of bizarre
creations:
red sea anemones and imperial
angelfish,
sexual tinglings and shaking laughter,
volcanic spectaculars of
orange-red smoke …
yet your followers
have somehow put the idea about
that you’re terribly drab.
You held the entire universe under
your fingernail,
then spun it off billions of years ago
to become solar system, Milky Way,
out to quasars and pulsars
and who-knows-what-they’ll-find.
You made the moon and tides,
the heat of all suns,
the tonnes-per-square-centimetre
of white-dwarf stars,
paramecium and mockingbirds,
frost fantasies and gnus.
You created energy and trees.
You brought us life beyond biology.
How could we think you’re outdated,
you who hold molecules and
electrons together?
Who set you up as a bore?
HAROLD MYRA – “IS THERE A PLACE I CAN SCREAM?”
STOP HIDING FROM IT …
This word ‘anti-aging’ has to go. I am pro-aging. I want to age with intelligence and grace and dignity and verve and energy. I’m not denying what I look like. Of course I’ve seen what I look like. I’m trying to live in acceptance.
JAMIE LEE CURTIS
CLIMATE-CHANGE
The seasons will always turn.
The clouds will gather and the cold will come.
We will survive them.
We will grow regardless of the weather.
We’ll know wonder, where there’s been despair.
There will be happiness, and we will remember it.
There will be friendships that we won’t forget.
Love is the constant.
Whereby we endure all winters and all storms.
It is the climate in which all things can thrive.
MATURE JENNY – ‘CALL THE MIDWIFE’
GOOD POINT!
Money can’t buy you happiness …
but it does bring you a
more
pleasant
form
of
misery!
SPIKE MILLIGAN
FROG-FRIENDS
Yes, kids need human friends.
But they also need
frog-
mouse-
chicken-
worm-
flower-
rock-
and
tree-friends too.
The relationships they form with their
wilder brothers and sisters
are just as real and valuable
to the child as any other dimension
of socialisation.
We honour them when we give
them the time and space
to authentically nurture
those connections.
NICOLETTE GOWDER
