For probably the past 20 years I have made little progress on New Year’s resolutions. I start out with good intentions to get rid of clutter, get organized, improve my memory, and worry less.
The second of January I spent four hours in my small office, getting rid of several wastebaskets full of papers. I barely made a dent and have yet to go through my four-drawer filing cabinet.
For the last few years daughter Mary has said she will help me get organized. “Paying your bills online will save you hours of time,” she says. The only problem is that when she is here with her family she is off on a run or a walk, or visiting with siblings and others. As she hops in her car to return to her home in Orange County she usually says, “we’ll get it done next time, for sure!”
Most of us have assumed that as we get older we will lose brain cells. Studies in the last few years show the brain never stops changing. The brain has flexibility to change its capacity and functions. Mario Garrett wrote in the San Diego Union Tribune a few years ago, that flexibility can be noticed in people who speak a second language. I hope my limited Schwyzer-Dutsch scores some points for me.
Garrett also noted that brain volume is highest in professional musicians compared to those of non-musicians. The secret is to challenge the brain by doing novel things. One suggestion was to start writing with the opposite hand. My son Tony and I tried that one evening. It is definitely harder than it looks.
Many of us have spent hours building “mountains out of mole hills” while worrying about what might happen in the future. Some of us suffer sleeplessness, and a variety of ailments when we don’t let go of our concerns.
Benjamin FrankIin often suggested cutting back on our evening meals as a way of improving one’s health.
“To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.” “Eat few suppers, and you’ll need few medicines.” “Dine with little, sup with less: Do better still: sleep supperless.”
Every few years I run across some of my late husband’s favorite quotations. It is always fun for me to find anything in his handwriting. I heard these many times:
“If you’re planning for a year, plant flowers. If you’re planning for a decade, plant trees. If you’re planning for a lifetime, get an education.” Author unknown
“Most men, when they think they are thinking, are merely rearranging their prejudices.” Knute Rochne
“We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” D. Ambrose
“A cynic is one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” Oscar Wilde
“Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.” Mae West
“Those Himalayas of the mind are not so easily possessed: There’s more than precipice and storm between you and your Everest.” British poet C. Day Lewis
“A fool has no delight in understanding, but in expressing his own heart.” Proverbs 18:2
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My favorite saying is one I heard from the late Madelyn Horton, a radio operator at the El Centro Border Patrol Headquarters for many decades: “The truest repentance is to do it no more.”
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