I sometimes really wonder whether people who are forwarding mails - especially the non-joke varieties even realize the true power of some of the stuff sent around in the virtual world... i know i dont always get it myself... but then sometimes, a passing remark by someone who really read it thru will kind of jolt u back into thinking 'oh my god... so it DID make some sense to someone else too!!'
anyways... what brought this on today - a random mail forwarded by a colleague on JK Rowling's speech at a Harvard convocation. amazing piece... really worth a read. its very real. something i would love to write if i were to address that profile of people... its honest and very grounded - in a funny self-depracating sort of way.
Some excerpts - (Personal favorite is the last one...)
"what we achieve inwardly will change outer reality" - written by the Greek author Plutarch
There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.
Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity.
Personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone's total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.
Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people's minds, imagine themselves into other people's places.
We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters - Seneca, old Roman
hmmm... thanks colleague who sent this in... and thank god even more for sheer timing it so that i saw it at a time when i had the time to read thru this!!! else - who knows - another gem would have stayed buried in the 'must read one day' folder...
:-)
anyways... what brought this on today - a random mail forwarded by a colleague on JK Rowling's speech at a Harvard convocation. amazing piece... really worth a read. its very real. something i would love to write if i were to address that profile of people... its honest and very grounded - in a funny self-depracating sort of way.
Some excerpts - (Personal favorite is the last one...)
"what we achieve inwardly will change outer reality" - written by the Greek author Plutarch
There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.
Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity.
Personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone's total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.
Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people's minds, imagine themselves into other people's places.
We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters - Seneca, old Roman
hmmm... thanks colleague who sent this in... and thank god even more for sheer timing it so that i saw it at a time when i had the time to read thru this!!! else - who knows - another gem would have stayed buried in the 'must read one day' folder...
:-)
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