Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up

MARRIED OR NOT, YOU SHOULD READ THIS ...

“When I got home that night as my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said, I’ve got something to tell you. She sat down and ate quietly. Again I observed the hurt in her eyes.

Suddenly I didn’t know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking. I want a divorce. I raised the topic calmly. She didn’t seem to be annoyed by my words, instead she asked me softly, why?

I avoided her question. This made her angry. She threw away the chopsticks and shouted at me, you are not a man! That night, we didn’t talk to each other. She was weeping. I knew she wanted to find out what had happened to our marriage. But I could hardly give her a satisfactory answer; she had lost my heart to Jane. I didn’t love her anymore. I just pitied her!

With a deep sense of guilt, I drafted a divorce agreement which stated that she could own our house, our car, and 30% stake of my company. She glanced at it and then tore it into pieces. The woman who had spent ten years of her life with me had become a stranger. I felt sorry for her wasted time, resources and energy but I could not take back what I had said for I loved Jane so dearly. Finally she cried loudly in front of me, which was what I had expected to see. To me her cry was actually a kind of release. The idea of divorce which had obsessed me for several weeks seemed to be firmer and clearer now.

The next day, I came back home very late and found her writing something at the table. I didn’t have supper but went straight to sleep and fell asleep very fast because I was tired after an eventful day with Jane. When I woke up, she was still there at the table writing. I just did not care so I turned over and was asleep again.

In the morning she presented her divorce conditions: she didn’t want anything from me, but needed a month’s notice before the divorce. She requested that in that one month we both struggle to live as normal a life as possible. Her reasons were simple: our son had his exams in a month’s time and she didn’t want to disrupt him with our broken marriage.

This was agreeable to me. But she had something more, she asked me to recall how I had carried her into out bridal room on our wedding day. She requested that every day for the month’s duration I carry her out of our bedroom to the front door ever morning. I thought she was going crazy. Just to make our last days together bearable I accepted her odd request.

I told Jane about my wife’s divorce conditions. . She laughed loudly and thought it was absurd. No matter what tricks she applies, she has to face the divorce, she said scornfully.

My wife and I hadn’t had any body contact since my divorce intention was explicitly expressed. So when I carried her out on the first day, we both appeared clumsy. Our son clapped behind us, daddy is holding mommy in his arms. His words brought me a sense of pain. From the bedroom to the sitting room, then to the door, I walked over ten meters with her in my arms. She closed her eyes and said softly; don’t tell our son about the divorce. I nodded, feeling somewhat upset. I put her down outside the door. She went to wait for the bus to work. I drove alone to the office.

On the second day, both of us acted much more easily. She leaned on my chest. I could smell the fragrance of her blouse. I realized that I hadn’t looked at this woman carefully for a long time. I realized she was not young any more. There were fine wrinkles on her face, her hair was graying! Our marriage had taken its toll on her. For a minute I wondered what I had done to her.

On the fourth day, when I lifted her up, I felt a sense of intimacy returning. This was the woman who had given ten years of her life to me. On the fifth and sixth day, I realized that our sense of intimacy was growing again. I didn’t tell Jane about this. It became easier to carry her as the month slipped by. Perhaps the everyday workout made me stronger.

She was choosing what to wear one morning. She tried on quite a few dresses but could not find a suitable one. Then she sighed, all my dresses have grown bigger. I suddenly realized that she had grown so thin, that was the reason why I could carry her more easily.

Suddenly it hit me… she had buried so much pain and bitterness in her heart. Subconsciously I reached out and touched her head.

Our son came in at the moment and said, Dad, it’s time to carry mom out. To him, seeing his father carrying his mother out had become an essential part of his life. My wife gestured to our son to come closer and hugged him tightly. I turned my face away because I was afraid I might change my mind at this last minute. I then held her in my arms, walking from the bedroom, through the sitting room, to the hallway. Her hand surrounded my neck softly and naturally. I held her body tightly; it was just like our wedding day.

But her much lighter weight made me sad. On the last day, when I held her in my arms I could hardly move a step. Our son had gone to school. I held her tightly and said, I hadn’t noticed that our life lacked intimacy. I drove to office…. jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door. I was afraid any delay would make me change my mind…I walked upstairs. Jane opened the door and I said to her, Sorry, Jane, I do not want the divorce anymore.

She looked at me, astonished, and then touched my forehead. Do you have a fever? She said. I moved her hand off my head. Sorry, Jane, I said, I won’t divorce. My marriage life was boring probably because she and I didn’t value the details of our lives, not because we didn’t love each other anymore. Now I realize that since I carried her into my home on our wedding day I am supposed to hold her until death do us apart. Jane seemed to suddenly wake up. She gave me a loud slap and then slammed the door and burst into tears. I walked downstairs and drove away. At the floral shop on the way, I ordered a bouquet of flowers for my wife. The salesgirl asked me what to write on the card. I smiled and wrote, I’ll carry you out every morning until death do us apart.

That evening I arrived home, flowers in my hands, a smile on my face, I run up stairs, only to find my wife in the bed -dead. My wife had been fighting CANCER for months and I was so busy with Jane to even notice. She knew that she would die soon and she wanted to save me from the whatever negative reaction from our son, in case we push through with the divorce.— At least, in the eyes of our son—- I’m a loving husband….

The small details of your lives are what really matter in a relationship. It is not the mansion, the car, property, the money in the bank. These create an environment conducive for happiness but cannot give happiness in themselves.

So find time to be your spouse’s friend and do those little things for each other that build intimacy. If you are not in a relationship now, remember this for the second (or third) time around. It's never too late.

If you don’t share this, nothing will happen to you.

If you do, you just might save a marriage. Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

More intelligent than Albert Einstein

More intelligent than Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking... the schoolgirl, 11, with an IQ of 162

She is 11 years old and enjoys swimming and playing the recorder. But while Victoria Cowie insists she is just like any other girl her age, in one respect she is very different.
The schoolgirl has just been admitted to Mensa after scoring 162 in an IQ test – better than the 160 thought to have been achieved by Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates.
The result puts her in the top 1 per cent of the British population in terms of intelligence.

Victoria, who has been offered scholarships to four prestigious fee-paying schools, said: ‘When I got the results, I was really surprised.
‘It’s quite daunting to be compared to great minds, but it feels good also to be thought of as that clever.
‘I really enjoy puzzles and working things out and I think I’ll go on to study sciences, especially biology, when I’m older.’
Victoria took the adult admission tests for Mensa, the society for people with a high IQ.

As well as surpassing brilliant scientists and Microsoft founder Mr Gates, her score gives her a higher IQ than Sigmund Freud, who is thought to have had an IQ of 156, Napoleon Bonaparte, with 145, and Hillary Clinton, with 140.
Only those with an IQ of 148 and above – the top 2 per cent of the population – qualify for Mensa. The average IQ is 100.
Victoria, an only child, said she hadn’t yet told her friends about her astonishing results.
She said: ‘I really enjoy science and doing experiments, but I also love acting and dancing and playing musical instruments.
‘I do theatre workshops and loads of sports like swimming and I really enjoy creative subjects.
‘But my favourite subject is biology and I want to be a vet when I’m older because I love animals and I don’t mind blood and things like that.’ Victoria’s parents, who live in Claverley, near Wolverhampton, and run a health and safety consultancy, said they had always known their daughter was bright, but had not quite realised she was at genius level.
Her mother Alison, 44, said she was proud of her daughter. ‘When she was at nursery she had the reading ability of a child twice her age and she won science awards at school,’ Mrs Cowie added.
‘We always knew she was clever – she was always in the top sets and her teachers always praised her – but we never quite thought she’d be in Mensa.

BIG BRAIN: WHO VICTORIA BEATS FOR IQ

    Napoleon - 145
    Stephen Hawking - 160
    Albert Einstein - 160
    Bill Gates - 160
    Sigmund Freud - 156
    Arnold Schwarzenegger - 135
    Madonna - 140
    Quentin Tarantino - 160
    Hillary Clinton - 140
    Bill Clinton - 135
    Nicole Kidman - 132

Winter of My Life

This is so appropriate and meaningful.  We never thought it would happen to us.  Check it out.

AND THEN IT IS WINTER 

I FIRST  STARTED READING THIS EMAIL & WAS READING FAST UNTIL I REACHED THE  THIRD SENTENCE. I STOPPED AND STARTED OVER READING SLOWER AND THINKING  ABOUT EVERY WORD. THIS EMAIL IS VERY THOUGHT PROVOKING. MAKES YOU STOP  AND THINK. READ SLOWLY! 

You know. . .  time has a way of moving quickly and catching you unaware of the passing  years. It seems just yesterday that I was young, just married and  embarking on my new life with my mate. Yet in a way, it seems like eons  ago, and I wonder where all the years went. I know that I lived them  all. I have glimpses of how it was back then and of all my hopes and  dreams.   

But, here it  is... the winter of my life and it catches me by surprise...How did I  get here so fast? Where did the years go and where did my youth go? I  remember well seeing older people through the years and thinking that  those older people were years away from me and that winter was so far  off that I could not fathom it or imagine fully what it would be  like.   

But, here it  is...my friends are retired and getting grey...they move slower and I  see an older person now. Some are in better and some worse shape than  me...but, I see the great change...Not like the ones that I remember who  were young and vibrant...but, like me, their age is beginning to show  and we are now those older folks that we used to see and never thought  we'd be. Each day now, I find that just getting a shower is a real  target for the day! And taking a nap is not a treat anymore... it's  mandatory! Cause if I don't on my own free will... I just fall asleep  where I sit!   

And so...now  I enter into this new season of my life unprepared for all the aches and  pains and the loss of strength and ability to go and do things that I  wish I had done but never did!! But, at least I know, that though the  winter has come, and I'm not sure how long it will last...this I know,  that when it's over on this earth...its over. A new adventure will  begin!   

Yes, I  have regrets. There are things I wish I hadn't done...things I should  have done, but indeed, there are many things I'm happy to have done.  It's all in a lifetime.  So, if  you're not in your winter yet...let me remind you, that it will be here  faster than you think. So, whatever you would like to accomplish in your  life please do it quickly! Don't put things off too long!! Life goes by  quickly. So, do what you can today, as you can never be sure whether  this is your winter or not! You have no promise that you will see all  the seasons of your life...so, live for today and say all the things  that you want your loved ones to remember...and hope that they  appreciate and love you for all the things that you have done for them  in all the years past!!  "Life"  is a gift to you. The way you live your life is your gift to those who  come after. Make it a fantastic one. 

LIVE IT  WELL!    ENJOY  TODAY!    DO SOMETHING  FUN!    BE HAPPY  !    HAVE A GREAT  DAY 

Remember "It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of  gold and silver. 

LIVE  HAPPY IN YOUR LIFE! 

LASTLY,  CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING: 
K

TODAY  IS THE OLDEST YOU'VE EVER BEEN, YET THE YOUNGEST YOU'LL EVER BE SO -  ENJOY THIS DAY WHILE IT LASTS. 

~Your  kids are becoming you......but your grandchildren are perfect!
~Going  out is good.. Coming home is better!
~You  forget names.... But it's OK because other people forgot they even knew  you!!!
~You  realize you're never going to be really good at anything.... especially  golf.
~The  things you used to care to do, you no longer care to do, but you really  do care that you don't care to do them anymore.
~You  sleep better on a lounge chair with the TV blaring than in bed. It's  called "pre-sleep".  ~You  miss the days when everything worked with just an "ON" and "OFF"  switch..
~You  tend to use more 4 letter words ... "what?"..."when?"... ???  ~Now  that you can afford expensive jewelry, it's not safe to wear it  anywhere.
~You  notice everything they sell in stores is "sleeveless"?!!!  ~What  used to be freckles are now liver spots.
~Everybody whispers.
~You  have 3 sizes of clothes in your closet.... 2 of which you will never  wear.
~But  Old is good in some things: Old Songs, Old movies, and best of all, OLD  FRIENDS!! 

Stay  well, "OLD FRIEND!" Send this on to other "Old Friends!" and let them  laugh in AGREEMENT!!!  It's  Not What You Gather, But What You Scatter That Tells What Kind Of Life  You Have Lived.

I Already Told Gold

I told GOD:
Let all my friends be healthy and happy forever...!

GOD said:
But for 4 days only....!

I said:
Yes, let them be a Spring Day, Summer Day, Autumn Day, and Winter Day.

GOD said:
3 days.

I said:
Yes, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.

GOD said:
No, 2 days!

I said:
Yes, a Bright Day (Daytime) and Dark Day (Night-time) .

GOD said:
No, just 1 day!

I said:
Yes!

GOD asked:
Which day?

I said:
Every Day in the living years of all my friends!

GOD laughed, and said:
All your friends will be healthy and happy Every Day!

The Differences Between Men's and Women's Brains

How Men's Brains Are Wired Differently Than Women's

Male brains have more connections within hemispheres to optimize motor skills, whereas female brains are more connected between hemispheres to combine analytical and intuitive thinking.


Brain networks showing significantly increased intra-hemispheric connectivity in males (Upper) and inter-hemispheric connectivity in females (Lower). Intra-hemispheric connections are shown in blue, and inter- hemispheric connections are shownImage: agini Verma et al, University of Pennsylvania

Men aren't from Mars and women aren't from Venus, but their brains really are wired differently, a new study suggests.

The research, which involved imaging the brains of nearly 1,000 adolescents, found that male brains had more connections within hemispheres, whereas female brainswere more connected between hemispheres. The results, which apply to the population as a whole and not individuals, suggest that male brains may be optimized for motor skills, and female brains may be optimized for combining analytical and intuitive thinking.

"On average, men connect front to back [parts of the brain] more strongly than women," whereas "women have stronger connections left to right," said study leader Ragini Verma, an associate professor of radiology at the University of Pennsylvania medical school. But Verma cautioned against making sweeping generalizations about men and women based on the results.

Previous studies have found behavioral differences between men and women. For example, women may have better verbal memory and social cognition, whereas men may have better motor and spatial skills, on average. Brain imaging studies have shown that women have a higher percentage of gray matter, the computational tissue of the brain, while men have a higher percentage of white matter, the connective cables of the brain. But few studies have shown that men's and women's brains areconnected differently.

In the study, researchers scanned the brains of 949 young people ages 8 to 22 (428 males and 521 females), using a form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) known as diffusion tensor imaging, which maps the diffusion of water molecules within brain tissue. The researchers analyzed the participants as a single group, and as three separate groups split up by age.

As a whole, the young men had stronger connections within cerebral hemispheres while the young women had stronger connections between hemispheres, the study, detailed today (Dec. 2) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found. However, the cerebellum, a part of the brain below the cerebrum that plays a role in coordinating muscle movement, showed the opposite pattern, with males having stronger connections between hemispheres.

Roughly speaking, the back of the brain handles perception and the front of the brain handles action; the left hemisphere of the brain is the seat of logical thinking, while the right side of the brain begets intuitive thinking. The findings lend support to the view that males may excel at motor skills, while women may be better at integrating analysis and intuitive thinking.

"It is fascinating that we can see some of functional differences in men and women structurally," Verma told LiveScience. However, the results do not apply to individual men and women, she said. "Every individual could have part of both men and women in them," she said, referring to the connectivity patterns her team observed.

When the researchers compared the young people by age group, they saw the most pronounced brain differences among adolescents (13.4 to 17 years old), suggesting the sexes begin to diverge in the teen years. Males and females showed the greatest differences in inter-hemisphere brain connectivity during this time, with females having more connections between hemispheres primarily in the frontal lobe. These differences got smaller with age, with older females showing more widely distributed connections throughout the brain rather than just in the frontal lobe.

Currently, scientists can't quantify how much an individual has male- or female-like patterns of brain connectivity. Another lingering question is whether the structural differences result in differences in brain function, or whether differences in function result in structural changes.

The findings could also help scientists understand why certain diseases, such as autism, are more prevalent in males, Verma said.

100 Greatest Books OF ALL TIMES

100 Greatest Books OF ALL TIMES by Entertainment weekly

1.   Anna Karenina                     Leo Tolstoy
2.   The Great Gatsby                  F. Scott Fitzgerald    
3.   Pride and Prejudice               Jane Austen
3.   Great Expectations                Charles Dickens
4.   One Hundred Years of Solitude     Gabriel Garcia Marquez    
5.   My Antonia                        Willa Carter
6.   The Harry Potter Series           J.K. Rowling
7.   The Rabbit Quartet                John Updike
8.   Beloved                           Toni Morrison
10.  Charlotte's Web                   E.B. White
11.  Mrs Dalloway                      Virginia Woolf
12.  The Sound and the Fury            William Faulkner
13.  To Kill a Mockingbird             Harper Lee
14.  Crime and Punishment              Fyodor Dostoevsky
15.  Ragtime                           E.L. Doctorow
16.  Jayne Eyre                        Charlotte Bronte
17.  The Road                          Cormac McCarthy
18.  Moby Dick                         Herman Melville
19.  Lolita                            Vladimir Nabokove
20.  Lonesome Dove                     Larry McMurty
21.  American Tragedy                  Theodore Dreiser
22.  Wuthering Heights                 Emily Bronte
23.  The Brothers Karamazov            Fyodor Dostoevsky
24.  A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man   James Joyce
25.  Bleak House                       Charles dickens
26.  Invisible Man                     Ralph Ellison
27.  A Wrinkle in Time                 Madeleine L’Engle
28.  War and Peace                     Leo Tolstoy
29.  The Handmaid’s Tale               Margaret Atwood
31.  Native Son                        Richard Wright
32.  Blindness                         Jose Saramago
32.  The Catcher in the Rye            J.D. Salinger
33.  Maus                              Art Spiegelman
34.  The World According to Garp       John Irving
35.  A Personal Matter                 Kenzaburo Oe
36.  Atlas Shrugged                    Ayn Rand
37.  The Sun Also Rises                Ernest Hemingway
38.  The Regeneration Trilogy          Pat Barker
39.  Middlesex                         Jeffrey Eugenides
40.  Suitable Boy                      Vikram Seth
41.  Go Tell It on The Mountain        James Baldwin
42.  The Stand                         Stephen King
43.  A Confederacy of Dunces           John Kenedy Toole
44.  His Dark Materials                Phillip Pullman
45.  The Color Purple                  Alice Walker
46.  The Age of Innocence              Edith Wharton
47.  The Wind-up Bird Chronicle        Haruki Murakami
48.  The Talented Mr Ripley            Patricia Highsmith
49.  Ender’s Game                      Orson Scott Card
50.  Snow                              Orhan Pamuk
51.  The Corrections                   Jonathan Franzen
52.  Song of Solomon                   Toni Morrison
53.  Gone With The Wind                Margaret Mitchell
54.  Billi Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk   Ben Fountain
55.  A Fine Balance                    Robinson Mistry
56.  Sophie’s Choice                   William Styron
57.  The Children of Men               P.D. James
58.  Midnight’s Children               Salman Rushdie
59.  Dracula                           Bram Stoker
60.  Their Eyes were Watching God      Zora Neale Hurston
61.  Love in The Time of Cholera       Gabriel Garcia Marquez
62.  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn    Mark Twain
63.  Portnoy’s Complaint               Phillip Roth
64.  Infinite Jest                     David Forster Wallace
65.  Herzog                            Saul Bellow
66.  Howard’s End                      E.M. Forster
67.  The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Kay   Michael habon
68.  Middlemarch                       George Elliot
69.  Money                             Martin Amis
70.  Neuromancer                       William Gibson
71.  The Hobbit                        J.R.R. Tolkien
72.  The Remains of the Day            Kazuo Ishiguro
73.  The Spay Who Came From The Cold   John Le Carre
74.  Cold Mountain                     Charles Frazier
75.  Madame Bovary                     Gustave Flaubert
76.  The Golden Notebook               Doris Lessing
77.  Tom Jones                         Henry Fielding
78.  A House for Mr Biswas             V.S. Naipaul
79.  Bring Up the Bodies               Hilary Mantel
80.  Swann’s Way                       Marcel Proust
81.  Frankenstein                      Mary Shelly
82.  Disgrace                          J.M. Coetze
83.  The Stone Diaries                 Carol Shields
84.  Clockers                          Richard Price
85.  Catch-22                          Joseph Heller
86.  A Home at the End Of The World    Michael Cunningham
87.  White Teeth                       Zadie Smith
88.  The Bonfire of Vanities           Tom Wolfe
89.  Tristram Shandy                   Lawrence Sterne
90.  The Heart is a Lonely Hunter      Carson McCullers
91.  The Leopard                       Guiseppe Tomasi di Lampera
92.  The Glass Bead Games              Hermann Hesse
93.  Bastard out of Carolina           Dorothy Allison
94.  The Moonstone                     Wilkie Collins
95.  The Poisonwood Bible              Barbara Kingsolver
96.  If on a winter’s night a Traveler Italo Calvino
97.  The Big Sleep                     Raymond Chandler
98.  Are you there God ? It’s me Margaret   Judy Blume
99.  The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy   Douglas Adams
100. The Joy Luck Club                 Amy Tan.

How we chose our 100 All-Time Greatest Novels

We’ve gotten a landslide of mail about the All-Time Greatest issue, much of it along the following lines:

“Dear Dips–t Editors:

How could could you possibly be so dips—-y?

You put [name of masterpiece] on your Top 100 list even though it fully sucks. I mean, even my 8-year-old sister who drools when she sleeps knows the immense power of its suckage! Yet you totally ignored the awesomeness of [name of something pretty good]. You can explain yourself but I don’t care, and won’t listen, and hate you. Please die. Sincerely, A longtime subscriber”

Well, then. Here’s how we assembled the books list: We sat in a conference room talking about books we loved and admired. Our books editor, Tina Jordan, then made a rough list based on the conversation, and we argued about it endlessly, moved things around endlessly, cut and added things endlessly. This went on for at least six months, during which time we read like fiends. Eventually, this guy named Lou Vogel, who’s in charge of making sure we actually get around to publishing a magazine every week, said, “OK, you absolutely must turn in the final list right this second or I will scream and never stop screaming.”

We never expected our books lists to please everyone. How could you agree with every book on a list like this unless you wrote the list yourself? And even you, whoever you are, like things that not everybody loves. Admit it, you like some pretty weird stuff.

Another reason we’ll all never agree on a list is that we’ll never even agree on the definition of “greatest.” Does it mean the most influential? The most perfect? The most moving? It means some unquantifiable combination of all these things. My daughter thinks The Great Gatsby should have been No. 1 because it’s the most flawless thing ever. My wife thinks The Road should have been number No. 1 because it’s astonishing and it bridges genres — and it isn’t prehistoric, like Anna Karenina. These are good arguments. I love having them because I love talking about books.

When we were down in the trenches arguing over this issue, I lobbied hard for things that ultimately made the list (Blindness, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and Ender’s Game come to mind). But I lost battles too. Everyone here did. Ultimately, though, we stand by the list happily because it’s full of amazing, heart-stopping, heart-changing literature.

Probably you want me to admit to some super-nefarious backroom dealings, so here you go:

Confession No. 1: As our boss, Jess Cagle, said in his editor’s note in the magazine, we didn’t want a handful of authors to dominate the list at the expense of other authors. So there are people like Dickens and Austen who aren’t on the list as often as they could be. By not including six Dickens novels, we made room for a lot of cool voices who wouldn’t have had a chance otherwise. I will state here unequivocally that Austen and Dickens are both really, really good. You should read the novels they have on this list and other ones too.

Confession No. 2: We wanted diversity of every kind on this list. I don’t just mean in terms of the novelist’s gender or race, but also in terms of time period and genre. Our vision of literature is beyond highbrow, middlebrow and lowbrow. Some readers have complained because new books wound up alongside immortal classics. Others have complained that there weren’t ENOUGH new novels.  We wanted a mix that reflected fiction as a continually evolving art form. You can’t please all the people all the time, but it turns out you can annoy a whole bunch of them.

One frequently asked question: Why is Harry Potter so high on the list? Because it’s an amazing coming-of-age story that will be read voraciously 100 years from now. You may disagree. We can talk again in 100 years.

Confession No. 3: Just as staffers advocated for novels they personally loved, they fought against stuff they disliked. I’ll give you an example. Phillip Roth is generally thought to be one of the most gifted novelists of the last 50 years. But here’s the thing: Roth has some extremely vocal detractors on our staff—people who feel that he represents everything that is wrong with everything that is wrong. I personally feel that he  is underrepresented on our list, but then I feel strongly that The Hobbit (on the list) is a better novel than Lord of the Rings (not on the list), which many commenters have said is a ridiculous abomination of an opinion.

OK, enough explaining. The bottom line is that all our All-Time Greatest Lists are meant to be tributes, not trash-talk. You should find some stuff on the list you haven’t read and read it. We’re all reading all your comments and emails to look for suggestions, too. I like the idea that people still feel fiercely enough about novels to get mad.

Live Each Day As If it Were the Last Day of Your Life


As I've aged, I've become kinder to myself, and less critical of myself. I've become my own friend.

God love us all!

I have seen too many dear friends leave this world, too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging.

Whose business is it, if I choose to read, or play, on the computer, until 4 AM, or sleep until noon? I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 50, 60 &70’s, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love, I will.

I will walk the beach, in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves, with abandon, if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set. They, too, will get old.

I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And, I eventually remember the important things.

Sure, over the years, my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break, when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody's beloved pet is hit by a car? But, broken hearts are what give us strength, and understanding, and compassion. A heart never broken, is pristine, and sterile, and will never know the joy of being imperfect.

I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver. As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don't question myself anymore. I've even earned the right to be wrong. So, to answer your question, I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day (if I feel like it).

MAY OUR FRIENDSHIP NEVER COME APART, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT 'S STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART!

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