FROM THE UC BERKELEY WELLNESS LETTER, OCTOBER 2009 "We know that science evolves and knowledge grows. The best attitude [when it comes to sorting through conflicting health advice] is a healthy skepticism, along with a determination to stay abreast of things. Other basics: diet matters--it pays to care about what's in the food you eat. Knowledge about healthy living, including screening tests and vaccinations, pays dividends. You need to think twice about dietary supplements and health-related products that come with heavy advertising. Another Wellness constant: our deep belief in regular physical activity. And we value optimism."
Quotes to Ponder
On Living Your Life Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; hate less, love more; and all good things will be yours. --Swedish proverb
On Humor When humor goes, there goes civilization. --Erma Bombeck
On Kindness When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people. --Abraham Joshua Heschel
Write injuries in sand, kindnesses in marble. --French proverb
A pat on the back, though only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, is miles ahead in results. --Bennett Cerf
What Is Your Purpose? "Your purpose is not to fear or frighten. Your purpose is not to control or be controlled. Your purpose is to live, to love, and to experience life in a way that is uniquely yours. Your purpose is to be open to the newness and reality of every moment, giving joy a living expression."
--Ralph Marston
"We get not older with the years, but newer every day." --Emily Dickinson
Poetic Thoughts
Alzheimer's Prayer Please grant my visitors tolerance for my confusion, forgiveness for my irrationality and strength to walk with me into the mists of memory my world has become. Please help them to take my hand and stay awhile even though I seem unaware of their presence. Help them to know how their strength and loving care will drift softly into the days to come just when I need it most. Let them know when I don't recognize them, that I will... Keep their hearts free from sorrow for me, for my sorrow, when it comes, only lasts a moment...then it's gone. Finally, please let them know how very much their visits mean to me, even through this relentless mystery I can feel their love.
Forgetfulness by Billy Collins
The name of the author is the first to go followed obediently by the title, the plot, the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel, which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of,
as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain, to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine muses goodbye and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag, and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps, the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember, it is not poised on the tip of your tongue or even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall
on your own way to oblivion where you will join those who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war. No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.