Sometimes we get carried away by what doesn't go right in our lives
or by the many shortcomings of our character. We put too much emphasis
on our weaknesses and too little consideration on our strengths. It pays
to pause for a moment, take a deep breath, and stand back to see what
we have accomplished. This simple recalibration serves to put things
into proper context and to focus one's energy into the most
self-satisfying activities. Moreover, the process of momentary
reflection goes a long way in letting us learn much about ourselves.
Below are four pieces that illustrate this point and which can help us
in our daily reboot.
THE DESIDERATA OF HAPPINESS
by
Max Ehrmann
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there
may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good
terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen
to the dull and ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and
aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare
yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there
will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your
achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your career,
however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of
time. Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full
of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many
persons strive for high ideals and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be
yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about
love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as
perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully
surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield
you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome
discipline be gentle to yourself. You are a child of the universe, no
less than the trees and the stars and you have a right to be here. And
whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as
it should. Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him
to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion
of life, keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and
broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
MOMENTS (Instantes)
by
Jorge Luis Borges
If I were able to live my life anew,
In the next I would try to commit more errors.
I would not try to be so perfect, I would relax more.
I would be more foolish than I've been,
in fact, I would take few things seriously.
I would be less hygienic.
I would run more risks,
take more vacations,
contemplate more sunsets,
climb more mountains, swim more rivers.
I would go to more places where I've never been,
I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans,
I would have more real problems and less imaginary ones.
I was one of those people that lived sensibly
and prolifically each minute of his life;
Of course I had moments of happiness.
If I could go back I would try
to have only good moments.
Because if you didn't know, life is made of that:
only of moments; Don't lose the now.
I was one of those that never
went anywhere without a thermometer,
a hot-water bottle,
an umbrella, and a parachute;
If I could live again, I would travel lighter.
If I could live again,
I would begin to walk barefoot from the beginning of spring
and I would continue barefoot until autumn ends.
I would take more cart rides,
contemplate more dawns,
and play with more children,
If I had another life ahead of me.
But already you see, I am 85,
and I know that I am dying.
The Sanity of Tomatoes
by
George Uba
1. Tomatoes are not a poignant fruit, not with their wide, affable faces, their compliances with the eager knife. They recline in slices on the cutting board, all their operations a success.
Their miniatures pose shinily in salad bowls, beaded with moisture, bathing in exotic dressings. When you bite them whole, they squeal in delight. They squirt your teeth with their mad rejoicings.
I've seen them, jolted off the tops of overloaded trucks, careening excitedly down empty stretches of highway, not looking where they go, never signaling, indifferent to pebbled roadskin and ditch and the deadly asseverations of trucks with their redundant 18 wheels. Ah, lending needed color to the landscape.
2. But I know when I hold the tomato at eye level it reminds you of an asymmetrical heart. It reminds you of an undiscovered bruise - elastic skin, the grace of the tongue tasting the fruit that copies the heart that navigates your world.
Consider two tomatoes in love. How can they kiss? How can she hold him in her arms? How can they whisper the forbidden words.
They knock their heads together, their skins, their shiny red butts. You make your vow, and the tomatoes sing.
3. When I think of tomatoes I see the phalanxes of plants guarding the plains of Ventura and Oxnard and the hands picking the tomatoes, the ones the harvester missed with its complicated gears and blades. Tough and raw, unbumished pelt, those hands aren't soft with condescension,
not shaped to hold a pen or deliberate. Having warred with brambles, burrs, aphids, having browned with the faces of pinoys and braceros, they grip the green and ripening youth and the yellow and red maturity with the alacrity of the initiated.
The tomatoes never flinch. They never shout in hoarse voices at the lack of tenderness. They are grateful for the one hand reaching out, left or right, it makes no difference, and they take the hand, and inside the curl of it they place the moment.
This is the sanity of tomatoes.
THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK
by
T.S. Eliot
S'io credessi che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma per cio che giammai di puesto fondo
Mon torno viva alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question. . . 10
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 20
And seeing that it was a soft October night
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate; 30
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions
And for a hundred visions and revisions
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— 40
[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all;
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, 50
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? 60
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets 70
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? 80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet–and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while, 90
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say, "That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all."
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while, 100
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all." 110
. . . . .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old . . . I grow old . . . 120
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown 130
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
