What Is Important To You?

We Go Through Life In A Rush.
Most of us go through life in a rush.
We spend days and weeks worrying over small problems but we never find time to ponder big questions.
How do you really want to spend the rest of your life?
We never have time to stop and think about who we are, what we do, or where our lives are heading.
Take away your family, your job, your home, and your money.
What is left?
What gives you most pleasure?
What can you do to get more?
How could you best improve your life?
How many things do you possess that you have no need of?

The truth is I’m getting old.
What happens is that you don’t feel it on the inside, but from the outside everybody can see it.
( Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez )

The Teachings Of Jesus.
In his short adult life, Jesus preached his message to mankind.
Of love and hope, compassion and sacrifice, honesty and tolerance.
The world we inhabit now bears little resemblance to the one in which Jesus lived.
We enjoy comforts which were unimaginable then.
We travel by car, train and plane, not donkey and by foot.
We work in offices and factories, not fields.
Yet many of the bad things against which Jesus preached are still part of human nature.
Herod ordered the slaughter of small children.
Today entire families are butchered in genocidal massacres.
Mary and Joseph were forced to flee as refugees.
Today there are more asylum seekers than ever.
There was no room at the inn then.
Today there is no room for thousands forced to sleep rough or in scandalous housing.
Despite the wondrous improvements in the way we live, we have not advanced far when judged by Jesus’s standards.
Throughout the whole Christian world, too many people continue to put themselves before others.
Down through the centuries, mankind has been deaf to Christ’s words.
History has been full of bloodshed and suffering.
The teachings of Jesus are as relevant as ever.
They are timeless ideals providing the blueprint by which we should spend our lives.
We may rarely achieve them, as individuals or collectively.
But mankind must go on trying.
Now, for the next one thousand years, and until the end of time.

I am old and I have had more than my share of good and bad.
The edge between life and death was thin, but then I discovered discipline.
I learned to smile when I felt sad.
I learned to take the good and the bad,
I learned to care a great deal more for the world about me than before.
( Meryl Gordon )

Where Does Wisdom Come From?
Where shall wisdom be found?
Where is the place of understanding?
God understands the way to it, and he knows its place.
For he looks to the ends of the Earth,
And sees everything under the heavens.
Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom.
And to depart from evil is understanding.

Cherish all your happy moments.
They make a fine cushion for old age.
( Christopher Morley )

What Is Important To You.
Most people spend their lives being battered around by circumstances, rarely, if ever, in control of their own lives or destiny.
Time and effort is wasted collecting material stuff with no lasting worth and providing little more than transient satisfaction.
To have a sense of worth, identity and genuine self-esteem you must identify what is important to you. What you would die for.
What do you live for?
What do you want to achieve with your life?
How much of your life do you fritter away, while really important things – the things which will make a difference to you and to other people – are put to one side and eventually forgotten?

In later life most good things happen very slowly.
Only bad things tend to happen fast.
( Mark Edmundson )

One Day Your Life Will Change For Eternity.
You sit there in your favourite chair, unconcerned of the suffering in the world, smugly enclosed between four walls.
You feel safe from life’s harsh realities as you watch the latest news on television and see pictures of death, famine and destruction. You’re pleased the suffering has no effect on your daily life.
You pick up the remote control and quickly flick to another channel.
You spend the rest of the evening watching a film and are too absorbed to think about other’s suffering.
You live your life in a world of familiarity and wallowing in the depths of complacency.
But one day your life will change for eternity.

We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.
( Arthur Schopenhauer )

If We Achieved World Peace.
If we achieved world peace, the armament-makers, who grow fat on the flesh and blood of other human beings by creating bigger, more devastating weapons with which to exterminate them, would be the greatest losers.
If the brilliant brains and facilities used to serve those hell-bent on destruction could be rechanneled into construction, there would be no need for war and life would be better for us all.

Everything that has been achieved, for good or for bad, is due to the way humans are.
The future will be no different.
Whether we reach for the stars or plumb the depths, humans will be responsible.
The future depends entirely on us and those who follow us.

The fact that having an equal respect for life and all other living beings must be so thoroughly explained, says something terrifying about the conscious state of humanity as a species.
( Rose Winfold )

There are many thoughts and hopes for the future.
But the most important of all should be the same as the one of Jesus Christ.
May there be peace on Earth and goodwill to all.

We Are Never Too Old.
We are never too old to learn or to be used for good.
We are never too old to be awed by a thing of beauty or to be thirsty for knowledge.
Joyful living knows no age limits, and filling our minds with delight in life may in some ways keep us forever young.
Our age is not truly measured in physical characteristics and weaknesses, but by our spirit.

We sometimes choose the most locked up, dark versions of the story, but what a good friend does is turn on the lights, open the window, and remind us that there are a whole lot of ways to tell the same story.
( Shauna Niequist )

All around the world a quiet rage is building against the assault on our basic human values.
More so ever than in the concerns and patience of all the worlds’ people are being tested, tried and attacked by a group of elitists that are hell bent on world domination and the destruction of freedom for humanity.

So Long Are You Young.
Whatever your years, there is in every being’s heart the love of wonder, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what is next, and the joy and the game of life.
You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt, as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your despair.
In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber.
So long as it receives messages of beauty, cheer, and courage, so long are you young.

The callous see us as dispensable objects, like broken furniture or dead flowers.
For the young we scarcely exist unless we are unavoidable members of the same family.
( Patrick White )

Many People Wander Through Life Lacking Any Purpose.
Many people wander through life lurching from crisis to crisis, lacking any purpose.
You can’t plan every aspect of your life but you can take some control of your destiny.
How much time do you spend doing things to impress people you don’t really know or care about?
How much of your life do you spend earning money to buy things you don’t really need?
Are you doing what you really want to do?
Where do you want to be living?
What do you want to be doing?
And who do you want to be with?
If you died today would you be happy to be remembered for what you have done with your life

I think I’ve discovered the secret of life.
You just hang around until you get used to it.
( Charles M. Schulz )

Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously.
( Hunter S. Thompson )

I stopped explaining myself when I realised others only understand from their level of perception.

If they decide to pay themselves big bonuses when they should be rebuilding balance sheets, they should know we will step in, including using the tax system.
That is a very clear warning.
( David Cameron, October 7, 2009 )

We should say no bonuses whatsoever for the directors of banks at board level.
I don’t think any banks which are making losses should be handing out multi-billion pound bonuses.
( Nick Clegg, April 29, 2010 )

We will not allow money to flow unimpeded out of those banks into huge bonuses.
If that means money is not flowing out in credit to the small businesses who did nothing to cause this crash.
( George Osborne, October 4, 2010 )

Banks don’t operate in a social vacuum. It is wholly untenable to have millions of people making sacrifices in their living standards, only to see the banks getting away scot-free.
( Nick Clegg, December 17, 2010 )

The banks should not underestimate the government’s determination to act.
They really are deluding themselves if they believe that the government is not going to take this seriously.
( Vince Cable, December 19, 2010 )

War is organised murder, and nothing else.
( Harry Patch, 1898-2009 )

I’m not normal, nor do I want to be, nor do I pretend to be.
I am me.
I am made entirely of flaws, and stitched together with good intentions.
I will always be there for anyone who needs me.
I will always be a helping hand or a listening ear.

While our bodies may age, something within us does not grow old and I shall call it the heart, the capacity to love and desire.
The warmth of the heart, that incomprehensible force that keeps the human being alive, prevents the body from rusting.
( Marie de Hennezel, Psychologist )

The most miserable people are those who care only about themselves, understand only their own troubles and see only their own perspective.

Prison Gives Them This Gift.
Discharged from prison with only a few pounds in their pocket, they have no chance of going anywhere and reoffending becomes a necessity, not an option.
Curiously, some emerge a better person.
Material things matter little, and it is friends and family who count.
They will remember those who had no money to buy phone cards to talk to their wife or children, and those who had no idea where their children were.
They will remember those who could not read or write and yet accepted unfair sentences given to them by a system that did nothing to help them.
They will remember those who helped others with total disregard for their own safety, and they will remember those who genuinely were innocent.
They will remember those who suffered in silence and in dignity.
Usually only old age gives us the wisdom to look back and see all this.
Prison gives them this gift earlier.
( Peter Hitchens )

A person becomes old the day he becomes sad and bitter about life.
( Bertrand Vergely, Philosopher )

Some people are afraid of growing old because they cannot bear the way other people will see them.
Acceptance of all that we cannot change is crucial.
But we can also look towards all that is to be discovered, for while the body may age, the inner person continues to evolve.
Old age can be a process of opening up, not closing down

We become old when we refuse to accept ageing and cannot move forward in life.
Old age is a time that is just as rich and as worthy of being lived as all the others.
Between letting go of our youth and accepting our inevitable death, there is a time when we may feel deeply happy and free.
( Marie de Hennezel )

I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior and always have been.
Whatever you give a woman, she will make it greater.
If you give her sperm, she will make it greater.
If you give her a house, she will give you a home.
If you give her a smile, she will give you her heart.
She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her.
So, if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of shit!
( Sir William Golding )