“Happiness, I can have it if I manage to raise the world to bring in the real, in the pure, the immutable.”
Franz Kafka 1883-1924

Muito Obrigada…

MARG,

Ca

Love

Thanks Pauolo for all the interesting challanges you gift us with daily on this wonderful blog-I am tired this evening and can’t go on !
Nite,
Love
Breda

After struggling on and on – through
far to many years of my life

Im surprised and in awe for
Gods love for simplicity & happiness*

Yes
Your so right
forgiveness* acceptance & humility

This is probably true, too, of many of our other skills and talents. If we spent half the time and effort on perfecting what God gave us that we spend complaining about what we do not have, we would be masters at what we were meant to be: we would surely achieve our Personal Destiny.

There is nothing under the sun that does not have a purpose in the grand scheme of things: even the rat, the mole, even the “lowly” earthworm. Each has a function, a purpose no less glorious than that of the lion, “king of beasts.” And just imagine what a mess the world would be if each was forever trying to perform the feats intended for the other! A road-ditch, trying to be a mighty river. A mountain aspiring to be a lush, green valley. The sky hoping to become a desert.

“I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
…
I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,
Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,
Stuff’d with the stuff that is coarse and stuff’d with the stuff
that is fine,
One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and the
largest the same,
…
I resist any thing better than my own diversity,
Breathe the air but leave plenty after me,
And am not stuck up, and am in my place.

(The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place,
The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their
place,
The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.)
…
With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums,
I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for
conquer’d and slain persons.

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?
I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit
in which they are won.
…
Vivas to those who have fail’d!
And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea!
And to those themselves who sank in the sea!
And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes!
And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes
known!
…
I know I am solid and sound,
To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,
All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.

I know I am deathless,
I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter’s compass,
I know I shall not pass like a child’s carlacue cut with a burnt
stick at night.
…
I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.

One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten
million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
…
I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with
me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate
into new tongue.”

- from “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

It is easy to be a victim: “Oh, poor me! I can’t become what I want to be, because I don’t have…” the right skill or talent. I can’t do what I would like to do in life, because I lack…” this or that opportunity or resource. I cannot achieve what I would like to achieve, because…” someone or something is standing in my way. “My path is not easy! My path is not clear! My obstacles are large and many! My mistakes are too numerous! It is too late!”

It takes a lot more courage to say, “I am what I am…and there is ALWAYS room for improvement.” It takes more courage to say this, because it takes the blame off of others, and places the responsibility back on us.