Minding What Really Matters

Martha Beck shares some deep wisdom in this post, and there's also a wonderful poem from Mary Oliver, whose name keeps coming up over and over in my reading recently.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half perfect?
I will keep my mind on what matters, which is my work,
Which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished…
Which is gratitude,
to have been given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleep dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.