Find Your Focus

All beings are flowers

blossoming

In a blossoming universe.

by Soen Nakagawa

 

 

 As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself.

- Leonardo Davinci

A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.

-Anthony Trollope

7 Effective Habits of ADDults

1. Do what you're good at

2. Delegate what you're bad at

3. Connect your energy to a creative outlet

4. get "well enough" organized to achieve your goals

5. Take advice from people you trust

6. Keep in touch with a few close friends

7. Keep a positive outlook in making decisions and running your life.

Robbie Burns: To A Mouse

 

 

TO A MOUSE

ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER, 1785

by: Robert Burns (1759-1796)

I

 

EE, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,

Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie!

Thou need na start awa sae hasty,

Wi' bickering brattle!

I was be laith to rin an' chase thee,

Wi' murd'ring pattle!

 

II

 

I'm truly sorry man's dominion

Has broken Nature's social union,

An' justifies that ill opinion

Which makes thee startle

At me, thy poor, earth-born companion

An' fellow-mortal!

 

III

 

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;

What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!

A daimen-icker in a thrave

'S a sma' request;

I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,

And never miss't!

 

IV

 

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!

Its silly wa's the win's are strewin!

An' naething, now, to big a new ane,

O' foggage green!

An' bleak December's winds ensuin,

Baith snell an' keen!

 

V

 

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,

An' weary winter comin fast,

An' cozie here, beneath the blast,

Thou thought to dwell,

Till crash! the cruel coulter past

Out thro' thy cell.

 

VI

 

That wee bit heap o' leaves an stibble,

Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!

Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,

But house or hald,

To thole the winter's sleety dribble,

An' cranreuch cauld!

 

VII

 

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men

Gang aft a-gley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,

For promis'd joy!

 

VIII

 

Still thou art blest, compared wi' me!

The present only toucheth thee:

But och! I backward cast my e'e,

On prospects drear!

An' forward, tho' I cannot see,

I guess an' fear!

"To a Mouse" is reprinted from English Poems. Ed. Edward Chauncey Baldwin & Harry G. Paul. New York: American Book Company, 1908.

 Source:
 http://www.poetry-archive.com/b/to_a_mouse.html

  

 Robert Burns by Alexander Nasmyth
(By permission of the National Galleries of Scotland) 

He is born to his profession

Quotes

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."
---Friedreich Nietzsche


"The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind."
-- William Blake, A MemorableFancy


I love to doubt as well as know."
--Dante Alighieri



To see a World in a Grain of Sand 
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, 
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour.
-- William Blake, Auguries of Innocence



"We are here on earth to do good for others. What the others are here for, I don't know."
-- W. H. Auden



"Without contraries is no progression.  Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence."
-- Wiliam Blake, The Argument



"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed."
-- Herman Melville, US novelist & sailor (1819 - 1891)



"It’s better to believe in what you know than to know what you believe in."
-- HL Gaskins




“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
 – Epicurus circa 300 BC