All it takes is imagination and a little silence to make the world a better place.
— Meet the Robinsons (via kari-shma)
Some things don’t last forever, but some things do. Like a good song, or a good book, or a good memory you can take out and unfold in your darkest times, pressing down on the corners and peering in close, hoping you still recognize the person you see there.
— Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby (via quote-book)
Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being.
— Albert Schweitzer (via kari-shma)
What can I tell you? The realization that we are ALL (you, me) going to die and the attending disbelief — isn’t that the central promise of EVERYTHING? It stops me DEAD in my tracks a DOZEN times a day. Do you think I remain FROZEN? NO. I spring into action. I find meaningful distraction.
Posted August 19, 2012 at 8:42am
td 5 boro bike tour
42 miles through the five boroughs of new york city. started in battery park, manhattan. up through financial district, 6th ave. to and through central park to the bronx, west towards queens. went down fdr, onto queensboro bridge at 59th., through long island city in queens. through verrazano bridge to staten island. festival at staten island, then took a ferry which such delays that overall, i arrived back on the upper east side after three hours on the line.
i was 90% going to go out the night before. good thing i realized that coming home at 3am from partying may not be the greatest idea if i was going to do a 42-mi. bike tour at 9am the next morning. i wasn’t sure exactly how “successful” i would be for it, overall. i hadn’t trained at all; unless you count training as peddling a bike on the gym for about half an hour a couple times in the weeks previous. i wasn’t scared of not being able to finish or not performing “well” - at least, not until the night before. i consider myself to be in decently good shape, compared to the average person in new york city anyway.
i rode through most of the tour by myself. i only knew one other person who was biking as well, the person who initially told me about this tour and the lotto. he had done it last year and had a great experience. we tried to meet in battery park at the start of the race, but that didn’t happen. he got there a bit later than he thought he would, and by that time it was too hard to get around crowds, especially being that everyone had a bike in tow.
i met him and his friends (one of who i knew) in the bronx area, the first rest stop. luckily we all started around the same time. my pace was slower than theirs. not surprisingly, because these guys were actual bikers. they own their own bikes, and try to bike every week (one of them every day, even). also, one brought a special camera that he placed on his handlebars which took a photograph every 30 seconds. needless to say, he documented very much.
riding through the car-less city was an amazing experience. it was almost noiseless at some points, through highways and wide avenues and atop bridges, that normally would be heavily clad with honks. it was windy but silent over the queensboro bridge. i could only feel the pant in my chest, my legs cycling and my brain willing myself to go on and my body’s mind vehemently opposing.. the voice inside my head was deafening.
the verrazano was the most difficult path; the intensity of going uphill and for that length of time was a challenge.
the week before the event, i was tempted to back out because i didn’t have a bike. i didn’t want to buy one. i borrowed marilyn’s. trekked back from elmhurst with it; quite a feat.
proud of myself to pursuing and partaking in the lovely challenge.
Posted May 10, 2012 at 10:51am
“What Do I Do with My Life?”
The relevant question in looking at a job is not What will I do? but Who will I become? What belief system will you adopt, and what will take on heightened importance in your life? Because once you’re rooted in a particular system — whether it’s medicine, New York City, Microsoft, or a startup — it’s often agonizingly difficult to unravel yourself from its values, practices, and rewards
If you’re successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and opportunity can lock you in forever.
There’s a powerful transformative effect when you surround yourself with like-minded people. Peer pressure is a great thing when it helps you accomplish your goals instead of distracting you from them.
(Source: Fast Company)
Posted May 10, 2012 at 10:07am
