living

this is an e-mail i got from my freaind Jay, aka Jos aka Joc,

Well pick something if u can.....and trash the rest...... This was a speech made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anna Quindlenatthe graduation ceremony of an American university where she was awardedanHonorary PhD.

"I'm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don'tever confuse the two, your life and your work. You will walk out of herethis afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will behundreds of people out there with your same degree: there will bethousandsof people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be theonlyperson alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life.Yourentire life. Not just your life at a desk or your life on a bus or in acaror at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of yourheart. Not just your bank accounts but also your soul.People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much easiertowrite a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is cold comfort on awinter's night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you'vereceived your test results and they're not so good.Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have triedneverto let my work stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longerconsidermyself the centre of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh.I ama good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows meanwhatthey say. I am a good friend to my friends and them to me. Without them,there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be acardboardcut out. But I call them on the phone and I meet them for lunch. I wouldberotten, at best mediocre, at my job if those other things were not true.You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all youare. Sohere's what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A real life, not amanicpursuit of the next promotion, the bigger pay cheque, the larger house.Doyou think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew ananeurysmone afternoon or found a lump in your breast?Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself onabreeze at the seaside, a life in which you stop and watch how ared-tailedhawk circles over the water, or the way a baby scowls with concentrationwhen she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb and first finger.Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and wholoveyou. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up thephone.Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are generous. Andrealize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no businesstaking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you wanttospread it around. Take money you would have spent on beer and give it tocharity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of youwantto do well. But if you do not do good too, then doing well will never beenough.It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes.Itis so easy to take for granted the colour of our kids' eyes, the way themelody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. Itisso easy to exist instead of to live.I learned to live many years ago. I learned to love the journey, not thedestination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that todayisthe only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in theworldand try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely andutterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I hadlearned. By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field. Look atthefuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the back yard with the sun on your face.Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because ifyou do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived".