He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.
“
| — | Viktor Frankl, concentration camp survivor |
Anyhow… I’m fine. I mean— not that I’m over it— but little by little, it’s getting easier to pretend it’s easier, which means easier might be around the corner.
“
| — | Gilmore Girls |
Keep Moving
Australia’s Westfield ultramarathon had a surprise entrant in 1983: a 61-year-old potato farmer named Cliff Young arrived wearing overalls and gumboots and took a place among a field of 150 elite 20-somethings for the 543-mile run from Sydney to Melbourne.
Young ran with a peculiar shuffling gait that soon left him far behind the leaders, but as the race wore on he regained the ground rapidly. His strategy was simple: He didn’t sleep. He had routinely rounded up sheep on his family’s 2,000-acre ranch in Victoria, where he often ran two or three days without rest, and this preternatural endurance carried him easily into first place in the Westfield race, beating the record time by nearly two days.
At the finish Young said he’d been unaware there was a $10,000 prize; he gave it away to five other runners and returned quietly to his ranch. Asked what advice he’d give to other elderly runners, he said, “No matter what you do, you have to keep moving. If you don’t wear out, you rust out.”
We’ve got to hold on to what we’ve got
‘Cause it doesn’t make a difference
If we make it or not
We’ve got each other and that’s a lot
For love - we’ll give it a shot
‘Cause it doesn’t make a difference
If we make it or not
We’ve got each other and that’s a lot
For love - we’ll give it a shot
“
| — | Bon Jovi, Living on a Prayer |
I don’t think man was meant to attain happiness so easily. Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.
“
| — | Edmond Dantes, The Count of Monte Cristo |
I’ve said it before, but, it turned out that “I’m not sad anymore” wasn’t as much a victory speech as it was a battle cry. If you deal with internal issues— depression, anxiety, etc, you’re going to deal with them your entire life. The war will never be over. No matter how good things are, there will always be solitary nights you spend in your bedroom or car or in a party full of your closest friends when it feels like the walls are caving in. The idea behind The Upsides wasn’t winning the war, it was about the idea that you should never stop fighting and I didn’t know that when I wrote the record.
“
| — | Dan “Soupy” Campbell |
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Learning How to Smile, Everclear.
This is one of those songs I can listen to whether I’m happy or sad, and that’s what I like about it.
People say that Ecclesiastes is one of the most gloomy books of the Bible, but I find incredible encouragement in it. There’s something so perfectly real in it. Something to which I can relate far better than I can other, more blatantly hopeful passages. For example, from Ecclesiastes 7,
“10 Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?”
For it is not wise to ask such questions.
…
Who can straighten
what he has made crooked?
14 When times are good, be happy;
but when times are bad, consider this:
God has made the one
as well as the other.
Therefore, no one can discover
anything about their future. “But I think my favorite passage in the book is this, from the ninth chapter:
7 Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do. 8 Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. 9 Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun—all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. 10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.
“All the days of this meaningless life.” It’s always comforting to me to know that I’m not the only one to have seen things thus.
