Longevity Hack: #5 of 5 Anti-Aging Secrets

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Having great decision–making skills – without caring what others think – pays dividends.

As a social species, we’re also powerfully invested in others’ perceptions and judgments of us and the decisions we make. Many of us are hampered to make even the most trivial decisions – say, choosing a restaurant for a social gathering or buying a new shirt – because of a fear of what others might think. But that type of worry isn’t helping you.

Instead, try being more committed to the decisions that make you happy than the ones that are “right.” Imagine the freedom you’d feel if you unapologetically decide to wear the outfit to the gym that makes you feel most comfortable, regardless of its fashion rating, or to spend time with the people that make you feel most comfortable, regardless of their popularity. The words showered upon preschoolers are just as true, and certainly more difficult, for mature folks to follow: Be true to yourself. As our Italian friends show us, your life won’t only be happier, but also healthier and longer, for it. 

Source

The Instinct of Hope ~ John Clare

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The Instinct of Hope 

John Clare

 Is there another world for this frail dust
To warm with life and be itself again?
Something about me daily speaks there must,
And why should instinct nourish hopes in vain?
‘Tis nature’s prophesy that such will be,
And everything seems struggling to explain
The close sealed volume of its mystery.
Time wandering onward keeps its usual pace
As seeming anxious of eternity,
To meet that calm and find a resting place.
E’en the small violet feels a future power
And waits each year renewing blooms to bring,
And surely man is no inferior flower
To die unworthy of a second spring?

The Enduring ~ John Gould Fletcher

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The Enduring

John Gould Fletcher

If the autumn ended
Ere the birds flew southward,
If in the cold with weary throats
They vainly strove to sing,
Winter would be eternal;
Leaf and bush and blossom
Would never once more riotIn the spring.
If remembrance ended
When life and love are gathered,
If the world were not livingLong after one is gone,
Song would not ring, nor sorrow
Stand at the door in evening;
Life would vanish and slacken,
Men would be changed to stone.
But there will be autumn's bounty
Dropping upon our weariness,
There will be hopes unspoken
And joys to haunt us still;
There will be dawn and sunset
Though we have cast the world away,
And the leaves dancingOver the hill.

Those Who Do Not Dance ~ Gabriela Mistral

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Those Who Do Not Dance 

Gabriela Mistral

A crippled child
Said, ‘How shall I dance?’
Let your heart dance
We said. 
Then the invalid said:
‘How shall I sing?’
Let your heart sing
We said 
Then spoke the poor dead thistle,
But I, how shall I dance?’
Let your heart fly to the wind
We said.
Then God spoke from above
‘How shall I descend from the blue?’
Come dance for us here in the light
We said.
All the valley is dancing
Together under the sun,
And the heart of him who joins us not
Is turned to dust, to dust.  

Peace ~ Sara Teasdale

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Peace

Sara Teasdale

PEACE flows into me
       AS the tide to the pool by the shore;
       It is mine forevermore,
  It ebbs not back like the sea.

  I am the pool of blue
       That worships the vivid sky;
       My hopes were heaven-high,
  They are all fulfilled in you.

  I am the pool of gold
       When sunset burns and dies,—
       You are my deepening skies,
  Give me your stars to hold.

I Have Learned So Much ~ Hafiz

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I Have Learned So Much

Hafiz

I
Have
Learned
So much from God
That I can no longer
Call
Myself
A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim,
A Buddhist, a Jew.
The Truth has shared so much of Itself
With me
That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, an angel,
Or even pure
Soul.
Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ash
And freed
Me
Of every concept and image
My mind has ever known.