I am grateful for the idea that has used me.
Like so many other positive acts, it turns out that hugging boosts our immune system. Plus it just plain feels good! So hug someone today, perhaps a person who seems particularly in need.
In every single moment, we have the choice to be happy or not. No matter what is going on, we can choose to focus on what is right, what is good and whole in ourselves and our lives, and what options we have in any given situation. In other words, we can choose to be happy no matter what.
Gratitude helps us love well by keeping us focused on the beauty in our relationship and the person we love.
Gratitude is like a flashlight. It lights up what is already there. You don't necessarily have anything more or different, but suddenly you can actually see what it is. And because you can see, you no longer take it for granted.
Spiritual leaders teach that waking up is a process, that it doesn't just happen once and for all, but must occur again and again when we realize we have forgotten the miracle of being alive, and in recognizing our forgetfulness, we wake to the miracle once again. In the moments we are awake to the wonder of simply being alive, gratitude flows, no matter our circumstances.
Gratitude helps us to return to our natural state of joyfulness, where we notice what's right instead of what's wrong. It makes us feel complete, that we have everything we need, at least in this moment.
. . . the current of time slowing down in the gravitational field of oblivion.
Confront a corpse at least once. The absolute absence of life is the most disturbing and challenging confrontation you will ever have.
Mars has a bit of air pressure; maybe we can build up that atmosphere to be a bit more accommodating to humans.
I can look back. . . at two distinct periods of opinion whose foundations I have successively come to distrust a period before 1919 or so, when the weight of classic authority unduly influenced me, and another period from 1919 to about 1925, when I placed too high a value on the elements of revolt, florid colour, and emotional extravagance or intensity.