forks are really important when you need them

you never know what is behind the doors you don’t open

Can one say he is a pilot if he does not fly?

Can one say he is a reader if he does not read?

Can one say he is a soldier if he does not fight?

Can one say he is a man if he does not live like one?

A man is a man

What he is and what he does

Defines that man

A boy is not man

Yet, there are so many who claim to be one

They assume all the privileges of a man

But assume no responsibility

A generation without men

A man is willing to go to bed each night tired

But he finds joy in the simplicity,

for his labor is preparing him for another day,

and the one to come

A man is a man

What he is and what he does

Defines that man

A boy is not man

Will your epitaph proclaim, “here lies a boy?”

Hope Keeps Us Going 

Among those treasures with which we are all endowed by nature, hope stands by itself as being at once the most precious and the most treacherous. 
Just because hope is so common we accept it as a matter of course, without realizing how precious it is. Without it life in a fallen world would be unbearable; without it the zest for living would disappear almost at once; without it one hour of adversity would break our spirits and drive millions to suicide. It is not too much to say that if all hope were destroyed within the human breast, the race of mankind would die out altogether in a very few years. Even the procreative drive and the instinct for self-preservation would hardly be strong enough to save from extinction a race from which all hope had fled. 

Hope is a nurse and comforter and enables us to go on after every reason for going on has disappeared. Hope has sustained the spirit of a shipwrecked sailor and given him strength to stay alive through the long days that seemed years till help and rescue came; hope has steeled the patriot to fight on and win at last against overwhelming odds; hope has saved from insanity or suicide the prisoner in his lonely cell as he checked off the years and months and days on his homemade calendar; hope has enabled the sick or injured man to wait out the pain and the nausea till health returned and the suffering ended; hope has made light the feet of the traveler hurrying home in near exhaustion to the bedside of someone he loved.

- A.W. Tozer

When we are in pain, we are constantly reminded, and sometimes, we feel hopeless.  That dreadful sense of abandonment, but there will be a day when we will wake up, brush our teeth, have a cup of joe, take a walk in the park, and watch the sun continue its path as usual, and at one point, we will be reminded of that pain.  And no matter how hard you try to recreate it, you won’t be able to relive it.

Here’s a peculiar formula:

sum of(all good things in you life) + sum of(all good things in your life) = verdict of your life

The important part is always the ending.  In movies, in speeches, in songs, in life.

the meaning of life is to live meaningfully

Once in a while, death comes knocking at the door.  This puts us in an awkward situation because we are so habitual.  We get so attached, so sudden losses can toss us like the storm in a sailor’s nightmare.  And occasionally, it will challenge and change us.  And nobody knows this secretive change.  And one day, you’ll have to answer that door.

Like the engagements of an 8mm projection

His summer wings flapped and fluttered

Inside a glass jar

Powerless, despite his bravery

The sun was the same, but everything has changed

Life had one more move, but he had none