Cleaning up some files on my computer today and I came upon the following, a piece I wrote awhile back. It could benefit from a rewrite, but that's for another day. What are some things that you know?
Here are some things that I know
Can’t tell me different
These are just so.
1. Baked beans and chocolate cake taste better the second day.
2. Marriage is too hard if it is mistaken for life.
3. Nothing in the world can hurt you like your child.
4. Nothing in the world can warm you like your child.
5. Children always tell the truth.
6. Nothing exists outside of the chemicals and electrical impulses that I call mind.
7. Always use real butter in baked goods.
8. Pain is the experience. Suffering is the option.
9. You will never succeed at something that doesn’t feed your soul.
10. Happy or sad, this will pass.
11. Consistent efforts do not produce consistent results because true consistency is impossible.
12. No person, place or thing makes you happy. You can choose to feel happy.
13. Numb is a feeling.
14. The dance becomes different as soon as one partner changes their steps.
15. My dog Rudy had been with me in another time and place.
16. There is something out there that is so simple I cannot grasp it.
17. Expectations are fine as long as I remember that they are my expectations and may not be yours.
18. At this very moment, great and good things are coming my way.
19. Humility is understanding and embracing my greatness.
20. Others know things about me that I do not know myself.
21. The only limit is that there is no limit.
22. I have whatever I believe I can have.
23. Time alone doing nothing is essential to my well being.
24. No one is ever going to clean my house just the way I like.
25. Only dogs can love unconditionally.
26. There is no place where I end and you begin.
27. There is no cosmic truth, only the truth as I see it today.
28. Grass grows best in spots where it is considered a weed.
29. God is much bigger than I thought.
30. Parents are simply the portals for their children to enter the world.
31. I get in trouble when I start thinking always and never.
32. I can live anywhere.
33. There are no corners in a revolving door.
34. I can think that I know what I am doing, but I have no idea what it is that I am actually doing.
35. I don’t have to know what I am doing.
36. Depression is a great vacation.
37. Breathing, digestion, circulation are, at some level, conscious acts.
38. Almost positive is hard to endure, but completely unsure feels secure.
39. I lack whatever I fear I lack.
40. Fish drown if they don’t keep moving.
41. I exert influence whether or not I am conscious of my power.
42. The planet is round. There is no up or down, only out.
43. Just as East traveled too far eventually becomes West, Right taken too far becomes Wrong.
44. Most of what lives on the earth does so with no input from me.
45. I experience something mysterious every day.
46. I don’t so much wear out as I wear in.
47. Nothing bad happens if you wear white before the end of May.
48. The fact that I speak of the miraculous is evidence that I do not understand the nature of existence.
49. Everyone isn’t going to like me.
50. I am not going to like everyone.
51. To be respected is as much a choice as to be respectful.
52. I will never be able to see my own face.
53. It is the exercise of planning, not the plan, that guarantees results.
54. Everything I want to do is not going to be fun, but everything that ends up being fun is something I wanted to do.
55. Unsweetened cocoa is the secret ingredient in spectacular chili.
56. We should listen to children. They possess the secrets of the ancients.
57. Regardless of the situation, action on my part is never required. Things will change whether I act or not.
58. The only thing I can control is my response to stimulus.
59. Whenever my friends lose weight, I gain it.
60. Katie Miller was right when she said that there are no good or bad decisions. Once the decision is made, there is only THE decision.
61. My one-year-old granddaughter is the wisest being I have ever met.
62. I am interested in everything.
63. I have absolutely no interest in sports, finances or mechanical things.
64. You can never own too many books.
65. The Divine speaks to me when I let It get a word in edgewise.
66. This is a place of abundance.
67. Dead rats in the attic smell gross.
68. The fact that smell is the result of actually breathing in small particles of a substance is a piece of information I could have lived without.
69. There are no failures. Only unexpected outcomes.
70. Things come in threes because I stop looking after three.
71. I have no idea what it is like to be you.
72. What I say may not be what you hear.
73. I’m tired of pizza and Chinese food.
74. 8 A.M. is the only civilized time to wake up.
75. I am spirit trying to live in a physical body.
76. I am unique in all the Universe. In other words, just like everyone else.
77. It’s not so much that I’m pro-life. Life is pro-me.
78. There is no such thing as time. There are only clocks.
79. As David Lintner says, with God nothing is also possible.
80. The only people you can be certain are paying attention, are the ones who disagree with you.
81. When the dog asks to go out in the middle of the night you’d best take him.
82. People have experienced my actions as cruel in spite of my good intentions.
83. I am capable of intentional cruelty.
84. My parents did exactly what they should have to nurture what I must be.
85. There is only here and only now.
86. The person who talks money first loses.
87. True friends are hard to find, easy to keep.
88. I like cats and love avocados.
89. I am allergic to cats and avocados.
90. Existence is a simultaneous event.
91. My Dad did me a favor when he taught me that there is no free lunch.
92. I don’t have to.
93. Lemons in iced tea make me sick.
94. It’s a good thing I listened when my husband said that you don’t have to know how to do the jobs to be an effective manager.
95. I can only be what I am and that is whatever I am compelled to be.
96. Whatever happens, I’ll be OK.
97. The only rules I am capable of following are the ones I make for myself.
98. The Universe is an address on a short street in a small town in an obscure state in a third world country on the tiny moon of an insignificant planet in an unremarkable universe, which is an address on a short street. I get my mail at the first address but sometimes it is delivered to the second by mistake.
99. Ninety-nine is a good number of items for a list.
Laura Miller
2001
Here's what I'm thinking:
I have changed a great deal since 2001. My circumstances have altered dramatically. We never wake up where we went to sleep. And yet, I still think that one day I will understand what the heck is going on. And, I still like this list.
1 comment:
I love your list Laura. I agree 100% with all but two. I am not sure I can live anywhere-even though I'm always preaching "bloom where you are planted" I still think I have my limits. 8:AM is not my favorite time to wake up..I must rise much earlier, which I call civilized. The amythyst sunrise this morning over the new fallen snow of last night was breathtaking and I'd have missed it had I waited til 8:00. I laughed at some of the items on your list but loved reading them-maybe cause I know you..LOL
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