Category Archives: Thoughts For the Day

Withdraw from television news, newspaper headlines, and manic-talk radio for a week.  Or a month.  Or half a year.  Focus, instead, on the people around you; their happiness, their comfort.

It is so easy to get caught up in emotional responses to events of the day.  It’s easy, and it’s dangerous.  Intelligent people should recognize when their personal biases and opinions are permitting emotions to trump intellect; they recognize it and … Continue reading →

All it takes is just a little discomfort to burnish the appreciation of comfort to a high shine.

Drawing the shades often is the right thing to do, for a lot of reasons, but the decision merits considered thought. When you draw the shades, you block the view in both directions.

A person who feels vulnerable or fragile is not the best audience for sarcastic jokes.

Take care of those nagging doubts as soon as possible; their disappearance from the back of your mind will leave a lot of room.

After today, there will be no more November left for this year.  The last vestiges of the month will depart at midnight, never to be seen again except in memory. Eventually, memories of the month will fade and finally vanish.  There will … Continue reading →

Intent is merely a loose feather in the wind; action is the wing in flight.

This is the only November 28, 2014 you will ever experience.  Celebrate accordingly.

There’s always reason to appreciate what we have, who we have close, the good fortune that befalls us, and the misfortune that doesn’t, as clearly expressed below: “Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a … Continue reading →

Love is everywhere.  It is the soft squeeze on the shoulder.  It is the peck on the cheek, the unexpected hug.  It is the cryptic text message and the laughter at a silly joke.  It is right here, right now.

When trees shed their leaves, they reveal beauty inaccessible in full leaf.  People do the same when they shed their clothes. It doesn’t matter whether the tree is gnarled and imperfect, any more than whether the person is wrinkled and worn. … Continue reading →

I think it’s in our best interests to accept all hugs and kisses that come our way, because they tend to engender reciprocity, which in turn does the same.

I continue trying to defy failure, to insist it cannot control me. Some days, it understands the depth of my defiance. Some days it resists, challenging the legitimacy and strength of my commitment. One day, the championship will no longer be … Continue reading →

I wonder what pure silence is like.  I’ve never experienced it, at least not that I recall. And, frankly, I think I would recall it if I ever experienced it. Even in the quietest room, with sound-deadening walls, a person hears the sound … Continue reading →

I have a theory. The more time a person accumulates through life, the more compact that time becomes, filling the mind with experiences that grow denser and denser.  That increasing denseness causes time to be experienced in “fast forward.” Time is like a black hole … Continue reading →

Open invitations are understood to be without expiration, but an occasional dusting keeps them bright and shiny.

“Practice makes perfect” is an adage we wish were true, but is not.  “Practice tends to improve,” though, doesn’t have quite the ring to it.

Sunrises are reasons enough to rise early. But getting up before 2:00 a.m. is stretching it.

There’s a connection in my dreams to my conscious reality, but sometimes it’s flawed.  It can be a bit like picking up multiple broadcast radio stations on the same band; lots of static and competition between music and news.

If all of us, at every level in the social strata, would accept the legitimacy of the customs and practices of people one level up and one level down, we’d all be a lot happier.  And we’d be happier, still, … Continue reading →

The key to having a good attitude, I’m coming to understand, is to acknowledge the lunacy of trying to convince highly opinionated and stunningly uninformed people to share one’s enlightened perspective.

You have to get inside another person’s head to look at the world through his or her eyes.  Often, though, you find there is no room for you there.

Some days, I wake up and realize I am among the most fortunate of men.  Most days, in fact.  I don’t know what I have done to deserve being married to my wife, but whatever it is, I am grateful … Continue reading →

Some colors are just not worth talking about.  Others deserve more attention than we can possibly give them.  The vast majority are unremarkable but at least they are innocuous.  Consider, for example, cobalt blue, amaranth, and caput mortuum. Into which … Continue reading →