"Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death." - Auntie Mame
"Most people die with their music still in them." - Oliver Wendell Holmes
"In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
I'm seeing a theme here. These are just a few quotes I think about a lot as instructions of what not to do. I don't claim to understand what God has in mind for us people but I do know that it has something to do with love: love for ourselves, love for the people in our lives, love for what we do, love for what we create, and love for what we experience. And I'm pretty sure it's also something to do with enjoying the miracle of the human experience. These quotes are not a doomsday oracle or an inevitability but rather a way to remind and urge us to create and live the life we want now. To me, this means reading, listening, learning, exploring, asking a lot of questions, petitioning the universe, setting goals, taking inspired action, and learning to enjoy fear as a glorious reminder of the fact that we're alive and that our hearts are beating.
I've developed a theory that when we die, we get a chance to review our lives on our way into heaven. A shade is raised and we suddenly see all that we could have done, all that we were meant to enjoy. We see how our fears and doubts, embarrassments and hesitations got in the way of saying what we wanted to, risking what we wanted to, becoming who we most wanted to be. And we see that the fears and doubts were illusions. We are confronted by our own missed opportunities to exercise our inherent freedom, power and limitlessness. We momentarily wince in regret at the forsaken boldness and beauty we were meant to express in our lifetime.
Begin now, today, to see yourself as this free, powerful, limitless being that you undoubtedly are. Consider yourself: your longings, desires, and dreams - and know that these are your road map to the life you are meant to live. If you find yourself a little irritated by this proposition or confused about how to do this, my entries to come will offer many suggestions for instruction from me and those I've been learning from.
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