This will be a creative endeavor attempt on this cool day in Paris. I want to share cartoons with you, but I want to write a paragraph about something that I have been thinking about.

As I have said many times on Jayspeak, I don’t like lies of any kind. Wellllllll. Maybe one or two here and there. But, I am known for being brutally frank – too frank – especially with facades and pretenses of any kind. Do you know someone who pretends to be something that they are NOT!. And you know the truth and they know you know the truth and yet they expect you to keep the secret. Oops. I do. I HATE THAT!!!! I am thinking about one person in particular. And when I called her out, she wrote me off as a friend not to be trusted. And, that really hurt me because she knew that I knew the truth. So, in these bizarre and mean-spirited times and with the threat of nuclear war and my fear of Covid and whatever, I am trying to let go. You see, we all look like we’re kinda nailing it, from the outside in. We all look ‘together’ sometimes. Catch us on the right day and hey, we look like we have it all. Because guess what, we learned to look that way a long time ago. We learned to hide our struggles behind a smile and whack on that mask every day. And actually, we are doing each other a favour when we show up at all and don’t die as an easy way out of this chaos,

Sunday funnies go digital. Mere Footprints in the sand.

BEST, JAY

P. S.

NO WAITING ROOM

What if you didn’t wake up tomorrow and your soul is watching down thinking of all the things you didn’t get to do yet because you were too scared, or too fat, or too worried about money. And all the things you told yourself you weren’t good enough for, swam in front of your eyes, fighting for a place in the line, beside the words you didn’t say and the joy you forget to have.

My friend, there is absolutely no room for anything in your day, other than acceptance. You will never have enough money, or time, and you will certainly never have that perfect body the world told you you need to be happy.

And before you say it’s too late to embrace this thing we call life, no it is not. You can do it right where you are. Right this minute. Get outside, breathe, look at the trees, put your bare feet on the grass – hand on your heart to feel that pulse – and that’s it.

You’re living.

Keep that up.

Wait up for the moon sometimes or get up early to see a sunrise, just because you can.
Jump in the lake. Run, skip.
The things you need to feel alive are free and all around my friend.
You just have to see them.

Let in opportunity and say yes to the invitations that scare you a little, in a good way.
Say no to some of the things you force yourself to do, knowing they rinse you of your peace.

Life was never supposed to be a waiting room, it was supposed to be a hillside, with paths leading in every direction and mountains as far as the eye can see, hiding adventures and new friends behind them.

Don’t let yourself get to the end of this ride without having stopped to smell those beautiful roses.
That’s the only thing you need to fear in this life.
Everything else is all part of it.
It’s all just a messy, complicated, beautiful and terrifying part of it.

Chin up, throw your arms wide open
and let it be so.

Donna Ashworth

life #friends #inspire #words #poetry

This idea makes me happy ~

 “the Great Society” and laid out the vision of a country that did not confine itself to making money, but rather used its post–World War II prosperity to “enrich and elevate our national life.” That Great Society would demand an end to poverty and racial injustice. 

But it would do more than that, he promised: it would enable every child to learn and grow, and it would create a society where people would use their leisure time to build and reflect, where cities would not just answer physical needs and the demands of commerce, but would also serve “the desire for beauty and the hunger for community.” It would protect the natural world and would be “a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.” 

“But most of all,” he said, it would look forward. “[T]the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.”

I am game. Are you ?