Month: June 2021

We are in danger of becoming like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland: ‘I’m late, I’m late for a very important date. No time to say “Hello – Goodbye!”’ We find ourselves constantly rushing places, caught up in a whirl of activity, afraid to stand still for a moment … until one day we wake up and find that time has run out like sand through an hourglass. Then, like Richard II, we realise, ‘I wasted Time and now doth Time waste me.’ Suddenly, with a shock, we realise our time is up.  It is because we don’t take time that repeatedly we fail to heed the wisdom that is in our bodies, in our dreams and intuitions. Yet once we do begin to listen then we realise, as in the words of the famous passages from Ecclesiastes, that ‘For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under the sun.’

When I was young we were all taught – either in school or from our parents and grandparents – many proverbs, which are kernels of practical wisdom. Sadly, most of these now belong to the past. But one could take any one of the following and mentally repeat it during the day, as a way of letting its wisdom  penetrate one’s consciousness. 

First in my list is one that I have very much lived by:

‘The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.’

There are countless other such pearls of wisdom.

‘Opportunity didn’t knock until I built a door.’

‘When one door shuts another opens.’

‘Never put off to tomorrow what you can do today.’

‘A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what a ship is for.’

‘As you sow so shall you reap.’

‘If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain.’

‘Don’t judge a book by its cover.’

There are many more. See which appeals to you today!