“When you are in the final days of your life, what will you want? Will you hug that college degree in the walnut frame? Will you ask to be carried to the garage so you can sit in your car? Will you find comfort in re-reading your financial statement? Of course not. What will matter then will be people. If relationships will matter most then, shouldn’t they matter most now?”

– Max Lucado

The only thing I don’t really like about this quote is the use of the word “people”. It’s too easy to read it and think to yourself, “Eh, I don’t like people. I don’t care if people are there, I’d rather be alone with my thoughts at the end.” Of course. We are all the stars of our own LifePlays and everyone else we meet along the way are just supporting actors. But the “people” in this quote would be more recognizable by the names we use when we talk about them to others. It is our mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, best friends and significant others. Those “people” whose faces stand out from the blur of humanity that share moments with us that make life special. All too often we are so busy acting out our own scenes that we forget how important they are and to appreciate the “people” in our lives.

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”

– Buddah

“Solitude is different from loneliness, and it doesn’t have to be a lonely kind of thing.”

– Fred Rogers

“Admit it. You aren’t like them. You’re not even close. You may occasionally dress yourself up as one of them, watch the same mindless television shows as they do, maybe even eat the same fast food sometimes.

But it seems that the more you try to fit in, the more you feel like an outsider, watching the “normal people” as they go about their automatic existences. For every time you say club passwords like “Have a nice day” and “Weather’s awful today, eh?”, you yearn inside to say forbidden things like “Tell me something that makes you cry” or “What do you think deja vu is for?”.

Face it, you even want to talk to that girl in the elevator. But what if that girl in the elevator is thinking the same thing? Who knows what you might learn from taking a chance on conversation with a stranger? Everyone carries a piece of the puzzle. Nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence. Trust your instincts. Do the unexpected. Find the others…”

– Timothy Leary

“You rarely have time for everything you want in life, so you need to make choices. And hopefully your choices can come from a deep sense of who you are.”

– Fred Rogers

I am no longer afraid of becoming lost, because the journey back always reveals something new …

– Billy Joel