A few years ago, when I was looking through books at the local bookstore, I found a gem of a book. It is called The Little Big Book of Life. It is a collection of poems, short stories, words of wisdom and encouragement and observations on life. I look at it often and always find something that applies to the day I'm having or says what I need to hear.

For example:

On October , 1977, Maya Angelou wrote

One of the first things that a young person must internalize, deep down in the blood and bones, is the understanding that although he may encounter many defeats, he must not be defeated. If life teaches us anything, it may be that it's necessary to suffer some defeats. Look at a diamond: It is the result of extreme pressure. Less pressure, it is crystal, less than that, it's coal, and less than that, it is fossilized leaves or just plain dirt. It is necessary, therefore, to be tough enough to bite the bullet as it is shot into one's mouth, to bite it and stop it before it tears a hole in one's throat. One must learn to care for oneself first, so that one can then dare to care for someone else. That's what it takes to make the caged bird sing.

So Much Happiness
by Naomi Shihan Nye

It is difficult to know what to do with
so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you,
you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands,
like a ticket stub or change.

But happiness floats.
It doesn't need you to hold it down.
It doesn't need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof
of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived
in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches.
and love even the floor which needs
to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records.

Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug , you raise your hands,
and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not
responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky
takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and
share it,
and in that way, be known.

And, last but not least, from Helen Keller, whose life was a story of overcoming what seem to have been, unsurmountable challenges, comes the following:

One can never consent
to creep when one feels
an impulse to soar.

I highly recommend that little book.

Good week to all who stop here.