The Book of Life

Reader's question: In your quote, what do you mean by "writ small in the margin"?

Play with life, laugh with life,
dance lightly with life,
and smile at the riddles of life,
knowing that life's only true lessons
are writ small in the margin.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

My answer:

Have you ever had the experience of borrowing a book from a library - or buying a used book - and finding that someone has written in the margins of some of the pages? Usually those notes are worthless, but occasionally the notes are more insightful than the book itself.

So in my metaphor comparing the "book of life" with a real book, I suggest that the true meaning of life is not easy to find (written in the book itself), but hidden for only the truly alert and inquisitive to find (written small in the margin).

May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Why Me, God?

When troubles descend, people have long asked, "Why Me?" or "Why Me, God?"

The answers to this question range from the theological, to the compassionate, to the philosophical, to the comic -- and sometimes humor is actually a great help in surviving bad times.

Consider the highly varied points of view in these quotes on the question, "Why Me?"

If I were to say, "God, why me?" about the bad things,
then I should have said, "God, why me?"
about the good things that happened in my life.
- Arthur Ashe

God will never give you anything you can't handle,
so don't stress.
- Kelly Clarkson

I know God will not give me anything I can't handle.
I just wish he didn't trust me so much.
- Mother Teresa

Life is a succession of lessons
which must be lived to be understood.
- Helen Keller

Why has God given me such magnificent talent?
It is a curse as well as a great blessing.
- Albrecht Durer

"Why me?" That is the soldier's first question,
asked each morning as the patrols go out
and each evening as the night settles around the foxholes.
- William Broyles Jr.

Why does anything ever happen?
Some things happen and some don't.
- Kid Rock

Sometimes I lie awake at night and ask "Why me?"
Then a voice answers "Nothing personal,
your name just happened to come up. -
- Charlie Brown, in Charles M. Schulz' cartoon Peanuts

God is in all men, but all men are not in God;
that is why we suffer.
- Ramakrishna

It is no use to grumble and complain;
It's just as cheap and easy to rejoice;
When God sorts out the weather and sends rain
- Why, rain's my choice.
- James Whitcomb Riley

I think wholeness is God's design for us;
and that often amounts to embracing contradictions.
- Bono

A good traveler has no fixed plans,
and is not intent on arriving.
- Lao Tzu

Man plans, God laughs
- Yiddish Proverb

There are people in the world so hungry,
that God cannot appear to them
except in the form of bread.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The truly rich are those who enjoy what they have.
- Yiddish Proverb

The wise man in the storm prays God,
not for safety from danger,
but for deliverance from fear.
It is the storm within which endangers him,
not the storm without.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life is as easy or as hard as you think it is.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.
- Reinhold Niebuhr (Serenity Prayer)

Is today a day to gather strength from the storm -
a day to to learn life lessons for the next battle?
Or is today a day to sit by the fire
and watch the storm rage outside?
Either way, the storm is just life.
Give thanks for all of Life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

You don't have the power to make life "fair,"
but you do have the power to make life joyful.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Yes, YOU Can Be Happy

I often get email saying, "MY situation is different. Being positive and joyful, and creating a life of service and purpose are great for OTHER people, but I can't because I am..." And the reason they can't be positive and happy is being out of work, or having no money, or having a falling out with relatives, or living with a memory of childhood abuse, or being sick, or having a sick relative.

Truly, I can only think of one situation that is often beyond the power of being positive: Being in racking physical pain. With regards to being out of a job, having no money, and such... Once one has food and a roof over their head, the rest is nice, but not necessary.

I recommend reading about others who have found happiness while in situations most of us can't even imagine.

Helen Keller was blind and deaf, yet said she was happy.

If I am happy in spite of my deprivations,
if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith,
so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life.
If, in short, I am an optimist,
my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing.
- Helen Keller

Read about Viktor Frankl who found happiness and meaning for life while in the Nazi Death Camps.
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men
who walked through the huts comforting others,
giving away their last piece of bread...
They offer sufficient proof that everything
can be taken from a man but one thing:
to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one's own way.
- Viktor E. Frankl

Read about Anne Frank - a 13 year old girl who lived under Nazi persecution.

I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.
- Anne Frank

May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie