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These Are the Moments That Change Our Lives

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| by | personal

I’m reading Muriel Barbery‘s The Elegance of the Hedgehog for the Barnes & Noble Ladies Book Club. I wasn’t too impressed with the last two books we chose, Uglies and Winter’s Bone, but this book was already on my Goodreads To Read list, so I was hopeful. Last Saturday, I had a couple hours to kill at Barnes & Noble before Rob got off work and we went on a little date, so I got the book off the shelf, ordered a coffee, and started reading. I fell in love with this book by the end of the prologue, which is several chapters long.

I’ve been recording quotations from it, and there is one that I read last night that perfectly describes a sensation I’ve experienced before in my life but never tried to shroud in words, and I just have to share it here in my pensieve.

Moments like this act as magical interludes, placing our hearts at the edge of our souls: fleetingly, yet intensely, a fragment of eternity has come to enrich time. Elsewhere the world may be blustering or sleeping, wars are fought, people live and die, some nations disintegrate, while others are born, soon to be swallowed up in turn–and in all this sound and fury, amidst eruptions and undertows, while the world goes its merry way, bursts into flames, tears itself apart and is reborn: human life continues to throb. (91)

Have you ever experienced this?

Quote Week, Day 7: Life

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| by | NaBloPoMo

This week, I’ve shared with you my favorite quotes on happiness, food, friendship, writing, productivity, and success. Today, life. It happens to us whether we’re living it or letting it live us. I think the important thing is to remember to live it and “end up with the right regrets.”

5+ Quotes on Life

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.  [Arthur Miller

Life is full of hard bits. But between the hard bits are the lovely bits. Lily in Eagle vs. Shark

Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out of it alive. Elbert Hubbard

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our Attitudes.  Charles Swindoll

Life is like a blanket too short.  You pull it up and your toes rebel, you yank it down and shivers meander about your shoulder; but cheerful folks manage to draw their knees up and pass a very comfortable night. Marion Howard

Question of the Day

All week, I have been sharing my favorite quotes. What is yours?

Quote Week, Day 6: Success, a.k.a. Hard Work

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| by | NaBloPoMo

I think one of the great misconceptions of my generation is, “I can, just like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs*, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, or Shawn Fanning, make a quick million young and just live easy for the rest of my life. Hey, it’s the American Dream!”

Now, this is my own opinion, but I think many of us forget that success is no more than hard work. All of these people, now rich and famous, livin’ in the lap of luxury, they worked hard, long hours to achieve what they did. And once they were made, the work did not stop.

I do not believe that most of us will “make it.” We will work hard our entire lives, and we might become millionaires by saving and investing wisely, but we won’t live the extravagant lives that those guys do. We can, however, achieve success and financial security through hard work and focus, not that I believe money and success alone can make us truly happy. For me–and it is different for each of us–true happiness comes from my true friends and family, from taking some time for myself and personal growth every day, from focusing on and working towards achieving the goals I have set for myself.

5 Quotes on Success, a.k.a. Hard Work

A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man; it is what he wants and must have to be good for anything. Hardship and opposition are the native soil of manhood and self-reliance. John Neal

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Albert Einstein

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. Sir Francis Bacon

Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea is an obstacle. Ken Hakuta

Great ideas originate in the muscles. [Dr. Pepper poll yet? Take a second and make your prediction: How long will my current stash of Dr. Peppers last?

Notes

* Wait, is Steve Jobs still alive? But I coulda swore that I read his obituary!
**Apparently, The Quotations Page forgot to pay their hosting bill. I’m really hoping that the site go live again, because along with the quotes I had stored in Google Notebook and Diigo, I had a lot stored in The Quotations Page “My Page” feature that I had not yet moved to my private storage

Quote Week, Day 5: Productivity

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| by | NaBloPoMo

I have been trying to become more productive and organized for quite a while now, but one of the things that has helped me is 4 quotes. They are taped to the side of the monitor in my office (and before this job, they were taped to the side of my monitor at home). I’ll probably bring that exact same, slightly wrinkled paper back to Missouri with me when the time comes.

Here are the quotes, along with my thoughts.

Winning is important to me, but what brings me real joy is the experience of being fully engaged in whatever I’m doing. Phil Jackson

Whenever you are really working, in the groove, it feels great. It even feels good later, when you are reflecting on what you did and accomplished.

It’s wonderful what we can do if we’re always doing. George Washington

I struggle as much as anyone with distraction, most of it coming from the internet. (One of my friends just started a blog about all the stuff she’s learned on Wikipedia, and I can spend hours clicking around that site!) But this quote reminds me that I can get more done in 30 minutes of focused working than in a day of half-work, half-play. I am getting better at staying on task, but I have lapses.

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you. Carl Sandburg

How often do we let other people decide how we will spend our own time? It is hard to say no, but I think there are time when we need to be selfish with our time. To protect our families, our sanity, and our dreams.

The things that one most wants to do are the things that are probably most worth doing. Winifred Holtby

…and yet, how much time do we spend pursuing other aims, often because of other people and other pressures?

Question of the Day

What are your strategies for staying focused and accomplishing your ToDo list?

Quote Week, Day 4: Writing

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| by | NaBloPoMo, teaching

teacher's red ink

Ever since I started teaching, I have taught writing every semester. It was an interesting and scary thing: I had always earned good grades in writing, but never really understood why I was so good at it. On August 22, 2005, I stood in front of 22 freshman who were probably as scared of and anxious about college as I was about teaching (I hadn’t had a single “how to teach” class!). But the really cool thing that I learned that late summer day was that I am a born teacher. Thanks to the mentoring of the Composition Director and the leadership of the “second years,” my latent writing skills bubbled to the surface during that semester through activities and lessons. I realized that somewhere deep down, I did know what I was doing right in my writing, and I was able to convey it to my students.

And I’ve never looked back. I have always enjoyed writing, privately and for classes, and I easily transferred that passion to the classroom. It didn’t infect all my students, but I believe that I have passed it on to at least a few of my students. I love teaching writing and I enjoy finding new ways to convey the importance of pre-writing, drafting, and careful word choice. As I mentioned on the first day of Quote Week, I collect quotes, and I frequently use them in classes for freewriting activities. Without further ado, some of my favorite quotes about writing.

5+ Quotes About Writing

Language is the source of misunderstandings. Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides. Rita Mae Brown

Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people. William Butler Yeats

As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out. Mark Twain

Words build bridges into unexplored regions. Adolf Hitler

Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge. Winston Churchill

The writer is the engineer of the human soul. Joseph Stalin

A thought is a thing as real as a cannonball. Joseph Joubert

For me, words are a form of action, capable of influencing change. Ingrid Bengis

A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it is to be God. Sidney Sheldon

Question of the Day

What is the most memorable thing you learned in a writing class?

Quote Week, Day 3: Friendship

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| by | NaBloPoMo

I just wrote last week about the importance of friendship, so now I want to share some of my favorite quotes on friendship. I like these because they make me think about how we make friends, what they know about us, and the huge impact friendship has on our lives.

5+ Quotes on Friendship

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Dale Carnegie

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation. George Washington

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. Anaïs Nin

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy: They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. Marcel Proust

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Maya Angelou

A friendship that can be ended / didn’t ever start. Mellin de Saint-Gelais

We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over. So in a series of acts of kindness there is, at last, one which makes the heart run over. James Boswell

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? Abraham Lincoln

A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities. William Arthur Ward

My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me. Henry Ford

A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same. Elbert Hubbard

A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails. Donna Roberts

A true friend is one soul divided into two people. Aristotle

Friendship is like pee in your pants. Everyone can see it’s there, but only you can feel the true warmth. Unknown

Question of the Day

What should I write about when Quote Week is over? Here’s your chance to suggest a topic!

Quote Week, Day 2: Food

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| by | NaBloPoMo, personal

Ah, food. I love food. And I’ve been struggling with it for the last few years of my life.

I’ve never been “fat,” but I was almost always the “big girl” in my group. Maybe it’s because I’ve been blessed with what we* always joked were “birthing hips,” but then again, I’ve always had a little more to love. And don’t get me wrong: I do not I have a serious eating, self-image, or obesity problem, but I’m a woman, and I notice how I look, I notice how clothes fit me, and I like to eat!

But something cool happened when I started running the first time in 2005. Somewhat suddenly, I was able to not eat half the box of Cheez-its in one sitting. I actually wanted to put the box down after a few handfuls. And when this happened, I said to myself, “Self, this is strange. What is going on?” And I answered, “You’re running. You’re doing something awesome for your body, and your body wants to follow through.”**

I don’t know how much weight I lost that first go-round at marathon training because we didn’t have a scale, but at the end of the summer, I actually looked “good.”

But at the beginning of the summer 2007–four semesters of grad school later–I found myself buying three new pairs of pants in size 16. They were on sale, and I needed pants that fit.

When I got this job, we bought a scale. When you’re packing up your entire life in 12 suitcases and you don’t want to pay more than you have to, you buy a scale so you know exactly how much each suitcase weighs. I was at 197, and I saw it in those size 16 pants and in the rest of my wardrobe. Depressing.

Then we moved.

When we unpacked the scale three weeks in to our life in Germany, I weighed 189. I could not believe it. We weren’t eating particularly healthfully, but I had been walking to and from school every day (it’s about 1.3 miles one way). We lived on the top floor of a building without an elevator (55 stairs, baby). And, I was a bit stressed about the new job. Rob weighed himself, and he too had lost weight. Germany was good for our waistlines!

After we realized we were losing weight, we started trying to, and then it really started to come off. 14 months later, Rob weighs 35 pounds less, and I’m at 175.

I have never liked counting calories, and I like to enjoy food instead of concentrate on how good or bad it is for me; That takes all the fun out of eating. But I have learned which foods I can eat and what I need to stay away from because I can’t control myself–trigger foods, as Morgan calls them.

I am trying to make a true change, a “lifestyle change.” I hope to shed at least 10 more pounds in order to reach a healthy BMI and to look really great, but I have to truly commit to enjoying healthful food, running regularly, and getting regular sleep. ***

5+ Quotes About Food

If hunger makes you irritable, better eat and be pleasant. Sefer Hasidim

Food is the most primitive form of comfort. Sheila Graham

Food is an important part of a balanced diet. Fran Lebowitz

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. J. R. R. Tolkien

There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable, and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it. How strange it is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry. Mark Twain

I like rice. Rice is great if you’re hungry and want 2000 of something. Mitch Hedberg

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity. Voltaire

Welcome to the Church of the Holy Cabbage. Lettuce pray. Author Unknown

The belly rules the mind. Spanish Proverb

What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child? Lin Yutang

You know how I feel about tacos. It’s the only food shaped like a smile. A beef smile. My Name is Earl, “South of the Border Part Uno/Dos,” original airdate 7 December 2006, spoken by the character Earl Hickey

Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon. Doug Larson

Avoid fruit and nuts. You are what you eat. Jim Davis

Source for quotes without a link: The Quote Garden

Question of the Day

What is your relationship with food like? Is it “All about the numbers, baby”? Or “I ❤ food”?

* And by “we,” I mean me and Beth.

** Anyone else having Mr. Haupt flashbacks?

*** So this post relating to food turned into something more than I planned. “Something more” that likes a lot of quotation marks.

Quote Week, Day 1: Happiness

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| by | NaBloPoMo

I collect quotes. They’re free and they make me think*: Does it get any better?

It all started with a specially purchased, beautiful diary where I wrote down all my favorite quotes. Later, I moved them to Google Notebook, and now, in true Web 2.0 fashion, I’m migrating my quote collection to Diigo (slowly).

Quotations are like little gifts. You read them, and you get something. It changes you just that much. You write the quote down so you have it later. Then, when you stumble across it Later, the sun hits it in a different way, and it means something new. It changes you again. Now you’ve got it recorded next to your other quotes. In this new environment, it takes on yet another new meaning. Yet again, you find your Self changed by those same words.

This is why I teach writing**. Words are powerful and they are often more powerful then we’d like to admit, at once both “indelible and ephemeral.” (Elbow)

So, to share my little collection with the world, I’ve decided that this will be Quote Week, and today, I’m going to share 5 quotes on happiness.

5 Quotes on Happiness

Recommend to your children virtue; that alone can make them happy, not gold. Ludwig van Beethoven

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness. Charles Spurgeon

You can either hold yourself up to the unrealistic standards of others, or ignore them and concentrate on being happy with yourself as you are. J. Jacques, Questionable Content webcomic, #352, 05-04-2005

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. The Dalai Lama

Love each other and you will be happy. It is as simple and as difficult as that. MH
It doesn’t matter what makes you happy. What matters is what you do to the people you love. Anonymous (These two are related, so they count as one. :) )

Question of the Day

What is the source of your happiness?

Source

Elbow, Peter. “The Shifting Relationships Between Speech and Writing.” College Composition and Communication, 36 (1985): 283-303. On JSTOR: PDF. If you’d like to read the whole article, email me and I’ll send you the PDF.


Notes

* This is especially good for my hording tendancies.

** That was not my original intention. My master’s degree was paid for by my teaching 2 writing classes a semester for four semester, and I enjoyed it much more than I ever imagined. I learned so much about myself, writing, the student-teacher relationship, and so much more from that experience. One day, I hope to teach linguistics.