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"Life Past 50" or "Ron Henion"
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Original observations by Alan Harris
with permission
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Leave the past behind you, but if parts of it get back in front of you, ask them why.
If we only have enough presence of mind to reach out, someone may put just the right thing into our hand.
Businessman's Prayer
God grant me the ingenuity to escape
the things I cannot change,
money to change the things I can,
and lawyers to know the difference.
When an error is made, the stupid blame, the conventional cluck, and the awake learn.
The New Year is like a perfectly clean new house into which we all stagger with good intentions and muddy boots.
We learn so much from some of our mistakes that we keep on repeating them.
To find eternity, lift up the minute.
The main trouble with living as if there's no tomorrow is that there almost always is one.
Undone tasks quickly have children and grandchildren.
We age in years, but we mature in moments.
Knock, then realize you've always been inside.
The silence in an elevator full of strangers is different from that in a forest on a summer evening. The former silence screams of crowded separateness, while the latter whispers of sequestered unity.
Precisely where you're not getting is where you may not be giving.
Kilter is rarely noticed until something goes out of it.
Calendar: a device for scheduling the unpredictable.
For every day that you hang on a cliff, you get a wider view of life.
One person lies, two people conspire, three incorporate.
Rainbows are around us all the time, but it may take a very dark cloud to make one appear.
Even when things are all in place, they're very close to being out of place.
The intelligent are wary of the smart.
Clocks accurately tick while time slips away like a black cat in the night.
Exits from the freeway of truth begin at a small angle.
How can we be sure that infinity is all there?
The light never goes out, but sometimes we need to go in and fetch it.
We spend our first forty years making mistakes, and our next forty years making more mistakes.
A newborn's first thought: "Now what?"
Anyone who likes to compliment finds ready listeners.
You can give more than you have, but you can't take more than there is.
"Smile" is an anagram of "slime"--and also a path through it.
Consequences teach what parents and teachers failed to.
Each person is a jewel polished by trouble.
The wall that protects you also confines you.
Leave the past behind you, but if parts of it get back in front of you, ask them why.
People remember your generosity far longer than your accumulation.
The last word is never the last word.
Since last century, computers have been enabling business offices to proceed much faster from one emergency to the next.
If we only have enough presence of mind to reach out, someone may put just the right thing into our hand.
To find order in chaos, stop looking there
Businessman's Prayer
God grant me the ingenuity to escape
the things I cannot change,
money to change the things I can,
and lawyers to know the difference.
Rumors are disagreeable to many; but then, so is the truth.
This is the first minute of the rest of your hour.
Morning Prayer
Now I wake me up from bed;
I thank the Lord I'm still not dead.
The Lord declined my soul to take
For reasons which remain opaque.
Anything you can get away with, you can't.
At the end of a day, is there one less day in your life or one more day in your life?
The road to hell is littered with the manuscripts of church sermons written late on Saturday.
A thought between two bites of a sandwich can change your destiny.
"I don't mind dying," the old-timer mused, "but I'm sure going to miss myself."
The wealthy feel wise, and the wise feel wealthy.
People you have to interrupt so they can see your side, won't.
Occasionally necessity takes its jackhammer to our expectations to make way for what the chief architect really wants.
When you're down in the dumps, incoming advice becomes excruciatingly abundant.
Ask not whether they'll hire you; ask what good they're doing for folks.
The ability to fly high on life's trapeze doesn't mean one is any good on life's tightrope.
Opposites attract, opposites butt heads, and opposites make up.
When a man's thinking is airtight, his mouth usually leaks.
A house has square feet; a home has footsteps.
A society lady's best snub is no match for that of a summoned house cat.
Anything you hide is perfectly safe until found.
When an error is made, the stupid blame, the conventional cluck, and the awake learn.
Many who will sit inert before a TV all day will also honk in slow traffic.
Everyone contributes to society--some by serving as horrible examples.
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