Last week, I decided to quit writing. Tired of rejection, tired of being a slave to words and phrases, I decided it was time I straightened out my life. So I quit. Cold turkey!
I cleared off my desk, shut down the computer, shoved all my discs and hard copies into the file cabinet, locked it and handed my husband the key. I threw the mouse into the trash and that was that.
Quitting a habit is relatively easy. I have a friend who has quit smoking 243 times.
Staying quit? Now that …

Egypt was the wonder of the ancients. They advanced, built pyramids, penned hieroglyphics, and performed medical wonders. But they got lazy, their slaves left, and Egypt declined. Rome was glorious. It was built upon the blood of great men. At the height of their civilized glory, Rome got complacent and lazy. They ate themselves from within as great men became selfish instead of industrious.
And now there’s us. America was glorious. Will it crumble as well beneath its own laziness and selfishness?
I love to listen to the older generations. It seems …

Growing old can be a terrible thing.
I hate watching people around me grow old. I like to remember them as they were when I was younger, and they were younger. When I was a wee tot, my father was Superman. He could heft a couch with one hand while he cut down a tree with a chainsaw with his other hand. He knew exactly how to unhook my snagged fishing lines, how to tinker with my car engine to get it going again, and never tired of hitting line drives …

by Bobbi Kahler
I used to be one of those people who could never say “no” to anyone. Then one day it occurred to me that I was making choices. Every time I said “yes” out of obligation, I was saying “no” to something else; and, often, what I was saying “no” to was more important than those things that I was saying yes to. From that point on, before I said “yes” to anyone or any project, I asked myself the following question: “By saying yes to this, will that …

I received two emails from old friends in Japan recently. They wrote to tell me of the cherry blossoms, a Japanese season -yes, the cherry blossom season – and how beautiful they were. The truth is, from personal experience, the cherry blossoms are always beautiful.
One friend wrote: “The cherry blossoms have fallen in last week’s strong wind. The petals lay scattered all over the ground. I love cherry blossoms! It’s very very beautiful.” Her words echo the whole Japanese nation – a people who watch the blossoms with a …