Podcast: Play in new window | Download (3.6MB)
. . . . .
There is a Swedish Proverb that advises, “Fear less, hope more, eat less, chew more, whine less, breathe more, talk less, say more, hate less, love more, and all good things are yours.” This is all very good advice, but for today, focus on breathing.
Svatmarama, the yogi, instructed, “When the breath wanders the mind also is unsteady. But when the breath is calmed the mind too will be still, and the yogi achieves long life. Therefore, one should learn to control the breath.”
As the famous Anon. pointed out, “A healthy mind has an easy breath.”
If you are doubting, the words of Andrea Boydston tell you all you need to know, “If you woke up breathing, congratulations!{{pause=0.3}}{{pause=0.3}} You have another chance.” Accept the wise counsel of Thich Nhat Hanh, “Smile, breathe and go slowly.” “For breath is life, and if you breathe well you will live long on earth.” (Sanskrit Proverb)
. . . . .
Robert Southey said, “It is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn,” and Baltasar Gracian said, “Good things, when short, are twice as good.” Shakespeare also touted brevity, “Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.
Even Thomas Jefferson joined the keep it short chorus, “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.” No less an authority than William Strunk, Jr. sang along, “A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”
As surprising as it may be, Mozart, himself, warbled along, although he was definitely a dib off key, “My great-grandfather used to say to his wife, my great-grandmother, who in turn told her daughter, my grandmother, who repeated it to her daughter, my mother, who used to remind her daughter, my own sister, that to talk well and eloquently was a very great art, but that an equally great one was to know the right moment to stop.”