Footnotes to celebrating getting older…
1) Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
2) When in doubt, take the next small step.
3) You don’t have to win every argument; so agree to disagree.
4) Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up your present.
5) Don’t compare your life to others. You don’t know what their journey is all about.
6) Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
7) Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
What doesn’t kill you really makes you stronger.
9) When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
10) Over prepare, then go with the flow.
11) Nobody is in charge of your happiness but you.
12) Frame every so-called disaster with these words: In 5 years, will this matter?
13) Always choose life. Get up. Dress up. Show up.
14) Forgive everyone everything.
15) What others think of you is none of your business.
16) Time heals everything. Give time, time.
17) However good or bad a situation is, it will change. The best is yet to come.
18) Believe in miracles.
19) Growing old beats the alternative dying young.
20) All that really matters in the end is that you loved.

“Celebrity culture thrives on two qualities. One is a false intimacy–the belief that a famous person is known to us in the way our friends, family and neighbors might be. The other is blankness–the celebrity is a screen onto which we can project whatever feelings, thoughts or desires we choose at any given time.”

Fintan O’Toole (as reported in the Mtl Gazette, Feb. 23/10)

“Greed, excess, irresponsibility and lack of regulation in the financial system have left wounds that will take several years to heal…recessions should come every three to four years to keep fear and greed within limits, good and bad times have to succeed each other every three to four years otherwise greed become geometric or fear becomes excessive.”

In a speech given in Montreal, December 2008

Meditation better than medication…i.e. Plato not prozac.
In December 2008, the London Daily Telegraph reported  that psychologists from the Universtiy of Exeter published a study into “mindfulness-based cognitive therapy” (MBCT) finding it to be better than drugs or counseling for depression. MBCT marries Eastern meditation with Western Cognitive therapy. “Patients are taught the simple technique over 8 sessions and then practice it at home for 30 minutes a day.”

The technique revolves around “mindfulness meditation” in which a person sits with eyes closed and focuses on breathing. Concentrating on the rhythm of the breath helps produce a feeling of detachment, and the individual comes to realize that thoughts come and go of their own accord, and that the “conscious self” is distinct from  thoughts. This realization is the key to the transformation that many people experience.