Life and Living

for Jilly's friends, Jilly's family and Jilly's online buddies

LIFE AND LIVING

Some quotes:

Here is the test to find whether
your mission on earth is finished:
If you're alive, it isn't.

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Life is really simple,
but people insist on making it complicated.

Confucius

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It is astonishing how much, more anxious people

are interested in lengthening life than improving it.

Charles C. Colton

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I have always found that each step we take in life is to be regretted--
if we once begin to wonder how many other steps might have been possible.

John Oliver Hobbes    

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You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it.
That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies,
that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems,
and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.

J. Krishnamurti

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You come into the world with nothing, and the purpose
of your life is to make something out of nothing.

Henry Louis

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How often do you think about life and living?  In particular, your own life.  Is it everything you wanted?  What is this thing called life anyway? Why do we have so many problems trying to get through it? Why do so many people hate it so much, while others love it and live it to the full until they die? Are you living fully or are you sitting back and letting it pass you by?  I think we are all guilty of that at times.  I know I certainly am.  I have lots of plans and goals and just never seem to get round to them.  I lack motivation.  It is easier to sit back and watch. But spectating is not living, we need to take part.

I know when I am on my death bed and looking back, I want to be able to say, that even though I didn't do everything right, even though I ended up hurting people, even though I made many mistakes, I still did the best that I could, and I still got the most I could out of each moment. 

I am trying  to do so, because I could die tomorrow. So could you, sorry it’s not a nice thought, but it's true.  How ever long I live,  if I live to be eighty, it still won’t be enough to experience everything that's available to us in this world. Live life, don't just walk through it. This isn't a dress rehearsal--this is the real thing.

I have heard that often, but it still doesn’t sink in.  Not one of us really believes that we won’t be here tomorrow.  What would you do tonight if you knew it was your last?  I know what I would do.  I would gather as many of my family around me as possible for one gigantic party!  I wouldn’t be fretting over the ironing that hasn’t been done or the washing up in the sink.  I get very hung up on all that stuff and rarely stop to consider how little it actually matters.

I think we make it more difficult on ourselves by viewing life in very general terms.  We look at "life", this vast, all-encompassing term, rather than at "my life," a much more specific term that we could actually get a grip on if we tried hard enough. 

My life is made up of my experiences and how I react to the experiences of others, and my life is a wonderful thing.  My life is made up of many parts and I am many things. I can live it only in the way that I choose to live it.

We also tend to see life in the way that others see it for us.  Other people seem to think that they know better how we should live our lives, and we give in and obey them far too often.  There's a huge difference between doing what others tell us to do and learning from others and putting the lessons into practice.  If we do as others tell us, we lose our sense of who we are, and it's difficult to be satisfied with ourselves.  If we live our life by our own rules, in our own way, we keep our integrity and our lives are our own.

 Life is for living and learning. One of the things we must develop is a capacity for exploration, a searching for meanings and connections.  The search itself is as important as the end result.  It is a part of our “life journey”.  If we don’t ask the hard questions of life, if we are not carefully testing what others tell us, then we are not engaged with all the potential aspects of our own unique and wonderful lives.

We need to make wise choices in every area of our lives, as we have time for only a limited amount of stuff.  We are never going to have time to fit in everything that this life offers us.
We need to choose wisely what stuff we're going to allow to take up our time. Since we have only a limited amount of time to spend with friends or to engage in leisure activities, we need to choose our friends and our activities wisely.

We have a lot to learn in our life time and much to do.  We also have a great many things that we need to just stop and enjoy. We should not feel guilty for indulging our whims.  Our leisure time and our hobbies are also a part of our lifetime experience and equally as valid as our work.  I am lucky at this point in my life to have a large amount of leisure time.  I try to spend it wisely and to get a balance between all the things I must do (the dreaded housework) and the things that I want to do.  I am always trying to learn new things and have a long list of stuff that I want to try.  I need to be more motivated, not to let life pass me by.

Life is a wonderful experience and we all only get one shot at it. So whatever you think about life and living, you should start today to live it.

Some more quotes:

The value of life lies not in the length of days, 
but in the use we make of them; a man may 
live long yet live very little

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Life is brimming with things to be discovered and known, skills to be mastered, challenges to be overcome skills that once mastered will bear fruit forever.

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Nothing in life is to be feared, It is only to be understood.

Marie Curie

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We live in deeds, not years: in thoughts, not breaths;

in feelings, not in figures on a dial, We should count time by herat-throbs,

They most live, who think most, feel the noblest, and act the best.

Philip James Bailey

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It is not death that we should fear,

but we should fear never beginning to live.

Marcus Aurelius

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You don't get to choose how you're going to die, or when.
You can only decide how you're going to live.  Now!