Advice on How to Live
At least once in your life
Go skinny dipping.
Walk in the rain till your body is pruned.
Take a walk in a grave yard
On a full moon night.
Write your life down
For future reference,
No matter how boring or exciting
On paper
On a napkin
On your clothes
On your arms
On thighs
On hands
Write down your life.
Do everything wrong (but attempt to do it all right)
Learn from those times where you screwed up so bad
you should have been slapped
senseless.
Wish on a star;
Follow your dreams
No matter how ridiculous
Get your hands dirty
Fall on your ass
Then laugh at yourself.
Spend an entire day getting to know
The most important person in the world
You
Take time to smell the flowers
Skip over the roses
And read a building full of poetry.
Learn to be a better person.
Write a list of things you think others should know
To have the perfect life
Or at least as close to that life as possible
Love your family
Cherish your friends
Never see more negative in life than positive
Live your life free
Live your life whole
Let it be what you wish it to be
Until that day comes
Where this life will end
Spend everyday
In love
With life
At least once in your life
Go skinny dipping.
Walk in the rain till your body is pruned.
Take a walk in a grave yard
On a full moon night.
Write your life down
For future reference,
No matter how boring or exciting
On paper
On a napkin
On your clothes
On your arms
On thighs
On hands
Write down your life.
Do everything wrong (but attempt to do it all right)
Learn from those times where you screwed up so bad
you should have been slapped
senseless.
Wish on a star;
Follow your dreams
No matter how ridiculous
Get your hands dirty
Fall on your ass
Then laugh at yourself.
Spend an entire day getting to know
The most important person in the world
You
Take time to smell the flowers
Skip over the roses
And read a building full of poetry.
Learn to be a better person.
Write a list of things you think others should know
To have the perfect life
Or at least as close to that life as possible
Love your family
Cherish your friends
Never see more negative in life than positive
Live your life free
Live your life whole
Let it be what you wish it to be
Until that day comes
Where this life will end
Spend everyday
In love
With life
1 comment:
Polonius’ advice to his son Laertes is one of the most famous passages in Shakespeare. Here are the last lines of the speech:
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!
And another example of this motif – and I hear echoes of this in Meghan’s piece - is the advice the title character in John Cheever’s The Wapshot Chronicle leaves for his son:
"Never put whisky into hot water bottle crossing borders of dry states or countries. Rubber will spoil taste. ... Never sleep in moonlight. Known by scientists to induce madness . . . Never wear red necktie. Provide light snorts for ladies if entertaining. Effects of harder stuff on frail sex sometimes disastrous. Bathe in cold water every morning. Painful but exhilarating . . . Eat fresh fish for breakfast. Avoid kneeling in unheated stone churches. Ecclesiastical dampness causes prematurely gray hair. Fear tastes like a rusty knife and do not let her into your house. Courage tastes of blood. Stand up straight. Admire the world. Relish the love of a gentle woman. Trust in the Lord."
Post a Comment