Quotes and Snippets I

The month of April was very tough for me and I sure am glad we are in May!  My month started with a sciatic nerve flare up.  This first one lasted about a week and subsided after much rest, heat, and thankfully, anti-inflammatory and pain medication.  

The second flare up was much worse.  It came on about 6 days later and it was one of the worst I have ever had.  I needed to get in to see my Doctor for a steroid shot and an oral steroid pack for the inflammation.  This second flare up was stubborn and took longer, even with the steroids, to calm down.  More rest, heat and medication. 

And then, because apparently this was not enough to try to wear me down, I experienced serious and adverse side effects to a new medication I was prescribed.  It took about ten days for this medicine to get completely out of my system and those ten days were long and rough. My sciatic was still inflamed, but thankfully the worst of that was over.  So, at this point, you are most likely thinking "And this is a blog because......."

Well, because I couldn't do much else, I spent a lot of time listening to TED Talks and listening to and reading non-fiction books and audio.  I have always kept a notebook or two with me to write down things I hear or read that are meaningful to me, and this blog is me sharing some of these things with you. 

Some of what I included are quotes, some are snippets of larger discussions and some are just things that struck a cord with me. I hope that perhaps you too may be able to find wisdom in these offerings as well.  In some cases, I may not be able to attribute and give credit to the author, but I did when I could. 

✔ "If your creativity is driven by a desire to get attention, you're never going to be creatively fulfilled."  Joseph Gordon-Levitt on Ted Talks 1

✒ Don't base your decisions on the advice of people who don't have to live with the results.

✔ In an October 1985 interview, Merv Griffin asked Orson Wells "...were there certain parts of your life that were really joyous?". He responded:  "Oh yes....there are certain parts of almost every day that are joyous. I am not essentially a happy person, but I have all kinds of joy." 2

✔ "You don't always have to chop with the sword of truth. You can point with it too." Anne Lamott on Ted Talks

✔ "If all the insects were to disappear from the Earth, within 50 years all life on earth would end.  If all human beings disappeared from the Earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish." Jonas Salk quoted on Ted Talks

✒ If you have been successful in the past, beware and consider this: If what you did yesterday still looks big to you, you haven't done much today.

✒ "For some people, being angry is better than being ignored. Childhood habits that go unaltered turn into unconscious ways of being."   Rachel Hollis

✒ If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.  You should want to surround yourself with people who are better than you in areas that you want to improve in. 

✔ "If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have the time to do it over?" John Wooden on Ted Talks

✔ The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit. 

✒ The older I get, the more I find that a good quit feels powerful. Deciding what you won't have in your life is as important as deciding what you will have. 

✒ "There are known knows. These are things we know that we know.  There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we don't know we don't know." Donald Rumsfeld

✒ "I took to my bed.  I like the way that sounds: I took to my bed. It implies that I acted with style and flourish, perhaps adorned with a pink satin bed jacket. It suggests that I knew what I was doing. But I didn't. I only know how to tell the tale." Margaret Overton "Hope for a Cool Pillow"

✔ "There are two kinds of gratitude:  The sudden kind we feel for what we take, and the larger kind we feel for what we give." Edwin Arlington Robinson

✔ You don't need everyone to love you. Just a few good people." Charity Barnum

✒ When we throw out the physical clutter, we clear our minds.  When we throw out the mental clutter, we clear our souls." Gail Blanke

✒ "Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly, leave the rest to God." Ronald Reagan. 

✔ If you spend your day looking for blessings, here's the magic - you'll find them. 

I have notebooks, LOTS of notebooks and scrapbooks, full of these kinds of quotes and 'wisdom', and I hope to be able to share more in the future.  

As always, I appreciate you reading and supporting me and my little blog! 💓🙏

1. You may recognize his name from "3rd Rock from the Sun" and "Snowden".  He did an outstanding segment on Ted Talks: Joseph Gordon-Levitt: How craving attention makes you less creative | TED Talk

2. The whole interview was fascinating.  This particular interview was the last he ever did, literally. He died in the early morning after returning to his home hours after the taping.  I'm glad that he died joyful and content with his life.  Orson Welles Final Interview - Video | eBaum's World (ebaumsworld.com)