Little things, old things

There's something mysterious about old books. Riding my bike last week, I stopped at a little lending library in Twisp. It was tucked in with all the tattered paperbacks in the old phone booth on Glover Street.

The book was published the year I was 10 years old, a long time to knock around staying in perfect condition! It's just a collection of sayings, essays, poems and inspirational stories.

Long before anyone used words like "meditation," "mindfulness," "zen," and "daily practice," there was this:

One of the striking things about successful persons is their facility of determining the relative importance of different things. Life is so short and time so fleeting that much which one would do must be omitted. He is fortunate who perceives this at a glance. Reflect every morning what is important and leave everything else undone. There is no rule more indispensable to success.

Edward Young

Also from the "Success" chapter: 

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who has left the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, who has never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it; who has always looked for the best in others and given the best he had; whose life was an inspiration; whose memory a benediction.  Anon.

Happy Mother's Day weekend.