To the wrongs that need resistance, To the right that needs assistance, To the future in the distance, Give yourselves.
Barbara Cartland said, “You become what you think. You are what you eat”. I heard a similar quote in the 1970s and it has come back to me many times since then.
Editor’s note: My life has essentially been a (still) unending struggle to move from deficit to surplus thinking. I’m making progress.
Editor’s note: Thanks to friend, Frank Dixon, for turning me onto Giffels, a local (Akron) professor and writer. Don’t let the theme of building his own coffin (yes, that’s the story) throw you off. Rather than morbid this book is filled with wisdom, warmth and laughter. It is quite more about living than dying. Whether the cause is the author’s writing or my comprehension, the book started to really delight and engage me more after page 148, when at least a half dozen times I would stop, say “wow” and reread the paragraph or section.
“Up to a point a person’s life is shaped by environment, heredity, and changes in the world about them. Then there comes a time when it lies within their grasp to shape the clay of their life into the sort of thing they wish it to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune or the quirks of fate. Everyone has the power to say, "This I am today. That I shall be tomorrow.”
