~ko

~KO

One of the most memorable things about her house, was the framed verse she had hanging on the wall….I think of it often when I lose perspective on things. As I think of it, all of the other warm and fuzzy thoughts drift into my mind temporarily replacing what they need to.

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream and not make dreams your master;
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

~ Rudyard Kipling

                                                
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

~ Robert Frost ]]> http://koblogit.com/?feed=rss2&p=603 1 http://koblogit.com/?p=599 http://koblogit.com/?p=599#comments Sat, 14 Aug 2010 00:15:17 +0000 Admin http://koblogit.com/?p=599 The Beatles had something going back in the 60’s when they coined such prophetic and inspirational songs as Let it Be, Across the Universe, With a Little Help from my friends, All you need is Love, Here comes the Sun, I Wanna hold your hand – the list is endless! Story after short story of hope and love. McCartney the optimistic ray of sunshine, Lennon the worldly realist so wanting to Imagine the possibilities, but so disturbed that the world would not buy into them.

Forty years later since Lennon and McCartney first hooked up in a pub in Liverpool (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6Km9L1Sqd0), their songs and their dreams of peace and vision live on. Lennon’s vision ended prematurely and if he were still rocking it out today, I can’t help but think that he would think that the world has not moved more toward peace and harmony. More toward friendship and humanism, devoid of religiose ideas for the afterlife, instead, living each day for today.

Their music inspires millions still; every language, every culture, every race, we all believe in the world that could be. The world that should be.
Life is very short, and there’s no time
For fussing and fighting, my friend.
I have always thought that it’s a crime,
So I will ask you once again.
Try to see it my way,
Only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong.
While you see it your way
There’s a chance that we may fall apart before too long
Let’s work it out together.

From the ‘hello beautiful’ s that fill the crisp air of an autumn morning, to the endless dog walkers that march tirelessly at all times of day or night, returning your smile as the little Frenchies or Bassets make you giggle, searching for a tree to sniff in midtown concrete, happiness abounds.

Two days from now America will rest it’s collective conscience on the shoulders of it’s next President. A president that will be catapulted into a mix that is far from inviting. A mix of financial crisis’, healthcare despondence, unnecessary poverty, and illegal wars. Can the flavour of this New York borrough take America and inject the ‘mix’ that will be necessary to steer this wayward ship back to greatness, fairness, equality and international respect? Let’s hope so.

“An evening class at Stanford, the last lecture was on the mind-body connection–the relationship between stress and disease. The speaker (head of psychiatry at Stanford) said, among other things, that one of the best things that a man could do for his health is to be married to a woman whereas for a woman, one of the best things she could do for her health was to nurture her relationships with her girlfriends. At first everyone laughed, but he was serious.

Women connect with each other differently and provide support systems that help each other to deal with stress and difficult life experiences. Physically this quality “girlfriend time” helps us to create more seratonin–a neurotransmitter that helps combat depression and can create a general feeling of well being. Women share feelings whereas men often form relationships around activities. They rarely sit down with a buddy and talk about how they feel about certain things or how their personal lives are going. Jobs? Yes. Sports? Yes. Cars? Yes. Fishing, hunting, golf? Yes. But their feelings?–rarely. Women do it all of the time. We share from our souls with our sisters, and evidently that is very good for our health. He said that spending time with a friend is just as important to our general health as jogging or working out at a gym.

There’s a tendency to think that when we are “exercising” we are doing something good for our bodies, but when we are hanging out with friends, we are wasting our time and should be more productively engaged–not true. In fact, he said that failure to create and maintain quality personal relationships with other humans is as dangerous to our physical health as smoking! So every time you hang out to shmooze with a gal pal, just pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself for doing something good for your health! We are indeed very very lucky. So, let’s toast to our friendship with our girlfriends. Evidently it’s very good for our health.”