Welcome to a new weekly feature on Changing Direction. Each Wednesday will bring brief words of wisdom for living life well. The emphasis is on brief. Some posts will be serious, others funny. Pass Wednesday Wisdom along to others and let me know which posts you like. (P.S. Wednesday Wisdom is an experiment–see below.)![hands_on_keyboard_with-text-best-place[1]](https://i0.wp.com/newwayopening.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/hands_on_keyboard_with-text-best-place1.jpg?ssl=1)
In a box of dusty papers lay a treasure buried years ago: a poem from Mother on the importance of both strength and courage. Her hand-written note across the top of the page made this an even greater treasure, “For Barbara, who exemplifies this better than anyone I know. Lovingly, Mom.”
From Mother’s hand and my dusty box, from my heart to your eyes, words on strength and courage:
Strength and Courage
It takes strength to be firm.
It takes courage to be gentle.
It takes strength to stand guard.
It takes courage to let down your guard.
It takes strength to be certain.
It takes courage to have doubt.
It takes strength to fit in.
It takes courage to stand out.
It takes strength to feel a friend’s pain.
It takes courage to feel your own pain.
It takes strength to hide your own pains.
It takes courage to show them.
It takes strength to endure abuse.
It takes courage to stop it.
It takes strength to stand alone.
It takes courage to lean on another.
It takes strength to love.
It takes courage to be loved.
It takes strength to survive.
It takes courage to live.
(Author Unknown)
*Personal Update: Some people tour national parks during the summer. I toured emergency rooms and urgent care clinics, instead. I recovered quickly from a round of pneumonia, thanks to care I received in an Omaha hospital. Outpatient cataract surgery gave me better vision than I’ve had since high school. My recently broken foot has mended. An adrenal deficiency is still problematic and its cause undiagnosed. Heart and lungs are behaving well. Next summer I want to visit parks.
A friend found a yellowed paper in his father’s desk after his dad died. It described his father’s approach to life. Dad didn’t wait for happiness at a future time, nor did he expect it to be given to him. He knew that happiness and joy reside within us if we choose them. He chose happiness and joy. Here is part of the foundation on which he built his life and the grace with which he faced an incurable cancer.
Passports to Happiness
We permit too many opportunities for happiness to slip by because we labor under two major delusions. One of these is that we shall be happy when–
When we arrive at a certain destination;
When we can be with a certain person;
When our schooling is finished;
When we get a better job:
When we arrive at a certain income;
When we are married;
When the baby is born;
When we recover from our illness;
When our bills are paid;
When we own a new car;
When we move into a new home;
When some disagreeable task is finished;
When we are free from some encumbrance.
The second delusion is that we can buy a ticket, or pay admission, to happiness. We seem never to learn that, wherever we go, we take our happiness or unhappiness with us; and that whatever we do; it is how much of ourselves we put into the doing which influences our happiness–far more than what the outside world contributes.
The only way we can insure happiness is to train ourselves to be happy in spite of, not because of, what life does to us. When we succeed in doing this, we become wise and useful adults.
David Dunn, date unknown
photo by Mark Smutny