Forgiveness, truth and secrets to a happy life

By JoAnne Young 

I have this leather-bound book that when I bought it, about a dozen years ago, had 200 blank pages. In the ensuing years, I have filled it with writings from books, TV shows, movies, documentaries, interviews. All these things that can point me to wisdom and thoughts that are good for me to consider as I make this journey with the rest of you through life. 

In this brand new year, as we come up for some clean air after slogging through the past three years that have been marked by questions and hard truths, doubts, frustrations and hopes, I offer some food for thought from my little brown book. 

* “Truth is love.” 

I’m not sure who said this, but I wrote it down because it made sense. Truth has become so compromised, so subjective, so debated. Is it a system of beliefs? Or the facts? Truth, even based in science and facts, can change over time, from what we knew it to be then, to what we have come to know now. So I am staying with the simple. Truth is love … love that works for the benefit of all, whether they accept it or not.

* “When a person has a reaction to something in their environment, there’s a 90-second chemical process that happens in the body; after that, any remaining emotional response is just the person choosing to stay in that emotional loop.” -- Harvard neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor.

Sometimes it’s worth a lot to exit that loop, as quickly as possible. Sometimes, it is OK to stay in the loop, or at least to transform that anger to make it work for you in more productive ways. 

* Forgiveness is letting go of the hope that it could have been any different. – Quoted and requoted many times 

Stay in the past or move on. It’s a choice we have to make – frequently -- but not an easy one. 

* “Never ever depend on governments or institutions to solve any major problems. All social change comes from the passion of individuals.” – Margaret Mead, cultural anthropologist 

* “I was brought up to believe that the only thing worth doing was to add to the sum of accurate information in the world.” – Margaret Mead

I bore witness to Mead’s wisdom in my 36 years as a journalist. This quote was pinned to a small bulletin board at my work desk. It gave me encouragement every day. As did this one by Henry Anatole Grunwald, a refugee from Nazi-dominated Austria who rose to become Time magazine's top editor: “Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.” 

* “A country that can put a man on the moon can put women in the Constitution.” – Rep. Margaret Heckler (Massachusetts), Republican 

Equal rights are not granted to women in the Constitution. The right to vote is their only right enshrined in the Constitution. Why is this so hard? Why can we not progress? It is a great affront to the women of this country that the Equal Rights Amendment has been ratified after decades of debate, but has yet to be certified and published as the 28^thAmendment to the Constitution. 

* “One of the secrets to a happy life is continuous small treats.” – Dame Iris Murdock, Irish and British novelist and philosopher

I love this. It is in my list of goals for 2023. 

* “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust, author and essayist 

I think of this often when I tire of my surroundings. Yes, it’s a wonderful thing to travel. But most of our time is spent in our hometowns, and this is profound advice. 

* “I want to live in a world of perpetual epiphanies.”

I don’t remember who said this. I had it taped to my computer at work for a long time. Then I took a leave one summer and an intern sat at my desk. When I returned, she had scribbled on it, probably during a phone call when for some strange reason she had nothing else to write on. Rude, right?  I cut out the parts she had written on and was left with “perpetual epiphanies.” I no longer have the paper, but the words are embedded in my head. And I am always on the lookout for them.                          

* Time is our most important possession. Don’t give it to thieves and people who are selfish, egotistical, negative, or who won’t stop talking. – Tim Hoch in Thought Catalog

This is from a list of 10 ways to make your life harder than it has to be. It’s worth googling.  

* “The darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable. And the lightness has a call that’s hard to hear.” – The Indigo Girls 

And then from Grey’s Anatomy: "If you aren't willing to keep looking for light in the darkest of places without stopping, even when it seems impossible, you will never succeed." 

The light and dark are always with us. The human soul, they say, is a place of contradiction and ambiguity, of opposing energies that whisper to each other and exchange notes. We learn from loss, from the negative. To have a shadow is normal. Without both sides, we would have no creative impulse. 

* “Desiderata” -- Max Ehrmann, writer, poet, attorney 

Who among us remembers the poster that hung in so many bedrooms and dorm rooms during our college years?  I will end with excerpts, the beginning and some of the end of the poem, as a benediction, of sorts, for 2023.

“Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. … And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive (God) to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.”

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