Stifling an urge to dance is bad for your health — it rusts your spirit and
happiness
Ill & well
Do not take anything for granted — not one smile or one person or one rainbow or one breath, or one night in your cozy bed.
Don’t just sit there
If life is good, don’t just sit there — dance!
If life’s not so good — dance even more.
Brotherly wisdom
“If you ever change your mind… you’re not stuck with it. You’ve got a lot of choices. If getting out of bed in the morning is a chore and you’re not smiling on a regular basis, try another choice.”
—Steven D. Woodhull
Dreams & greens
For happy health, fuel yourself with dreams and greens.
Speaking of spring
Spring translates earth’s happiness into colorful flowers.
Hard to escape
Even happiness worries sometimes.
Aye aye, skipper!
When most people see an adult skipping they assume it must be on the way either to or from the asylum.
From the library to the park
Happiness is sharing a bowl of cherries and a book of poetry with a
XXXI
My stiff-spread arms
Break into sudden gesture;
My feet seize upon the rhythm;
My hands drag it upwards:
Thus I create the dance.
I drink of the red bowl of the sunlight:
I swim through seas of rain:
I dig my toes into earth:
I taste the smack of the wind:
I am myself:
I live.
The temples of the gods are forgotten or in ruins:
Professors are still arguing about the past and the future:
I am sick of reading marginal notes on life,
I am weary of following false banners:
I desire nothing more intensely or completely than this present;
There is nothing about me you are more likely to notice than my being:
Let me therefore rejoice silently,
A golden butterfly glancing against an unflecked wall.
—John Gould Fletcher (1886–1950), “XXXI,” Irradiations, 1915
Keys to happiness
“The key to happiness is pretty much the same as the key to worry and anxiety — you must learn to make a big deal out of nothing.”
“The key to happiness? Simple really. You don’t let short-term concerns ruin your life, and you don’t let long-term concerns ruin your day.”
—Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Blind cheerfulism
“At any rate, I remain cheerful — if only through some inner necessity. Cheerfulness will prevail. I believe it in my bones… While there is a chance of the world getting through its troubles I hold that a reasonable man has to behave as though he was sure of it. If at the end your cheerfulness is not justified, at any rate you will have been cheerful.”
—H. G. Wells, Apropos of Dolores, 1938
Now, in a Later Spring
Once, long ago, I heard an old man say,
“Two pounds of sorrow is the price you pay
For every pound of bliss.”
But I was young and such a reckoning
Seemed far too steep; now, in a later spring,
I’d gladly offer far, far more than this.
—Alice Mackenzie Swaim, “Now, in a Later Spring,” Crickets Are Crying Autumn, 1960