TAKE TIME

Take time to think - It is the source of all power.
Take time to read - It is the fountain of wisdom.
Take time to play - It is the source of perpetual youth.
Take time to be quiet - It is the opportunity to seek God.
Take time to be aware - It is the opportunity to help others.
Take time to love and be loved - It is God's greatest gift.
Take time to laugh - It is the music of the soul.
Take time to be friendly - It is the road to happiness.
Take time to dream - It is what the future is made of.
Take time to pray - It is the greatest power on earth.
Take time to give - It is too short a day to be selfish.
Take time to work - It is the price of success.
There is a time for everything. . . .(Anon)

Source: •● Ups, Downs & Roundabouts ●•

ON THE DEATH OF A BELOVED

(To My Parents)

On the the death of a beloved...
Though we need to weep your loss,
You dwell in that safe place in our hearts,
Where no storm or might or pain can reach you.

Your love was like the dawn
Brightening over our lives
Awakening beneath the dark
A further adventure of colour.

The sound of your voice
Found for us
A new music
That brightened everything.

Whatever you enfolded in your gaze
Quickened in the joy of its being;
You placed smiles like flowers
On the altar of the heart.
Your mind always sparkled
With wonder at things.

Though your days here were brief,
Your spirit was live, awake, complete.

We look towards each other no longer
From the old distance of our names;
Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
As close to us as we are to ourselves.

Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul's gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.

Let us not look for you only in memory,
Where we would grow lonely without you.
You would want us to find you in presence,
Beside us when beauty brightens,
When kindness glows
And music echoes eternal tones.

When orchids brighten the earth,
Darkest winter has turned to spring;
May this dark grief flower with hope
In every heart that loves you.

May you continue to inspire us:

To enter each day with a generous heart.
To serve the call of courage and love
Until we see your beautiful face again
In that land where there is no more separation,
Where all tears will be wiped from our mind,
And where we will never lose you again.

♥*✿*•♥John O'Donohue ♥*✿*•♥

Source: Rest in the Arms of Angels

THE JOY of UNSELFISH GIVING

♥*✿*•♥
Time is not measured by the years that you live
But by the deeds that you do and the joy that you give-
And each day as it comes brings a chance to each one.
To love to the fullest, leaving nothing undone
That would brighten the life or lighten the load
of some weary traveler lost on Life's Road-
So what does it matter how long we may live
If as long as we live we unselfishly give.

╔═════ ೋღ☃ღೋ ═════╗

Helen Steiner Rice

╚═════ ೋღ☃ღೋ ═════

BEAUTIFUL WORLD

♥*✿*•♥

╔═════ ೋღ☃ღೋ ═════╗

W. L. CHILDRESS

╚═════ ೋღ☃ღೋ ═════╝

Here's a song of praise for a beautiful world,
For the banner of blue that's above it unfurled,
For the streams that sparkle and sing to the sea,
For the bloom in the glade and the leaf on the tree;
Here's a song of praise for a beautiful world.

Here's a song of praise for the mountain peak,
Where the wind and the lightning meet and speak,
For the golden star on the soft night's breast.
And the silvery moonlight's path to rest;
Here's a song of praise for a beautiful world.

Here's a song of praise for the rippling notes
That come from a thousand sweet bird throats
For the ocean wave and the sunset glow,
And the waving fields where the reapers go;
Here's a song of praise for a beautiful world.

Here's a song of praise for the ones so true,
And the kindly deeds they have done for you;
For the great earth's heart, when it's understood,
Is struggling still toward the pure and good;
Here's a song of praise for a beautiful world.

Here's a song of praise for the One who guides,
For He holds the ships and He holds the tides.
And underneath and around the above
The world is lapped in the light of His love;
Here's a song of praise for a beautiful world.

✻ღ♥*✿*•♥ღ✻

My Personal Note: Today is 14 February 2014. It's the day that I could have chosen better than any day in my life. For today, I found my true love after years of futile searching in the libraries wherever I go. I tried searching it from any poetry websites but to no avail. Then I tried one more time. I Google(d) it and typed a line in the browser: 'here's a song of praise for the beautiful world'. Then a miracle happened when I was taken to Google Archive of world's oldest newspapers. The Lewiston Daily Sun of Mississippi USA has opened its door for me when its edition of 9 August 1941 revealed the middle of page 4 with a box entitled WIDER and DEEPER and there it was! A big bold printed beloved poem of mine, BEAUTIFUL WORLD which is close to my heart for as long as I can remember since my elementary days. I could not remember the author, but after a thorough reading of the whole stanzas, i was convinced without doubt and decided that THIS IS IT!

This poem has a huge sentimental value to me. Its great impact has me to see the world around me,and, view it with awesome inspiration. That inspiration helped mould my desire to connect with our loving Creator; how His great grand design of this world's most beautiful, delightful and magnificent landscape we live in manifested His Omnipotent Power! His glory as can be observe in the movement, coming and going of the sun from dawn to twilight till it rests at night time, only to find that bright glowing orb lighting the other side of the world. How His divine hands made the mountains, hills, valleys, plateaus, flatlands, hinterlands, swamps, seas, oceans, rivers, seashores, beaches, fields, trees, plants, and flowers of all kinds, birds, animals, wildlife,

My awesome Creator has never stopped to amaze me even in times He shows His wrath as shown in the turbulence of the apocalyptic deliverance of natural disasters and catastrophes manifested in cyclones, hurricanes, modern Noah's deluge, burning bushes, tsunamis and many more!

The BEAUTIFUL WORLD brings me back happy memories of my old hometown where I partly grew up as a child. Where I spent my early childhood education, where I learned hard days of life that helped develop my understanding about survival.

The BEAUTIFUL WORLD in my time was of simplicity where thunders and lightnings coloured the sky at night and made me curled up under the floor mat, covering my ears because of fears. The simplicity which found me whistling among the tiny birds on the tree and calling the wind on dry airless hot season. The simplicity of which our means of transport was our little shoeless feet as we walked long walks towards the big river, lake and spring to do our laundry, take a bath, gather shell food and play. Simplicity as we go to the woodland, forest, mountain or hills to gather drift woods for firewoods. Simplicity for the whole time we come and go to places our life was destined to be. All things comprise our BEAUTIFUL WORLD in the midst of both times in prosperity and adversity.

Thank you Google for sending me back the rippling notes of my old school days poetry once printed out in our English Reading Book, Doorways to Reading the BEAUTIFUL WORLD that I learned and remembered being taught to us in the class by my all time favourite teacher MRS. GLORIA REGIS ALAGAR of KAROMATAN CENTRAL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL (KAROMATAN, LANAO DEL NORTE) in 1962. My only regret was that, Mrs. ALAGAR did not stay through our graduation day.

SEASHORE

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

I heard or seemed to hear the chiding Sea
Say, Pilgrim, why so late and slow to come?
Am I not always here, thy summer home?
Is not my voice thy music, morn and eve?
My breath thy healthful climate in the heats,
My touch thy antidote, my bay thy bath?
Was ever building like my terraces?
Was ever couch magnificent as mine?
Lie on the warm rock-ledges, and there learn
A little hut suffices like a town.
I make your sculptured architecture vain,
Vain beside mine. I drive my wedges home,
And carve the coastwise mountain into caves.
Lo! here is Rome and Nineveh and Thebes,
Karnak and Pyramid and Giant's Stairs
Half piled or prostrate; and my newest slab
Older than all thy race.

Behold the Sea,
The opaline, the plentiful and strong,
Yet beautiful as is the rose in June,
Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July;
Sea full of food, the nourisher of kinds,
Purger of earth, and medicine of men;
Creating a sweet climate by my breath,
Washing out harms and griefs from memory,
And, in my mathematic ebb and flow,
Giving a hint of that which changes not.
Rich are the sea-gods:—who gives gifts but they?
They grope the sea for pearls, but more than pearls:
They pluck Force thence, and give it to the wise.
For every wave is wealth to Daedalus,
Wealth to the cunning artist who can work
This matchless strength. Where shall he find, O waves!
A load your Atlas shoulders cannot lift?

I with my hammer pounding evermore
The rocky coast, smite Andes into dust,
Strewing my bed, and, in another age,
Rebuild a continent of better men.
Then I unbar the doors: my paths lead out
The exodus of nations: I disperse
Men to all shores that front the hoary main.

I too have arts and sorceries;
Illusion dwells forever with the wave.
I know what spells are laid. Leave me to deal
With credulous and imaginative man;
For, though he scoop my water in his palm,
A few rods off he deems it gems and clouds.
Planting strange fruits and sunshine on the shore,
I make some coast alluring, some lone isle,
To distant men, who must go there, or die.

Source: www.infoplease.com

SONG OF NATURE

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mine are the night and morning,
The pits of air, the gulf of space,
The sportive sun, the gibbous moon,
The innumerable days.

I hide in the solar glory,
I am dumb in the pealing song,
I rest on the pitch of the torrent,
In slumber I am strong.

No numbers have counted my tallies,
No tribes my house can fill,
I sit by the shining Fount of Life
And pour the deluge still;

And ever by delicate powers
Gathering along the centuries
From race on race the rarest flowers,
My wreath shall nothing miss.

And many a thousand summers
My gardens ripened well,
And light from meliorating stars
With firmer glory fell.

I wrote the past in characters
Of rock and fire the scroll,
The building in the coral sea,
The planting of the coal.

And thefts from satellites and rings
And broken stars I drew,
And out of spent and aged things
I formed the world anew;

What time the gods kept carnival,
Tricked out in star and flower,
And in cramp elf and saurian forms
They swathed their too much power.

Time and Thought were my surveyors,
They laid their courses well,
They boiled the sea, and piled the layers
Of granite, marl and shell.

But he, the man-child glorious,—
Where tarries he the while?
The rainbow shines his harbinger,
The sunset gleams his smile.

My boreal lights leap upward,
Forthright my planets roll,
And still the man-child is not born,
The summit of the whole.

Must time and tide forever run?
Will never my winds go sleep in the west?
Will never my wheels which whirl the sun
And satellites have rest?

Too much of donning and doffing,
Too slow the rainbow fades,
I weary of my robe of snow,
My leaves and my cascades;

I tire of globes and races,
Too long the game is played;
What without him is summer's pomp,
Or winter's frozen shade?

I travail in pain for him,
My creatures travail and wait;
His couriers come by squadrons,
He comes not to the gate.

Twice I have moulded an image,
And thrice outstretched my hand,
Made one of day and one of night
And one of the salt sea-sand.

One in a Judaean manger,
And one by Avon stream,
One over against the mouths of Nile,
And one in the Academe.

I moulded kings and saviors,
And bards o'er kings to rule;—
But fell the starry influence short,
The cup was never full.

Yet whirl the glowing wheels once more,
And mix the bowl again;
Seethe, Fate! the ancient elements,
Heat, cold, wet, dry, and peace, and pain.

Let war and trade and creeds and song
Blend, ripen race on race,
The sunburnt world a man shall breed
Of all the zones and countless days.

No ray is dimmed, no atom worn,
My oldest force is good as new,
And the fresh rose on yonder thorn
Gives back the bending heavens in dew.


Source: www.infoplease.com

TWO RIVERS

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thy summer voice, Musketaquit,
Repeats the music of the rain;
But sweeter rivers pulsing flit
Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain.

Thou in thy narrow banks art pent:
The stream I love unbounded goes
Through flood and sea and firmament;
Through light, through life, it forward flows.

I see the inundation sweet,
I hear the spending of the stream
Through years, through men, through Nature fleet,
Through love and thought, through power and dream.

Musketaquit, a goblin strong,
Of shard and flint makes jewels gay;
They lose their grief who hear his song,
And where he winds is the day of day.

So forth and brighter fares my stream,—
Who drink it shall not thirst again;
No darkness stains its equal gleam.
And ages drop in it like rain.


Source: www.infoplease.com

WALDEINSAMKEIT

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

I do not count the hours I spend
In wandering by the sea;
The forest is my loyal friend,
Like God it useth me.

In plains that room for shadows make
Of skirting hills to lie,
Bound in by streams which give and take
Their colors from the sky;

Or on the mountain-crest sublime,
Or down the oaken glade,
O what have I to do with time?
For this the day was made.

Cities of mortals woe-begone
Fantastic care derides,
But in the serious landscape lone
Stern benefit abides.

Sheen will tarnish, honey cloy,
And merry is only a mask of sad,
But, sober on a fund of joy,
The woods at heart are glad.

There the great Planter plants
Of fruitful worlds the grain,
And with a million spells enchants
The souls that walk in pain.

Still on the seeds of all he made
The rose of beauty burns;
Through times that wear and forms that fade,
Immortal youth returns.

The black ducks mounting from the lake,
The pigeon in the pines,
The bittern's boom, a desert make
Which no false art refines.

Down in yon watery nook,
Where bearded mists divide,
The gray old gods whom Chaos knew,
The sires of Nature, hide.

Aloft, in secret veins of air,
Blows the sweet breath of song,
O, few to scale those uplands dare,
Though they to all belong!

See thou bring not to field or stone
The fancies found in books;
Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own,
To brave the landscape's looks.

Oblivion here thy wisdom is,
Thy thrift, the sleep of cares;
For a proud idleness like this
Crowns all thy mean affairs.

Word Meaning:

Waldeinsamkeit - German - means "A feeling of solitude, being alone in the woods and a connectedness to nature."

Source: Maptia Blog

WHEN GREAT TREES FALL

When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.”

༺♥༻Maya Angelou༺♥༻

INVICTUS

༺♥༻༺♥༻༺♥༻༺♥༻

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

-William Ernest Henley

 1849-1903

༺♥༻༺♥༻༺♥༻༺♥༻
Hamba Kahla Tata Mandela!

WHO MADE THE WORLD?

༺♥༻༺♥༻༺♥༻༺♥༻

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

-Mary Oliver

༺♥༻༺♥༻༺♥༻༺♥༻

WHY I LOVE YOU TOO

༺♥༻༺♥༻༺♥༻༺♥༻

You give to me hope
And help me to cope
When life pulls me down
You bring me around

You teach me to care
And help me to share
You make me honest
With kindness the best

From you I learned love
With grace from above
It's for you I live
And I want to give

You are the reason
That fills each season
When I hear love I think of you
You are my world and best friend too

I love you because you are so kind, thoughtful and caring
I love you because you are so pleasant, lovely and sharing

You made me the man I am
Thank you

~Udiah (witness to Yah)~

༺♥༻༺♥༻༺♥༻༺♥༻
Source: Poem Hunter

THE GOLDEN KEY

(A Sonnet)

༺♥༻༺♥༻༺♥༻༺♥༻

One day, I want to melt all gold on earth
And make a wonderful key with it all
This special key of incredible worth
Will be fit to unlock your heart and soul
The remote buttons will work like a smile
Like a lawine of sweet and loving words
I will turn that key with a manly style
And happy thoughts will fly to you as birds
A simple turn of the sweet golden key
Just like a wonder, magic fun and true
Will cause, for everyone to hear and see
A wave of peace and happiness in you
Let’s dream of a universe filled with love
And all may get a key from High Above.

~Aufie Zophy

༺♥༻༺♥༻༺♥༻༺♥༻

Bachok

Note:

If you want to use the above sonnet for any (other than commercial) purpose, feel free to do so, but please mention the author's name under the poem.

Thanks, Hans @ Aufie Zophy

Source: Poem Hunter

A FAITHFUL FRIEND

How many of you can find a faithful friend?
That will stick close by you unto the very end
When trouble comes they will never forsake
Always ready to give more than they will take

A friend like that is so very hard to find
One you can count on to talk and unwind
Someone thats concerned about how you feel
Cares for you deeply with a love that's real

A friend when in need is a friend indeed
Show yourself friendly by sowing the seed
How sweet are the words spoken between friends
Just like a balm that heals or a needle that mends

A friend that sticks closer than any brother
Very trustworthy and not the same as another
You can count on them to answer when you call
There to help you when your back is to the wall.

Patricia Grantham

Source: Poem Hunter

LOOK TO THIS DAY

"Look to this day
for it is life
the very life of life.

In its brief course lie all
the realities and truths of existence
the joy of growth
the splendor of action
the glory of power.

For yesterday is but a memory
And tomorrow is only a vision.
But today well lived
makes every yesterday a memory
of happiness
and every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day...."

~ Anon

Source: From the ancient Sanskrit poem

KINDNESS

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

~Naomi Shihab Nye~

Source: Oprah Newsletter

REDUCED TO JOY

I was sipping coffee on the way to work,
the back road under a canopy of maples
turning orange. In the dip of woods, a small
doe gently leaping. I pulled over, for there
was no where else to go. She paused as if
she knew I was watching. A few orange
leaves fell around her like blessings no
one can seem to find. I sipped some
coffee, completely at peace, knowing
it wouldn't last. But that's alright.

We never know when we will blossom
into what we’re supposed to be. It might
be early. It might be late. It might be after
thirty years of failing at a misguided way.
Or the very first time we dare to shed
our mental skin and touch the world.

They say, if real enough, some see God
at the moment of their death. But isn't
every fall and letting go a death? Isn't God
waiting right now in the chill between the
small doe's hoof and those fallen leaves?

~Mark Nepo

Excerpted from Reduced to Joy by Mark Nepo.

Source:Oprah Newsletter

ON THE WAY TO WINDSOR

On the Way to Windsor
By what road did you come?
I can tell by your eyes—
you lost something along the way.
Were you hurt or did you do the hurting?
Me? Both.

Did you drop anything willingly?
I know. That's a hard one.
I seem to have lost everything
that identifies me.
My heart's become a knapsack
with torn little holes.
I knew we’d meet like this.

Oh, there are those who keep to themselves.
When the wind sounds like a loved one,
they come out and squint.
But tell me, what does it mean
to dream on this side of suffering?
That we can rest more?
That we can hear small birds
unlace the dawn?

It seems very simple now.
We can finally talk
when there isn't much to say.
It's quite beautiful, isn't it?

~Mark Nepo

Excerpted from Reduced to Joy by Mark Nepo.

Source: Oprah Newsletter

BEHIND THE THUNDER

I keep looking for one more teacher,
only to find that fish learn from water
and birds learn from sky.

If you want to learn about the sea,
it helps to be at sea.
If you want to learn about compassion,
it helps to be in love.
If you want to learn about healing,
it helps to know of suffering.

The strong live in the storm
without worshipping the storm.

~Mark Nepo

Source: Oprah Newsletter

WAY OF THE DOLPHIN

Standing in the harbor,
these slick wonders slip their fins
in and out of early sun.
I close my eyes and remember
being wheeled into surgery
all those years ago;
believing my job was to meet
my surgeon at the surface,
so the rib he had to remove
would slip out,
like a dolphin of bone,
as soon as he would cut me.

I've learned that everything that
matters goes the way of the dolphin:
drifting most of the time out of view,
breaking surface
when we least expect it.

And our job—in finding God,
in being God;
in finding truth,
in being truth;
in finding love,
in being love—
is to meet the world
at the surface
where Spirit slips
out through every cut.

~Mark Nepo

Source: Oprah Newsletter

WRITTEN WHILE RUNNING

Sometimes I move so fast it hurts.
Though the things coming at me
are not moving at all.

They are soft and inviting.
It's approaching them as if
they will vanish
that makes them sharp.

Running into any point
makes it a knife.

~Mark Nepo

source: Oprah Newsletter

ON THE RIDGE

We can grow by simply listening,
the way the tree on that ridge
listens its branches to the sky,
the way blood listens its flow
to the site of a wound,
the way you listen like a basin
when my head so full of grief
can’t look you in the eye.

We can listen our way out of anger,
if we let the heart soften
the wolf we keep inside.

We can last by listening deeply,
the way roots reach for
the next inch of earth,
the way an old turtle listens
all he hears into the pattern of his shell.

~Mark Nepo

Source: Oprah Newsletter

On Twilight's Edge

I cannot recall exactly when, was it a dream
Was I walking on the backstreets of memory
A voice asked me, 'Do you know the difference
Between the light and the dark? '
Echoes led me deep into a cold, dark place
Tortured growls from a wounded mother beast
I stood in awe of the horror to be unleashed
Lost souls shrieked petitions before Heaven
Wolves donned wool of the slaughtered Lamb
Shepherds wandered off into the wilderness
'I thought I could discern the difference'
I cried out, 'I was mistaken! ! '
The voice answered, 'If you truly knew
Neither dark nor light would be necessary
Only twilight's edge remains
Where the night and the day always meet
Returning to here and now, tears in my eyes
Bathing in the glow of twilight's edge
The birds went quiet
For precious moments
Peace from beyond dried my tears
Suddenly I thought I had glimpsed Paradise

© 2005 Roderick Dwayne Gering

A Bird Came Down

A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,--
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home

Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, splashless, as they swim.

@Emily Dickinson

Promise Yourself

To be so strong that nothing
can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity
to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel
that there is something in them
To look at the sunny side of everything
and make your optimism come true.

To think only the best, to work only for the best,
and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others
as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past
and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times
and give every living creature you meet a smile.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself
that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear,
and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world,
not in loud words but great deeds.
To live in faith that the whole world is on your side
so long as you are true to the best that is in you.”

Christian D. Larson