(no subject)

The one piece of advice I tend to give more than any other is this: you can’t change others, you can only change yourself; you can’t save others, you can only save yourself. On the surface, this seems shockingly selfish – even to me, which is why its advice I have to keep giving as I need to keep hearing it too. However, I have found in a lifetime of trying to take on other people’s burdens that doing so neither lightens their load nor makes my path any clearer. At best, I can be a signpost – giving a little guidance with no expectation that the other person must take it in order to find their way.

Here’s a signpost. Do with it as you will.

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One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

The Journey ~ Mary Oliver