What's Your Philosophy of Life?

Do you hold your world in your own two hands?

Yes, I know this will probably be a “heady” blog this week, but I’ve been thinking about all the coincidences in my life and why they came to be. Was it fate, karma, the will of God, or just plain meant to be. I will include some other folks’ thoughts on the subject of life in general. I don’t think we’ll ever know the answer to the fate question, but I’ll give you some examples from my own life.

Some of the coincidences in my life, involving both people and events, I believe eventually shaped the person I became. Have you had similar experiences that may have done the same for you?

I once dated two men with the exact same name. Neither one knew of the other’s existence. They were both of similar size and coloring; near the same age; had similar personalities.  Their last name, Stone, was not all that common where I was living at the time. How did I keep them straight, you say; and how did I keep the other one secret? Good question.

What I do remember is how polite and considerate they both were. I had fun with both of them and went on dates that were not the norm like going to the track and watching stock-car races. I was pretty lucky with betting on the horses. One of the Daves always let me pick the horses because of that fact. One time we had a nice steak dinner with the money we won that day.

I don’t know what happened to those two guys. I lost track of them along the way somehow.

Have you ever run into someone with your exact same name? I have. Twice. Once was in Maine when I was a young woman. I did make contact with her through letters. The other one is living here in Georgia. I found out she has the same doctor that I do. I’ve asked that they ask her if we could meet, but nothing has come of it so far. I always have to make sure I give this particular doctor’s receptionist my birth date, so she’ll pull out the correct chart.

The places I lived; went to school; worked; all had some impact on my future life. I sometimes ask myself what would have happened if I had never met this person or gone to school at a particular time in a particular place.

I ask myself what would have happened if I’d gone to art school instead of Teacher’s College like everyone else wanted me to do. It was all linked to what I would be able to do with the degree I would receive. Art was iffy, Teacher’s College was a guaranteed future job, at least in the 60s. My fate and my life, I believe, was influenced by the practical sense of my Yankee upbringing.

Yet, I didn’t teach that long when all was said and done; only two years. I had another whole career in the printing and publishing business after that. And I did become an artist of a sort, by studying the art of writing along the way and actually becoming a writer in the end.

As I aged, I made my own decisions about how I wanted to live my life. I don’t think I made too many bad decisions except that I wish I had directed my path more towards where I ended up at an earlier age.

I have no regrets though. Otherwise, how would I have met all the wonderful people I came across in my early college education?

If I’m ever asked my philosophy of life I always answer like this: Life is like a supermarket. You have to stand back sometimes to find out what you’re looking for on that shelf in front of you.

Down through the ages, famous scholars and writers and well-known celebrities have given forth with their own philosophy of life. Some tend towards the dark end of things, others are rosier. It comes down to the old adage of “do see your glass half full or half empty?”

Which of these quotes do you generally follow or agree or disagree with?

Life is like walking through Paradise with peas in your shoes.

CHARLES EDWARD JERNINGHAM, The Maxims of Marmaduke

Life is for each man a solitary cell whose walls are mirrors.

EUGENE O'NEILL, Lazarus Laughed

Live on, survive, for the earth gives forth wonders. It may swallow your heart, but the wonders keep on coming. You stand before them bareheaded, shriven. What is expected of you is attention.

SALMAN RUSHDIE, The Ground Beneath Her Feet

Life itself, too, is forever turning an infinitely vacant, dispiriting blank side towards man on which nothing appears, any more than it does on a blank canvas. But no matter how vacant and vain, how dead life may appear to be, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, who knows something, will not be put off so easily.    VINCENT VAN GOGH, letter to Theo van Gogh, Oct. 1884

Brief and powerless is man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark.     BERTRAND RUSSELL, Philosophical Essays

Life is a game. Money is how we keep score.      TED TURNER

Life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by so quick you can hardly catch it going.   TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore

Time

Like a petal in the wind

Flows softly by

As old lives are taken

New ones begin

A continual chain

Which lasts throughout eternity

Every life but a minute in time

But each of equal importance       CINDY CHENEY, "Time"

Life is too short to blend in.   PARIS HILTON

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.

J.M. BARRIE, The Little Minister

We've been told there's a certain way to live ... that this is living ... and we ... we never really questioned it. We just sort of went along. But what if it's not the best way? What if there's another way that's better? What if there's something more?!   WALTER WYKES, The Profession

In the chequered area of human experience the seasons are all mingled as in the golden age: fruit and blossom hang together; in the same moment the sickle is reaping and the seed is sprinkled; one tends the green cluster and another treads the wine-press. Nay, in each of our lives harvest and spring-time are continually one, until Death himself gathers us and sows us anew in his invisible fields.     GEORGE ELIOT, Daniel Deronda

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life — It goes on.

ROBERT FROST, as quoted in William Nichols' A New Treasury of Words to Live By

The secret of the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment of existence is: to live dangerously!   FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, The Joyful Wisdom

Life is hard. After all, it kills you!

KATHARINE HEPBURN, Susan Crimp's Katharine Hepburn Once Said...

You should live everyday like it's your birthday.      PARIS HILTON

Life is what you celebrate. All of it. Even its end.    JOANNE HARRIS, Chocolat

Thanks for listening.