Relax!

Be brave

No one was ever meant to be strong all the time. But be strong anyway. Who cares if the ground is wet or if the leaves are slippery? Run down the path anyway. If you fall, you just need to get back up and keep going.

Jump forward with both feet and a courageous heart. Just be brave.

Cookie greed

Enjoy the cookie, instead of worrying about when you'll get the next one.

With all the unsolicited advice we get on multitasking, and the long list of accomplishments that everyone now attaches to their walking resume (i.e. what defines who people are as opposed to what they are), we are always running, always moving to the next thing, always checking email while waiting in line, always flipping through photos while on a phone call while running on a treadmill while... doing five other things. And then we realize that we've lived through the moment without really living through it. Similarly, some people worry so much about how to make the moment perfect that they forget to actually enjoy it. Or they worry about it never coming again that they forget to experience it the one time it will happen. How silly is it to choose not to experience something because you're worried it will be so great that it would be a shame if it happened just the one time and never again? It's like saying "A magical health pill? Only one left? No thanks, it'll just spoil my greedy, one-life-to-live mind."

Choose to live through the moment -- and really live through it. Forget about the future, and immerse yourself in all the joys and sights and feelings of that moment, then and there. If you choose one moment over the another, enjoy the one you chose instead of feeling guilty or doubtful or resentful or worried about your choice. Choosing not to do this is like letting someone else dictate how you should feel and who you should be. No one has the right to do that, and, even more especially, you have the right to enjoy the moments that are given to you and the moments you choose to take.

Enjoy the time you have instead of complaining about the time you don't.

Be everything (but don't be too much)

"You must be patient as a sick man and confident as a convalescent; for perhaps you are both. And more: you are the doctor too, who has to watch over himself." The point being that you should be everything -- from a leader to a follower, from soup to nuts, from earth to sky -- because no one else will be everything for you.

At the same time, do not try to overdo your doings. "Do not observe yourself too much. Do not draw too hasty conclusions from what happens to you; let it simply happen to you."

From the wise and double-edged musings of Rainer Maria Rilke in "Letters to a Young Poet".

Lit creativity

Creativity comes in many forms. Here it is lit up in the shape of a pumpkin.

Morphisms

It's funny how we personify objects. This is the king of the jungle. We took our highest-ranking human and gave that name to the highest-ranking tree. This tree has been growing for years. It has witnessed years and years of seasons, of people old and new, of moons rising and falling, of plants dying and growing, of rain and sleet and fire. This tree is history personified. Consider the following thought experiment: what if we turn personification on it's head, and take the traits of inanimate objects and apply them to humans?

Still. Stable. Grounded. Mature. All-seeing. These are pretty good examples of things we may want to be called. Weird, how inanimate objects don't objectify humans.

Fun fact: Chremamorphism is the act of applying the traits of objects to people.

Leave your mark...

...wherever you go. Even if it is in the pins-and-magnet toy in a tech museum.

Step foot on a new mountain -- first a real one and then a metaphorical one. Hug someone who looks like they are having a bad day. Try a new recipe with a twist and keep honing it, if you like it, until you reach your own perfection -- one good dish is better than thirty sloppy ones. Bring your own ideas to the table no matter how silly you think they are -- if they are creative no one can fault you for not being brave and at the least it will generate another great idea. Leave your mark, whatever you do.