A bed but not sleep.
A house but not a home.
Books but not knowledge.
Clocks but not time.
Company but not friends.
Finery but not beauty.
Food but not appetite.
Insurance but not safety.
Luxuries but not comfort.
Medicine but not health.
Pleasure but not happiness
Position but not respect.
Religion but not salvation.
“A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money.” – John Ruskin
Jake the snake goes to see his doctor. “I need something for my eyes. I can’t see very well these days, he says. The doctor gives him a pair of glasses and tells him to come back in a fortnight.
Jake returns two weeks later and tells the doctor he’s very depressed.
“What’s the problem?” asks the doctor. “Didn’t the glasses help you?”
“The glasses are fine.” says Jake. “But I just discovered I’ve been living with a garden hose for the last two years.”
“If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
A panda walks into a restaurant, sits down and orders a sandwich. He eats the sandwich, pulls out a gun and shoots the waiter dead. As the panda stands up to go, the manager shouts, “Hey! Where are you going? You just shot my waiter and you didn’t pay for your sandwich!”
The panda yells back at the manager, “Hey man, I’m a PANDA! Look it up!”
The manager opens his dictionary and sees the following definition for panda – a large mammal of the Asian mountain forests related to raccoons and true bears and characterized by bold black and white markings. Eats shoots and leaves.’
A kindergarten teacher was walking around observing her classroom of children while they were drawing pictures. As she got to one girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was.
The girl replied, “I’m drawing God.” The teacher paused and said, “But no one knows what God looks like.”
Without looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, “They will in a minute.”
Flowers provide a splash of fresh and vibrant energy to brighten the day and remind us of the beauty God has placed in the world
Buy yourself flowers that are especially beautiful to you. Put them in your home or working space, where you will see them easily. Nothing brightens a room like a bouquet of fresh flowers.
Every time you look at them, let them remind you of how colorful your future is going to be, how fresh your thoughts are and how sweet the smell of the universe can be.
“Lovely flowers are the smiles of God’s goodness.” – William Wilberforce
“One cannot manage too many affairs, like pumpkins in the water, one pops up while you try to hold down the other.” – Chinese Proverb
…without having to diet:
1. Start the day with oats and you won’t be hungry for hours.
2. Eat for pleasure and good health, not for weight loss.
3. Use yoghurt instead of cream.
4. Snack on fruit and nuts instead of chocolate and crisps.
5. Use plastic squeezy bottle for olive oil and sauces – it helps you use less.
6. Eat carbs like pasta and potatoes for lunch instead of in the evening.
7. Eat more fish, chicken, vegetables and salad and less red meat and pork.
8. Steam instead of grill, grill instead of roast, roast instead of fry.
Cooking meat over an open flame creates chemicals long suspected of increasing cancer risk. According to two studies, eating barbecued red meat may raise the risk of prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in post-menopausal women.
Here are some tips to keep in mind:
Choose skinless chicken and fish. They do not appear to raise risk.
Make kebabs with vegetables and fruits, which do not form harmful chemicals when flame-cooked.
Keep the temperature lower to lessen the smoke and flames that reach the food and raise the barbecue racks.
Flip with tongs or a spatula – a fork pierces food, releases juice and fat that leads to flare-ups.
Microwave meat before barbecuing to reduce time over the charcoal and use an oil-free marinade to hinder the formation of cancer-causing chemicals.
I was walking in the park recently and it was filled with people talking on their mobile phones. They were passing other people without looking at them, saying hello, noticing their babies or stopping to pet their puppies. Evidently the electronic voice is preferable to human contact. The telephone used to connect us to the absent. Now it makes people sitting next to you feel absent.
Why is it that the more connected we get, the more disconnected we feel? Every advance in mobile technology is a setback to the intimacy of human interaction. With e-mail and instant messaging over the internet, we can now communicate without seeing or talking to one another. We have stopped talking to one another. Pumping petrol at the station? Why say good morning to the attendant when you can swipe your credit card at the pump? Making deposit at the bank? Why talk to the teller who might live in the neighbourhood when you can insert your card at the ATM?
I do not loathe communications technology. I own a mobile phone, an ATM card e-mail account. Giving them up isn’t an option. They are great for what they are intended to do. It is their unintended consequences that make me cringe.
So, I have put myself on technology restriction: no talking on the mobile during mealtimes, no instant messaging with people who live near me, no talking on the mobile in the presence of friends.
I guess I still like the basic human contact and I think it is important.
“Basic human contact – the meeting of eyes, the exchanging of words – is to the psyche what oxygen is to the brain. If you’re feeling abandoned by the world, interact with anyone you can.”
– Martha Beck
