Things To Be Desired..... Desiderata

There is a saying entitled Desiderata. Written thoughts by a man during the fourties, it was written by a man who wanted to pass along some profound thoughts. I like them very much; so much so it is one of my most valued compositions I've ever found.
You can google that title and find it. It starts with "Go Placidly Amdidst the Noise and Haste". That is just the beginning and as it continues, it points out very important things I think are essential to life! Please read it for yourself and see what you think. As it goes through so many things we face in life, the last line is Strive to Be Happy! All of it combined resonates with me, and I truly like it.
Just to focus on Strive to be Happy. If we all did this! How much time in our precious lives do we spend vast amounts of energy going after artificial things that should (they say) make us happy. And all too bitterly, after so long... years..decades, we find we've been chasing hollow remedies. I say all of this because I've faced in past three years things which brought me low... so personally low, I was convinced that this bleak feeling was the way it was going to be forever. As I have said earlier, I was so prepared to end up at the end of the last ordeal permanently jaded and ready for a lack of any happiness. It is something when that is the highest of expectations regarding your own happiness; but I was resigned that was going to be it.
It could have been divine intervention, and it could have been my love for my daughters to know better than to fade because of them.... I don't know how I bounced upwards!! My girls and I were for the most part alone most of the time. People just didn't know how to engage! Were they interfering, invading? or it caused such discomfort (and I've in my life been so guilty myself of this... it is simply too painful to do it).
Ms. Abbey is about to need me, so this blog will not get completed the way I envisioned it. And my themes keep running the same message, BE HAPPY!

I can tell you after so much time experiencing that level of pain and grief, I did come out with the feeling I do not fear a whole lot anymore. I've been to the edge with my own hospital experience; at which Susie most probably had stage One or Two Triple Negative. I was granted I feel a wonderful pardon! Still can't or ever can figure that all out, but I know what that will do to a person! The cancer battle tops my list now of hardest thing I've ever had to live with day to day and mentally hang with it, no matter how dim it got I dove for hope and I fought as hard as i've ever fought as my role in this battle. After all of that you are less afraid of things. Realization this life makes no guarantees, and out of that comes a real concrete feeling. Knowing all of that, you aren't as afraid...because you know it is not in your realm of control. So you are acutely aware of what you CAN control and that is how you are going to view that precious gift of life you have that moment. Somewhere within that came the potential to Strive to Be Happy. Don't wait for a future time. Better get on with it! I promise that.

In time, I hope to move to other topics that don't just keep repeating the same theme. Yet if you spent every minute of every day ignoring ones you love for fame, money, anything you can dream of and most humans do. Yet the stark reality is that if you don't look around to the ones you love, and make the most of that day, all this other might well be in vain.

Adversity will always come to visit. Casualties in the group of people around you can and will happen. In my life, I once let one of these cause me to waste many years during my twenties...in grief and trying to 'solve' the problem. I emerged after all of that with not one answer! They don't come. I would have been better served to keep moving and Strive to Be Happy. I could never get those years back, and I wasted them.

So, tonight and tommorow, don't quit your job or anything like that! But put some thought about what am I doing that is the opposite of striving to be happy? I think it is a worthwhile question. My temptation is to erase this entry, but maybe I didn't repeat everything and maybe a grain of something was worth it. Please be good to yourselves and one another.
Thank you
Paul