Life Advice

 

John Steinbeck Quotes

 "A journey is a person in itself. No two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip. A trip takes us."

"We can shoot rockets into space but we can't cure anger or discontent."

"I know three things will never be believed - the true, the probable, and the logical."

"To be alive at all is to have scars."

"So many old and lovely things are stored in the world's attic because we don't want them around us and we don't dare throw them out."

"You know most people live ninety per cent in the past, seven per cent in the present, and that only leaves them three per cent for the future."

"You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway."

"When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you’ve got two new people."

"It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away. You must want it just enough."

How Gratitude Changes Everything

 

King Gustav V of Sweden: Love and Justice in the Hearts of Men

“Laws and ordinances become more or less powerless as long as they are not supported in the hearts of men by an honest will and by a disposition which puts love and justice above selfishness. It is in people's hearts that the foundation must be laid for peace and mutual trust within society itself as well as between peoples. Nothing can better serve unity than for people to be driven by high goals, and with self-sacrificing zeal, seriously devote their thoughts and their lives to realizing them.” – King Gustav V of Sweden (1907-1950)

Quoted from his speech at the 1925 World Conference of Life and Work in Stockholm, Sweden

     Plaque in StorKyrkan, Stockholm, Sweden

Happy Dog vs Angry Dog

 

Lesson on Perseverance - from "However Long and Hard the Road"

 

Lesson on Perseverance

-an excerpt from “However Long and Hard the Road” by Jefferey R. Holland

On 28 July 1847, four days after his arrival in that valley, Brigham Young stood upon the spot where now rises the magnificent Salt Lake Temple and exclaimed to his companions: “Here [we will build] the Temple of our God!” (James H. Anderson, “The Salt Lake Temple,” Contributor [The Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations of Zion], no. 6, April 1893, p. 243).

Its grounds would cover an eighth of a square mile, and it would be built to stand through eternity. Who cares about the money or stone or timber or glass or gold they don’t have? So what that seeds are not even planted and the Saints are yet without homes? Why worry that crickets will soon be coming—and so will the United States Army?

They just marched forth and broke ground for the most massive, permanent, inspiring edifice they could conceive. And they would spend forty years of their lives trying to complete it.

The work seemed ill-fated from the start. The excavation for the basement required trenches twenty feet wide and sixteen feet deep, much of it through solid gravel. Just digging for the foundation alone required nine thousand man days of labor. Surely someone must have said, “A temple would be fine, but do we really need one this big?” But they kept on digging. Maybe they believed they were “laying the foundation of a great work.” In any case they worked on, “not weary in well-doing.”

And through it all Brigham Young had dreamed the dream and seen the vision. With the excavation complete and the cornerstone ceremony concluded, he said to the Saints assembled:

I do not like to prophesy much, . . . But I will venture to guess that this day, and the work we have performed on it, will long be remembered by this people, and be sounded as with a trumpet’s voice throughout the world. . . . Five years ago last July I was here, and saw in the spirit the Temple. [I stood] not ten feet from where we have laid the chief corner stone. I have not inquired what kind of a temple we should build. Why? Because it was [fully] represented before me. [Anderson, Contributor, p. 257–58]

But as Brigham Young also said, “We never began to build [any] temple without the bells of hell beginning to ring” (J.A. Widtsoe [ed.], Discourses of Brigham Young [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1973], p. 410). No sooner was the foundation work finished than Albert Sidney Johnston and his United States troops set out for the Salt Lake Valley intent on war with “the Mormons.” In response President Young made elaborate plans to evacuate and, if necessary, destroy the entire city behind them. But what to do about the temple whose massive excavation was already completed and its 8’ x 16’ foundational walls firmly in place? They did the only thing they could do—they filled it all back in again. Every shovelful. All that soil and gravel that had been so painstakingly removed with those nine thousand man days of labor was filled back in. When they finished, those acres looked like nothing more interesting than a field that had been plowed up and left unplanted.

When the Utah War threat had been removed, the Saints returned to their homes and painfully worked again at uncovering the foundation and removing the material from the excavated basement structure.

But then the apparent masochism of all this seemed most evident when not adobes or sandstone but massive granite boulders were selected for the basic construction material. And they were twenty miles away in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Furthermore the precise design and dimensions of every one of the thousands of stones to be used in that massive structure had to be marked out individually in the architect’s office and shaped accordingly. This was a suffocatingly slow process. Just to put one layer of the six hundred hand-sketched, individually squared, and precisely cut stones around the building took nearly three years. That progress was so slow that virtually no one walking by the temple block could ever see any progress at all.

And, of course, getting the stone from mountain to city center was a nightmare. A canal on which to convey the stone was begun and a great deal of labor and money expended on it, but it was finally aborted. Other means were tried, but oxen proved to be the only viable means of transportation. In the 1860s and ’70s always four and often six oxen in a team could be seen almost any working day of the year, toiling and tugging and struggling to pull from the quarry one monstrous block of granite, or at most two of medium size.

During that time, as if the United States Army hadn’t been enough, the Saints had plenty of other interruptions. The arrival of the railroad pulled almost all of the working force off the temple for nearly three years, and twice grasshopper invasions sent the workers into full-time summer combat with the pests. By mid-1871, fully two decades and untold misery after it had begun, the walls of the temple were barely visible above ground. Far more visible was the teamster’s route from Cottonwood, strewn with the wreckage of wagons—and dreams—unable to bear the load placed on them. The journals and histories of these teamsters are filled with accounts of broken axles, mud-mired animals, shattered sprockets, and shattered hopes. I do not have any evidence that these men swore, but surely they might have been seen turning a rather steely eye toward heaven. But they believed and kept pulling. And through all of this President Young seemed in no hurry. “The Temple will be built as soon as we are prepared to use it,” he said (Anderson,Contributor, p. 266). Indeed his vision was so lofty and his hope so broad that right in the middle of this staggering effort requiring virtually all that the Saints could seem to bear, he announced the construction of the St. George, Manti, and Logan Temples.

“Can you accomplish the work, you Latter-day Saints of these several counties?” he asked. And then in his own inimitable way he answered:

Yes; that is a question I can answer readily. You are perfectly able to do it. The question is, have you the necessary faith? Have you sufficient of the Spirit of God in your hearts to say, yes, by the help of God our Father we will erect these buildings to his name? . . . Go to now, with your might and with your means and finish this Temple. [Anderson,Contributor, p. 267]

So they squared their shoulders and stiffened their backs and went forward with their might. But when President Brigham Young died in 1877, the temple was still scarcely twenty feet above the ground. Ten years later, his successor, President John Taylor, and the temple’s original architect, Truman O. Angell, were dead as well. The side walls were just up to the square. And now the infamous Edmunds-Tucker Act had already been passed by Congress disincorporating The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One of the effects of this law was to put the Church into receivership, whereby the U.S. marshall under a November court order seized this temple the Saints had now spent just under forty years of their lives dreaming of, working for, and praying fervently to enjoy. To all appearances, the still unfinished but increasingly magnificent structure was to be wrested at this last hour from its rightful owners and put into the hands of aliens and enemies, the very group who had often boasted that the Latter-day Saints would never be permitted to finish the building. It seemed those boasts were certain to be fulfilled. Schemes were immediately put forward to divert the intended use of the temple in ways that would desecrate its holy purpose and mock the staggering sacrifice of the Saints who had so faithfully tried to build it.

But God was with these modern children of Israel, as he always has been and always will be. They did all they could do and left the rest in his hands. And the Red Sea parted before them, and they walked through on firm, dry ground. On 6 April 1892, the Saints as a body were nearly delirious. Now, finally, here in their own valley with their own hands they had cut out of the mountains a granite monument that was to mark, after all they had gone through, the safety of the Saints and the permanence of Christ’s true church on earth for this one last dispensation. The central symbol of all that was the completed House of their God. The streets were literally jammed with people. Forty thousand of them fought their way on to the temple grounds. Ten thousand more, unable to gain entrance, scrambled to the tops of nearby buildings in hopes that some glimpse of the activities might be had. Inside the Tabernacle President Wilford Woodruff, visibly moved by the significance of the moment, said:

If there is any scene on the face of this earth that will attract the attention of the God of heaven and the heavenly host, it is the one before us today—the assembling of this people, the shout of ‘Hosanna!’ the laying of the topstone of this Temple in honor to our God. [Anderson, Contributor, p. 270]

Then, moving outside, he laid the capstone in place exactly at high noon.

In the writing of one who was there, “The scene that followed is beyond the power of language to describe.” Lorenzo Snow, beloved President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, came forward leading 40,000 Latter-day Saints in the Hosanna shout. Every hand held a handkerchief every eye was filled with tears. One said the very “ground seemed to tremble with the volume of the sound” which echoed off the tops of the mountains. “A grander or more imposing spectacle than this ceremony of laying the Temple capstone is not recorded in history” (Anderson, Contributor, p. 273). It was finally and forever finished.

Later that year the prestigious Scientific American (1892), referred to this majestic new edifice as a “monument to Mormon perseverance.” And so it was. Blood, toil, tears, and sweat. The best things are always worth finishing. “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). Most assuredly you are. As long and laborious as the effort may seem, please keep shaping and setting the stones that will make your accomplishment “a grand and imposing spectacle.” Take advantage of every opportunity to learn and grow. Dream dreams and see visions. Work toward their realization. Wait patiently when you have no other choice. Lean on your sword and rest a while, but get up and fight again. Perhaps you will not see the full meaning of your effort in your own lifetime. But your children will, or your children’s children will, until finally you, with all of them, can give the Hosanna shout.

I testify that God loves each of us and that Jesus of Nazareth, his Only Begotten Son, came to “succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees” (D&C 81:5)—bringing a divine form of worker’s compensation, if you will, to you who keep tugging those granite boulders so faithfully into place. I love you and believe in you. This morning I have wanted to encourage you. You are laying the foundation of a great work—your own inestimable future. “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?” I pray that your life may be “a monument to Mormon perseverance” “however long and hard the road,” in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Suggestions for a Good Life

 

There is Good in the World - LOTR

 

Only the Heart Can See Rightly - The Little Prince

 Excerpt from "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

It's madness to hate all roses because you got scratched with one thorn.
To give up on your dreams because one didn’t come true.
To lose faith in prayers because one was not answered.

To condemn all your friends because one betrayed you,
Not to believe in love because someone was unfaithful or didn’t love you back.
To throw away all your chances to be happy because you didn’t succeed on the first attempt.

There will always be another opportunity, another friend, another love, a new strength.
For every end, there is always a new beginning…

 And now here is my secret, a very simple secret:

      It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
      What is essential is invisible to the eye.

 
      On ne voit bien qu’avec le coeur;
      L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

Adjust the Sails

 

Forgiveness and Transformation

 

A thousand reasons to smile

 

Do It For Yourself

 

Promote Optimism - Be Grateful

 

David and Atlas - "I Carved Him Until I Set Him Free"

Excerpts from “I Carved Until I Set Him Free”

By Lynne Perry Christofferson

A sizeable crowd of tourists already surrounded Michelangelo’s seventeen-foot masterpiece, and we joined them, slowly circling the sculpture to view it from every angle. The statue certainly lived up to all the hype. One could not help but appreciate the artistic genius of Michelangelo, who was only in his mid-twenties when he was commissioned to sculpt this piece.

After viewing and photographing David for several minutes, Brad and I returned to the hallway through which we had entered, inspecting other statues and paintings. There we found more of Michelangelo’s work, including four sculptures called The Prisoners. Their bulky forms were left rough and unfinished, chisel marks evident, each work portraying the partial figure of a man or youth trapped in marble. The figure that most captured my attention, and has stayed with me since, showed a man struggling to break free from the surrounding stone. His head has not emerged from the marble, requiring him to support a heavy weight, which threatens to crush him. This prisoner is called Atlas, after the Atlas of Greek mythology who was forced to bear the weight of the heavens on his shoulders.

I walked back and forth between David and The Prisoners, returning to the statue of David to view the flawless stone image–smooth and completely free of its original marble block. But I was repeatedly drawn back to the figure of Atlas. It was both fascinating and heart-wrenching to see his struggle, and I sensed the tension between the stone and the man–the apparent wrestle. I have since wondered why the rough, unfinished figure of Atlas affected me more than the world-famous sculpture of David. I’ve concluded it’s because I empathize with Atlas–I relate to his struggle as I fight daily to break free of the constraints of the natural man.

Once, when Michelangelo was asked to describe his sculpting process, he explained, “I saw the angel in the marble, and carved until I set him free.” To me, the David statue represents someone who has put himself into the hands of the Lord–the master sculptor–the only one able to free us from our natural man prison. Like Atlas, we may push and strain and writhe against the stone that holds us captive, but we alone can never fully free ourselves from the bondage of sin and weakness and addiction. “…they were in bondage, and none could deliver them except it were the Lord their God.” (Mosiah 24:21).

One of the most interesting facts about Michelangelo’s David is that the huge chunk of marble used for the statue had previously been rejected by other sculptors due to perceived flaws and impurities in the stone. We can take great comfort in knowing that Jesus Christ sees the angel within our marble–that He has a true vision of who we are and what we can become through the power of His atonement. His “work and glory” is to set us free.

Your competition isn't other people

 

Boxcar Survival: Keep warm by making others warm

 

In Crown Heights, there was a Jew, Yankel, who owned a bakery. He survived the camps. He once said, “You know why it is that I’m alive today? I was a kid, just a teenager at the time. We were on the train, in a boxcar, being taken to Auschwitz. Night came and it was freezing, deathly cold, in that boxcar. The Germans would leave the cars on the side of the tracks overnight, sometimes for days on end without any food, and of course, no blankets to keep us warm,” he said. “Sitting next to me was an older Jew – this beloved elderly Jew - from my hometown I recognized, but I had never seen him like this. He was shivering from head to toe, and looked terrible. So I wrapped my arms around him and began rubbing him, to warm him up. I rubbed his arms, his legs, his face, his neck. I begged him to hang on. All night long; I kept the man warm this way. I was tired, I was freezing cold myself, my fingers were numb, but I didn’t stop rubbing the heat on to this man’s body. Hours and hours went by this way. Finally, night passed, morning came, and the sun began to shine. There was some warmth in the cabin, and then I looked around the car to see some of the other Jews in the car. To my horror, all I could see were frozen bodies, and all I could hear was a deathly silence.

Nobody else in that cabin made it through the night – they died from the frost. Only two people survived: the old man and me… The old man survived because somebody kept him

warm; I survived because I was warming somebody else…”

Let me tell you the secret of Judaism. When you warm other people’s hearts, you remain warm yourself. When you seek to support, encourage and inspire others; then you discover support, encouragement and inspiration in your own life as well. That, my friends, is “Judaism 101”.

- Michael J. Nadel

Your Smile is Your Logo

 

Jabberwocky

A great poem to go with this spooky tree in the Hall of Mosses, Olympic National Park:

Jabberwocky

by Lewis Carroll

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;

Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree

And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

by Lewis Carroll

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;

Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree

And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

Don't Let Negativity In

          Quote by Goi Nasu

 

Without rain, nothing grows.

 

A New Chapter in Life

 

Advice from An Old Hillbilly

Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong.

Keep skunks, bankers, and politicians at a distance.

Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.

A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.

Words that soak into your ears are whispered, not yelled.

The best sermons are lived, not preached.

Forgive your enemies; its what GOD says to do.

If you don't take the time to do it right, you'll find the time to do it twice.

Don't corner something that is meaner than you.

Don’t pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he’ll just kill you.

It don’t take a very big person to carry a grudge.

You cannot unsay a cruel word.

Every path has a few puddles.

When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.

Don't be banging your shin on a stool that's not in the way.

Borrowing trouble from the future doesn't deplete the supply.

Most of the stuff people worry about ain’t never gonna happen anyway.

Don’t judge folks by their relatives.

Silence is sometimes the best answer.

Don‘t interfere with somethin’ that ain’t botherin' you none.

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin’.

Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.

The biggest troublemaker you’ll ever have to deal with watches you from the mirror every mornin’.

Always drink upstream from the herd.

Good judgment comes from experience, and most of that comes from bad judgment.

Lettin’ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin’ it back in.

If you get to thinkin’ you’re a person of some influence, try orderin’ somebody else’s dog around.

Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll enjoy it a second time.

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.

Most times, it just gets down to common sense.

Trees

I think that I shall never see,
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

- Joyce Kilmer

Hey God - Answers to Life

 Me: Hey God.

God: Hello, my love.

Me: I'm falling apart.
Can you put me back together?

God: I would rather not.

Me: Why?

God: Because you aren't a puzzle.

Me: What about all of the pieces of my life that are falling down onto the ground?

God: Let them stay there for a while. They fell off for a reason.
Take some time and decide if you need any of those pieces back.

Me: You don't understand! I'm breaking down!

God: No - you don't understand.
You are breaking through.
What you are feeling are just growing pains.
You are shedding the things and the people in your life that are holding you back.
You aren't falling apart.
You are falling into place.
Relax.
Take some deep breaths and allow those things you don't need anymore to fall off of you.
Quit holding onto the pieces that don't fit you anymore.
Let them fall off.
Let them go.

Me: Once I start doing that, what will be left of me?

God: Only the very best pieces of you.

______________________________________________________________

Me: Hey God.

God: Hey John.

Me: I'm about to break.

God: Why do you think that is?

Me: Because life just keeps getting harder.

God: Then you need to become softer.

Me: Huh?

God: Here is the thing:

glass is hard

but it can shatter

easily when dropped

rock is hard

but it can be broken

quickly with a drill

gold is hard

but it can be melted

in a blazing fire

don't be so hard

that you break down so easily.

be soft

like wet clay

in the hands of a potter

be soft like

river water

in the summer

be soft like

the breeze through

a row of tall pines

all of those things

survive no matter what

happens to them

they endure because

they haven't built their

existence out of hard

materials

be soft with other people

don't break them

with your words

and don't let them

break you with theirs

be soft with yourself

your heart is more cotton

than iron

your soul is wrapped

in the softest of fabrics

for a reason

the softer you become

the more you understand

how precious all life is

be more of cotton

than you are of concrete

~ love isn't cold granite

love is shapeless

love is like ocean water

gently passing through your toes

in a world where the hardness of diamonds

helps determine its worth

don't become one yourself

become so soft

that nothing can

break you

~ john roedel (johnroedel.com)