May 25th, 2016
Published by: Frank Church
A Parkinson’s Reading Companion | Journey with
Parkinson's
The print form (eBook) of the blog "Journey With
Parkinson's" http://journeywithparkinsons.com/ by
Frank C. Church, PhD/FAHA.
A blog for Parkinson's education, research advances,
new treatment strategies, and personal reflection: the
goal is to provide support and information/resources
to anyone with Parkinson’s or other neurodegenerative
disorder. Frank is a medical school and undergraduate
biology educator, biomedical scientist and part-time
golfer. My diagnosis of Parkinson's, combined with my
career in science, allows me the ultimate "teachable
moment".
I have always expected the students to write and express
their thoughts and opinions. Thus, I've used an exercise
called 'thought-filled responses'. For the third thought this
spring semester, they submitted quotes on the following: hope,
courage, journey, persistence, positivity, strength, adversity,
mindfulness, and life. Compiling these quotes has provided
much insight about this class of students; you get an
appreciation of their love of life, their expectation of career,
and their own future dreams.
It is my pleasure to present the collection of quotes entitled
"A Parkinson's Reading Companion". [*NOTE: With the
exception of the 2 opening quotes above, all of the quotes in
Chapters 1-9 were submitted by the students.]
©Copyright Notice: ©Frank Church and
journeywithparkinsons.com/ [2015-present]
Chapter 1: A Parkinson’s
Reading Companion on Hope |
First published 05/10/2016
Preface: A
Companion
Parkinson's
Reading
“You may not control life's circumstances, but getting to be
the author of your life means getting to control what you do
with them.” Atul Gawande*
Chapter 1: A Parkinson's Reading
Companion on Hope
“On every journey you take, you face choices. At every fork
in the road, you make a choice. And it is those decisions that
shape our lives.” Mike DeWine*
“Once you choose hope, anything is possible.”
Christopher Reeve
In thinking about expectations from the undergraduate
students in the class "Biology of Blood Diseases", I begin each
semester with the hope that they will learn something about
science, about life, about life in science, and about science in
life.
“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will
rise.” Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables
Introduction: Last summer, I composed a blog entitled
“Words Worth Living” (to read it click here). The theme of the
post revolved around quotes of inspiration. Joseph Conrad (in
Lord Jim) said “My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by
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May 25th, 2016
the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you
feel–it is, before all, to make you see.”
One of the exercises in my undergraduate course, “Biology
of Blood Diseases”, is something I call “Thought-filled
Responses” (the class also expressed their thoughts about
cancer and HIV/AIDS). For this thought, the 62 students
were asked to submit one quote on five (or more) of the
following: hope, courage, journey, persistence, positivity,
strength, adversity, mindfulness, and life. This exercise had
three goals: to find quotes they could identify with; to help
alleviate the stress of their upcoming final exams; and to
provide me a novel reservoir of quotes for future blogs. My
original idea was to revisit ‘words worth living’ and post several
quotes on the meaning of each word as chosen by the class.
However, a great suggestion from a student was to somehow
include all of their quotes. Thus, I will be posting nine
chapters entitled “A Parkinson’s Reading Companion” with all
the submitted quotes for each word.
This thought-filled response exercise generated a very
favorable review by the class and here are a few of their
comments: “Just wanted to share some of my favorite quotes”;
“I may have gotten carried away but these are some quotes that
I have found inspirational over the years. Thanks for giving us
the opportunity to find quotes to inspire ourselves in a time
filled with lots of stress. I hope these quotes resonate with you
as well.”; “Here are a few quotes that have put a smile on my
face or have kept me going through some tough stretches over
the past few years.”
Published by: Frank Church
“There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and
no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow,”
Orison Swett Marden
“Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts
the shadow of our burden behind us.” Samuel Smiles
“I hope, or I could not live.” HG Well’s The Island of Doctor
Moreau
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite
hope.” Martin Luther King Jr
“Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.”
~Napoleon Bonaparte
“To live without hope is to cease to live” Fyodor Dostoevsky
“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or
exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the
possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment,
and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” Thomas
Merton
“We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming – well,
that’s like saying you can never change your fate.” Amy
Tan, The Hundred Secret Senses
“Learn from yesterday, Live for today and Hope for
tomorrow.” Albert Einstein
“Hope, the only thing stronger than fear” President Snow
“Hope is not a dream, it is a way of making dreams reality.”
L. J. Svenens
Hope in the presence of Parkinson’s: Living with
Parkinson’s requires you to adapt to its subtle but progressive
changes over a long period of time; you need to remain hopeful
for many different things. Hope that your therapy slows the
progression of the disorder. Hope that all of your family,
friends, colleagues (and for me students) continue to support
you throughout your journey. Hope that a cure is but a
day away. Hope that bad moments you may be having will
dissipate quickly and move on to better and happier moments.
May these quotes on hope bolster your strength and resolve to
keep living strong against this unfortunate disorder.
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the
darkness” Desmond Tutu
Hope: I am pleased to present Chapter 1 about hope with
my co-authors: Angle, Hannah; Arthur, Kallie; Artov, Michael;
Bagley, Kendall; Batista, Kayla; Blaylock, Allison; Byrd,
Emory; Cabell, Grant; Catalano, Michael; Clark, Kendall;
Cossaart, Kristen; Culpepper, Houston; Das, Snigdha; Davis,
Eric; Defazio, Stephanie; Doudnikoff, Alex; Dua, Shawn;
Evans, Jessica; Evick, Andrew; Farooque, Tazeen; Ford,
Kelsey; German, Zachary; Gouveia, Katie; Hall, Nikita; Isler,
Victoria; Kirkley, Joel; Koutleva, Elitza; Laudun, Katie;
Le, Kevin; Little, Sarah; Mackey, Josselyn; Macon, Briana;
Maddox, Kaity; Marquino, Grace; Mattox, Daniel; Mcknight,
Kyle; Mcmanus, Brenna; Mcshane, Sarah; Monkiewicz,
Caroline; Nguyen, Michelle; Nguyen, Teresa; Olinger, Emily;
Patel, Darshan; Patel, Dilesh; Patel, Jenny; Perez, Abby;
Peters, Daniel; Quirin, Julia; Rawlins, Shelby; Raynor,
Nathan; Renn, Matt; Scott, Alicia; Sherry, Alex; Shin,
Christine; Stanton, Kate; Story, Charlotte; Swango, Summer;
Szyperski, Caroline; Windley, Taylor; Wooley, Caleb; Xu,
Alice; Yang, Michelle.
“You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not
always be able to solve all of the world’s problems at once
but don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have
because history has shown us that courage can be contagious
and hope can take on a life of its own.” – Michelle Obama
“I know what I have to do now, I’ve got to keep breathing
because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide
could bring?” Tom Hanks in Cast Away
“I loved you at your darkest” Romans 5:8
“God shines through the cracks of broken people.” Anita
Krizzan
“While the heart beats, hope lingers.” Alison Croggon
“Hope is the word which God has written on the brow of every
man” Victor Hugo
“To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means
pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the
unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems
hopeless.” G.K. Chesterton
“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.” Nelson
Mandela
“At the end of the day, all you can hope for is to go on. The
older I get, the more I realize that just keeping on keeping on
is what life’s all about.” Janis Ian
“Hope like an optimist, Prepare like a pessimist, but Act like
a realist.” Unknown
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May 25th, 2016
Published by: Frank Church
“Let your hopes, not your hurts, shape your future.” Robert
H. Schuller
“I have been bent and broken but – I hope – into a better
shape.” Charles Dickens
“We need never be hopeless because we can never be
irreperably broken.” John Green, Looking for Alaska
“Your sadness, your anger will not solve the problem. More
sadness, more frustration only brings more suffering for
yourself, … No matter how tragic the situation, we should not
lose hope.” Dalai Lama
“No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always
possible.” George Chakiris
“Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide
will turn. Harriet Beecher Stowe
“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in
this world: someone to love, something to do, and something
to hope for.” Tom Bodett
“If you keep hope alive, it will keep you alive.” Cassandra
Clare
“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.”
Emily Dickinson
“Yesterday is but a dream,
Tomorrow is only a vision.
But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of
happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope.”
Kālidāsa, The complete works of Kalidasa
“It’s going to be all right, sir,” Harry said over and over again,
more worried by Dumbledore’s silence than he had been by
his weakened voice. “We’re nearly there … I can Apparate us
both back … don’t worry …”
“I am not worried, Harry,” said Dumbledore, his voice a little
stronger despite the freezing water. “I am with you.”
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
“Consult not your fears but your hopes and your
dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but
about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself
not with what you tried and failed in, but with what
it is still possible for you to do” Pope John XIII
Cover
photo
credit:
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iwWOWxF34jM/s1600/Spring%2BBeach%2BWallp
%2Blong%2Bgoodbye%2Bblog.png
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May 25th, 2016
Chapter 2: A Parkinson’s
Reading Companion on Life |
First published 05/11/2016
Published by: Frank Church
Victoria; Kirkley, Joel; Koutleva, Elitza; Laudun, Katie;
Le, Kevin; Little, Sarah; Mackey, Josselyn; Macon, Briana;
Maddox, Kaity; Marquino, Grace; Mattox, Daniel; Mcknight,
Kyle; Mcmanus, Brenna; Mcshane, Sarah; Monkiewicz,
Caroline; Nguyen, Michelle; Nguyen, Teresa; Olinger, Emily;
Patel, Darshan; Patel, Dilesh; Patel, Jenny; Perez, Abby;
Peters, Daniel; Quirin, Julia; Rawlins, Shelby; Raynor,
Nathan; Renn, Matt; Scott, Alicia; Sherry, Alex; Shin,
Christine; Stanton, Kate; Story, Charlotte; Swango, Summer;
Szyperski, Caroline; Windley, Taylor; Wooley, Caleb; Xu,
Alice; Yang, Michelle.
“In the end, just three things matter:
How well we have lived
How well we have loved
How well we have learned to let go.”
Jack Kornfield
“As long as the heart beats, as long as body and soul keep
together, I cannot admit that any creature endowed with a
will has need to despair of life” Jules Verne’s Journey to the
Center of the Earth
“Life’s a dance, you learn as you go. Sometimes you
lead, sometimes you follow. Don’t worry about what
you don’t know, life’s a dance, you learn as you go.”
John Michael Montgomery
“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your
life.” Omar Khayyam
Précis: “Thought-filled Responses” is a part of my
undergraduate course, “Biology of Blood Diseases”; the 62
students were asked to submit a quote on five of the
following: hope, courage, journey, persistence, positivity,
strength, adversity, mindfulness, and life (for further details
click here). This blog post is Chapter 2 including all of the
quotes about ‘life’ submitted by the class (click here to read
Chapter 1: A Parkinson’s Reading Companion on Hope).
Life in the presence of Parkinson’s: Life with Parkinson’s
is somewhat like walking into a strong head wind while
you are maintaining both your equilibrium and pace as you
progress. But then abruptly the wind changes direction, and
your balance is now challenged from a very different angle;
the aggregate wind effect alters your walking cadence and
partly diminishes your confidence. Living with Parkinson’s
is a nuisance although your daily activities can definitely be
performed, and work/career is still very much a viable option.
However, always in the background is a premonition that
your Parkinson’s is progressing (which may or may not be
true). Nevertheless, your life can still be full and fulfilling, very
happy and loving; with constant effort combined with hope
and positivity, you can have a complete life in the presence of
Parkinson’s. May these quotes about life be a reminder that
you are still you even with this unrelenting disorder.
Life: I am pleased to present Chapter 2 about life with my
co-authors: Angle, Hannah; Arthur, Kallie; Artov, Michael;
Bagley, Kendall; Batista, Kayla; Blaylock, Allison; Byrd,
Emory; Cabell, Grant; Catalano, Michael; Clark, Kendall;
Cossaart, Kristen; Culpepper, Houston; Das, Snigdha; Davis,
Eric; Defazio, Stephanie; Doudnikoff, Alex; Dua, Shawn;
Evans, Jessica; Evick, Andrew; Farooque, Tazeen; Ford,
Kelsey; German, Zachary; Gouveia, Katie; Hall, Nikita; Isler,
“The purpose of our lives is to be happy” Dalai Lama
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to
live forever.” Mahatma Gandhi
”To know even one life has breathed easier because you have
lived- that is to have succeeded. ” Ralph Waldo Emerson
”Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air. ” Ralph
Waldo Emerson
“Cancer can take away all of my physical abilities. It cannot
touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart, and it cannot touch
my soul.” Coach Jimmy V
“We should be dreaming. We grew up as kids having dreams,
but now we’re too sophisticated as adults, as a nation. We
stopped dreaming. We should always have dreams.” Herb
Brooks
“We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well
that death will tremble to take us” Charles Bukowski
“All grown-ups were once children… but only few of them
remember it.” Le Petit Prince
“Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless
wants of life, and the labors of life reduce themselves.” Edwin
Way Teale
“Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on
the tip of a leaf.” Rabindranath Tagore
“Life before Death. Strength before Weakness. Journey before
Destination.” Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings
“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your
heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in
their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your
life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to
make your life long and its purpose in the service of your
people.
When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts
are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes
they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives
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May 25th, 2016
over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die
like a hero going home.”
Tecumseh
“Everybody dies, but not everybody lives.” William Wallace,
Braveheart
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who
lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” Mark Twain
Published by: Frank Church
step to the music which he hears however measured or far
off.” Henry David Thoreau
“My only regret is blowing the best day of my life while I’m
so young” Calvin and Hobbes
“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are built
for.” -William G.T. Shedd
“There is no passion to be found in settling for a life that is
less than the one you are capable of living” Nelson Mandela
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though
nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a
miracle.” Albert Einstein
“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die life is a broken-winged
bird, that cannot fly.” Langston Hughes
“Once she stopped rushing through life, she was amazed how
much more life she had time for.”
“When life gets you down do you wanna know what you’ve
gotta do? Just keep swimming!” Finding Nemo
“Life is beautiful. People are complicated. Conversations can
be difficult. Relationships are messy. Suffering is a reality. All
this is true. But the more important truth is that we always
have a choice. We choose how to act, how to speak, how to
react, and what meaning to imbue on it all. It’s that very
agency that gives us the power to change things, whether it
be a conversation, relationship, or the world.” Jamie Shea
“It’s not the length of life, but the depth.” Ralph Waldo
Emerson
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second
best time is now.” Chinese Proverb
“It is better to take many small steps in the right direction
than to make a great leap forward only to stumble
backward.” Louis Sachar
“You
were
never
created
to
live
depressed, defeated, guilty, condemned, ashamed, or
unworthy. You were created to be victorious.” Joel Osteen
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once
in a while, you could miss it.” Ferris Bueller
Dante The Inferno Canto XXVI, lines 118-120.
“Considerate la vostra semenza:
fatti non foste a viver come bruti,
“Never forget, nor dwell on the past.” Kaity Maddox
ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza.”
“I think it’s better to not know certain things. It gives the
world an extra bit of mystery, which is important to us as
human beings.” B.J. Novak
[Consider your origin;
you were not born to live like brutes,
but to follow virtue and knowledge.]
“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived
forwards.” Soren Kierkegaard
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” Oscar Wilde
“There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the
interval.” George Santayana
“If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly
useless manner, you have learned how to live.” Lin Yutang
“There is more to life than increasing it’s speed.” Mahatma
Gandhi
“If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an
anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross,
‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ then surely
we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose
doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as
a means of transportation.” Yann Martel, Life of Pi
“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the
life in your years.” Abraham Lincoln
“One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s
worth watching.”Gerard Way
“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people
or things.” Albert Einstein
“There is no passion to be found playing small, in settling
for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”
Nelson Mandela
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it
is because he hears the beat of a different drummer. Let him
“Man is his own star, and the soul that can
Render an honest, and a perfect man
Commands all light, all influence, all fate,
Nothing to him falls early or too late.
Our acts our Angels are, or good, or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.”
John Fletcher An Honest Man’s Fortune
“Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled—
to cast aside the weight of facts
and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking
into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing—
that the light is everything—that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and falling. And I do.”
Mary Oliver
“Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent
how you respond to it.” Lou Holtz
“I’m going to give you a little advice. There’s a force in the
universe that makes things happen. And all you have to do is
get in touch with it, stop thinking, let things happen, and be
the ball.” Ty Webb, Caddyshack
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May 25th, 2016
Published by: Frank Church
“Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re
gonna get.” Forrest Gump, Forrest Gump
“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what
you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in;
forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day.
You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be
encumbered with your old nonsense.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Life is not a spectator sport. Win, lose or draw, the game is
in progress, whether we want it to be, or not. So, go ahead,
argue with the refs, change the rules… cheat a little, take a
break… and tend to your wounds. But play. Play. Play hard.
Play fast. Play loose and free. Play as if there is no tomorrow.”
Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy.
“Those who follow the rules rarely make history.” Jaya
“Carpe diem.” taken from book 1 of the Roman poet Horace’s
work Odes (23 BC)
“The goal isn’t to live forever. The goal is to create something
that will.” Chuck Palahniuk
”To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist.”
Oscar Wilde
”If it doesn’t nourish your soul, get rid of it.” Anonymous
”Live less out of habit and more out of intent.” Anonymous
“In the end, people don’t view their life as merely
the average of all its moments—which, after all,
is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For
human beings, life is meaningful because it is
a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and
its arc is determined by the significant moments,
the ones where something happens. Measurements
of people’s minute-by-minute levels of pleasure
and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human
existence. A seemingly happy life maybe empty. A
seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great
cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves.”
Atul Gawande
Cover
photo
credit:
http://www.hdwallpapers.in/
cool_beach-wallpapers.html
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May 25th, 2016
Chapter 3: A Parkinson’s
Reading Companion on
Strength | First published
05/13/2016
Published by: Frank Church
Laudun, Katie; Le, Kevin; Little, Sarah; Mackey, Josselyn;
Macon, Briana; Maddox, Kaity; Marquino, Grace; Mattox,
Daniel; Mcknight, Kyle; Mcmanus, Brenna; Mcshane, Sarah;
Monkiewicz, Caroline; Nguyen, Michelle; Nguyen, Teresa;
Olinger, Emily; Patel, Darshan; Patel, Dilesh; Patel, Jenny;
Perez, Abby; Peters, Daniel; Quirin, Julia; Rawlins, Shelby;
Raynor, Nathan; Renn, Matt; Scott, Alicia; Sherry, Alex; Shin,
Christine; Stanton, Kate; Story, Charlotte; Swango, Summer;
Szyperski, Caroline; Windley, Taylor; Wooley, Caleb; Xu,
Alice; Yang, Michelle.
“I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.”
William Ernest Henley
“Fight till the last gasp.” William Shakespeare’s King Henry
VI
“Strength is born in the deep silence of long-suffering hearts;
not amidst joy.” Felicia Hemans
“Strength does not come from winning.
Your
struggles develop your strengths. When you go
through hardships and decide not to surrender, that
is strength.” Arnold Schwarzenegger
“When something bad happens you have three
choices. You can either let it define you, let it destroy
you, or let it strengthen you.” Dr. Seuss
Introduction: The 62 students in my undergraduate course,
“Biology of Blood Diseases”, submitted quotes on five of
the following: hope, courage, journey, persistence, positivity,
strength, adversity, mindfulness, and life (for further details
click here). This blog post is Chapter 3 including all of
their quotes about ‘strength’ (click here to read Chapter 1: A
Parkinson’s Reading Companion on Hope and click here to
read Chapter 2: A Parkinson’s Reading Companion on Life).
“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only
through experience of trial and suffering can the soul
be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”
Helen Keller
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while
loving someone deeply gives you courage.” Lao Tzu
“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes
from an indomitable will.” Mahatma Gandhi
“You must never give in to despair. Allow yourself to slip
down that road and you surrender to your lowest instincts.
In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself.
That is the meaning of inner strength.” Iroh, Avatar the Last
Airbender
“but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not
grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:13
“I have failed over and over again, and that is why I succeed.”
Michael Jordan
Strength and Parkinson’s: To successfully navigate life in
the presence of Parkinson’s requires many different strengths.
This disorder robs you physically of mobility and flexibility,
so maintaining physical strength is really important. This
disorder robs you emotionally and this deficit is bigger than
the physical defects; thus, to thrive with Parkinson’s demands
several character strengths. Last year I wrote about the
‘Personal Strengths of Character’ (click here to read this post);
thinking about the opening quote (“Perhaps I am stronger
than I think.” by Thomas Merton) immediately reinforces
my resolution against Parkinson’s. Likewise, may these new
quotes about strength bolster your ability to constantly resist
this very uncooperative disorder.
“Strength is the capacity to break a Hershey bar into four
pieces with your bare hands – and then eat just one of the
pieces.” Judith Viorst, Love & Guilt & The Meaning Of Life,
Etc
Strength: I am pleased to present Chapter 3 about
strength with my co-authors: Angle, Hannah; Arthur, Kallie;
Artov, Michael; Bagley, Kendall; Batista, Kayla; Blaylock,
Allison; Byrd, Emory; Cabell, Grant; Catalano, Michael;
Clark, Kendall; Cossaart, Kristen; Culpepper, Houston; Das,
Snigdha; Davis, Eric; Defazio, Stephanie; Doudnikoff, Alex;
Dua, Shawn; Evans, Jessica; Evick, Andrew; Farooque,
Tazeen; Ford, Kelsey; German, Zachary; Gouveia, Katie;
Hall, Nikita; Isler, Victoria; Kirkley, Joel; Koutleva, Elitza;
“I will not be shaken” Psalm 16:8
“She stood in the storm and when the wind did not blow her
away, she adjusted her sails.” Elizabeth Edwards
“There’s an end to every storm. Once all the trees have been
uprooted. Once all the houses have been ripped apart. The
wind will hush. The clouds will part. The rain will stop. The
sky will clear in an instant and only then, in those quiet
moments after the storm, do we learn who was strong enough
to survive it.” Grey’s Anatomy
“For what it’s worth: It’s never too late to be whoever you
want to be. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you
find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start
over.” F. Scott Fitzgerald
“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark
of weakness, but of power. They are messengers of
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May 25th, 2016
overwhelming grief and unspeakable love.” Washington
Irving
“I have spent my whole life scared, frightened of things that
could happen, might happen, might not happen, 50-years I
spent like that. Finding myself awake at three in the morning.
But you know what? Ever since my diagnosis, I sleep just fine.
What I came to realize is that fear, that’s the worst of it. That’s
the real enemy. So, get up, get out in the real world and you
kick that bastard as hard you can right in the teeth.” Walter
White from Breaking Bad talking about changes to his life
after his lung cancer diagnosis.
Published by: Frank Church
“It is good to love many things, for therein lies the
true strength, and whosoever loves much performs
much, and can accomplish much, and what is done
in love is well done.” Vincent van Gogh
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“You have power over your mind – not outside events.
Realize this, and you will find strength.” Marcus Aurelius
“Strength and growth come only through continuous effort
and struggle.” Napoleon Hill
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls. The
massive characters are seared with scars.” Khalil Gibran
“I also know how important it is in life to not necessarily be
strong but to feel strong. To measure yourself at least once.”—
Cheryl Strayed, “Wild”
“Going in one more round when you don’t think you can –
that’s what makes all the difference in your life.” Rocky
“If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together… there is
something you must always remember. You are braver than
you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you
think. But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart…
I’ll always be with you.” A.A. Milne
“I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was
doomed. Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell
ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from
the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I
was brave. Nothing could vanquish me.” Cheryl Strayed
“Tough times don’t last, but tough people do, remember?”
Gregory Peck
“Be strong because things will get better. It may be stormy
now, but it never rains forever.” Anonymous
“Your sadness, your anger will not solve the problem. More
sadness, more frustration only brings more suffering for
yourself, … No matter how tragic the situation, we should not
lose hope.” Dalai Lama
“You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and
smarter than you think” Winnie the Pooh
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong
at the broken places.” Ernest Hemingway
“Sacrifice is a part of life. It’s supposed to be. It’s not
something to regret. It’s something to aspire to” The Five
People You Meet in Heaven
“You were given this life because you were strong enough to
live it.” Anonymous
“Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the
strength, move on.” Henry Rollins
“I’ve never met a strong person with an easy past.”
Anonymous
8
May 25th, 2016
Chapter 4: A Parkinson’s
Reading Companion on
Adversity | First published
05/13/2016
Published by: Frank Church
Perez, Abby; Peters, Daniel; Quirin, Julia; Rawlins, Shelby;
Raynor, Nathan; Renn, Matt; Scott, Alicia; Sherry, Alex; Shin,
Christine; Stanton, Kate; Story, Charlotte; Swango, Summer;
Szyperski, Caroline; Windley, Taylor; Wooley, Caleb; Xu,
Alice; Yang, Michelle.
“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play
the hand.” -Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture
“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll
go to it laughing.” -Herman Melville’s Moby Dick
“Success is never so interesting as struggle- not even to the
successful” Willa Cather
“Adversity introduces a man to himself” Albert Einstein
“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be
defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats,
so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how
you can still come out of it.” Maya Angelou
“Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in
adversity.” Aristotle
“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an
extraordinary destiny.” C.S. Lewis
“Opportunities to find deeper powers within
ourselves come when life seems most challenging.”
Joseph Campbell
Précis: The students from my undergraduate course,
“Biology of Blood Diseases”, submitted quotes about
these words: hope, courage, journey, persistence, positivity,
strength, adversity, mindfulness, and life (for further details
click here). This blog post is Chapter 4 including all of their
quotes about ‘adversity’ [click here to read Chapter 1 (hope);
click here to read Chapter 2 (life); click here to read Chapter
3 (strength)].
Adversity and Parkinson’s: Merriam-Webster defines
adversity as a state or instance of serious or continued
difficulty or misfortune; adversity certainly comes with
Parkinson’s. Most people do not have Parkinson’s yet we
typically all have had some kind of adversity in our lives.
How we deal with adversity and how we recover from
adversity can certainly help define our lives. May these quotes
on adversity enable you to withstand the daily annoyances
from Parkinson’s and may they help others in the midst of
adversity.
Adversity: I am pleased to present Chapter 4 about
adversity with my co-authors: Angle, Hannah; Arthur, Kallie;
Artov, Michael; Bagley, Kendall; Batista, Kayla; Blaylock,
Allison; Byrd, Emory; Cabell, Grant; Catalano, Michael;
Clark, Kendall; Cossaart, Kristen; Culpepper, Houston; Das,
Snigdha; Davis, Eric; Defazio, Stephanie; Doudnikoff, Alex;
Dua, Shawn; Evans, Jessica; Evick, Andrew; Farooque,
Tazeen; Ford, Kelsey; German, Zachary; Gouveia, Katie;
Hall, Nikita; Isler, Victoria; Kirkley, Joel; Koutleva, Elitza;
Laudun, Katie; Le, Kevin; Little, Sarah; Mackey, Josselyn;
Macon, Briana; Maddox, Kaity; Marquino, Grace; Mattox,
Daniel; Mcknight, Kyle; Mcmanus, Brenna; Mcshane, Sarah;
Monkiewicz, Caroline; Nguyen, Michelle; Nguyen, Teresa;
Olinger, Emily; Patel, Darshan; Patel, Dilesh; Patel, Jenny;
“If the road is easy, you’re likely going the wrong way.” Terry
Goodkind
“The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and
beautiful of all.” The Emperor Mulan
“ It’s not the load that breaks you down. It’s the way you carry
it.” C.S. Lewis
“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you
as the most beautiful.” Sigmund Freud
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of
overcoming it.” Helen Keller
“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.” Martin Luther
King Jr.
“Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect
light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the
night.” The Old Astronomer and His Pupil by Sarah William
“Life is tough my darling, but so are you.” Stephanie BennettHenry
“Everyone goes through adversity in life, but what matters is
how you learn from it.” Lou Holtz
“Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who
do the things no one can imagine.” “The Imitation Game”
“The pain you feel today is the strength you feel tomorrow.
For every challenge encountered there is opportunity for
growth.” Unknown
“If you live long enough, you’ll make mistakes. But if you
learn from them, you’ll be a better person. It’s how you handle
adversity, not how it affects you. The main thing is never quit,
never quit, never quit.” William J. Clinton
“When written in Chinese, the word “crisis” is composed
of two characters – one represents danger, and the other
represents opportunity.” John Fitzgerald Kennedy
“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy
you can contain.” Kahlil Gibran
9
May 25th, 2016
Published by: Frank Church
“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the
most shocking and inhumane.” Martin Luther King Jr.
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use
to change the world.” Nelson Mandela
“Everyone wants happiness; no one wants pain. But you can’t
make a rainbow without a little rain.” Anonymous
“Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.”
Victor Hugo
“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door” Milton Berle
“Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.” Edgar
Allan Poe
“It’s always darkest before the dawn.” Thomas Fuller
“The next time you face difficulty, or even if you just need a
reminder of who you are, go outside on a clear night, look
up at the stars, and think of how great it is that of all the
places in the universe, you are right where you are. And as
you’re looking up, put your hand on your heart and know
that no one else, *no one*, has your particular purpose or
opportunities.” (from a dear friend, Randy Mullis)
“The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most
beautiful of all.” Mulan
“Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in
prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.” Horace
“Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist,
persists.” Eckhart Tolle
“ Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is
the wisest course.” William Shakespeare
“Adversity is the diamond-dust that the universe uses to
polish its brightest stars.” Thomas Carlyle
“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” Nelson Mandela
“Crying helps me slow down and obsess over the weight of
life’s problems.” Sadness, Inside Out
“The most beautiful people we have known are those
who have known defeat, known suffering, known
struggle, known loss, and have found their way out
of the depths. These persons have an appreciation,
a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills
them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving
concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” –
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
Cover photo credit: http://www.beaconhouseinnb-b.com/wpcontent/uploads/dawn-at-spring-lake-beach-bill-mckim.jpg
10
May 25th, 2016
Published by: Frank Church
Chapter 5: A Parkinson’s
Reading Companion on
Positivity | First published
05/13/2016
”Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times,
if one only remembers to turn on the light.” Albus
Dumbledore from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of
Azkaban
“You can not have a positive life and a negative
mind.” Joyce Meyer
Introduction: In 2015, I posted a blog entitled “Words
Worth Living” (to read it click here). The theme of the post
revolved around quotes of inspiration. One of the exercises
in my undergraduate course, “Biology of Blood Diseases”, is
something called “Thought-filled Responses” (the class also
expressed their thoughts about cancer and HIV/AIDS). For
this thought, the 62 students were asked to submit one quote
on five (or more) of the following: hope, courage, journey,
persistence, positivity, strength, adversity, mindfulness, and
life. What to do with >300 quotes? My original idea was to revisit the above blog and post several quotes on the meaning of
each word as chosen by the class. However, a great suggestion
from a student was to somehow include all of their quotes.
If you have been reading along, this is Chapter 5 (of 9) of
“A Parkinson’s Reading Companion”. This current post is
Chapter 5 including all of their quotes about ‘positivity’ [click
here to read Chapter 1 (hope); click here to read Chapter 2
(life); click here to read Chapter 3 (strength); click here to read
Chapter 4 (adversity)].
Positivity and Parkinson’s: Your life is altered when
given the news that you have a progressive neurodegenerative
disorder like Parkinson’s. An important and constant theme
of this blog is remaining positive throughout the ups and
down of this disorder. There will be moments when you’re
having a difficult time that your mindset turns negative;
however, I believe that’s when you need to be most positive in
dealing with Parkinson’s. Our lives are different now than they
were before Parkinson’s and using positivity will allow us to
creatively handle many obstacles ahead. May these quotes on
positivity reinforce your attitude to stay positive against this
unremorseful disorder.
Positivity: I am pleased to present Chapter 5 about
positivity with my co-authors: Angle, Hannah; Arthur, Kallie;
Artov, Michael; Bagley, Kendall; Batista, Kayla; Blaylock,
Allison; Byrd, Emory; Cabell, Grant; Catalano, Michael;
Clark, Kendall; Cossaart, Kristen; Culpepper, Houston; Das,
Snigdha; Davis, Eric; Defazio, Stephanie; Doudnikoff, Alex;
Dua, Shawn; Evans, Jessica; Evick, Andrew; Farooque,
Tazeen; Ford, Kelsey; German, Zachary; Gouveia, Katie;
Hall, Nikita; Isler, Victoria; Kirkley, Joel; Koutleva, Elitza;
Laudun, Katie; Le, Kevin; Little, Sarah; Mackey, Josselyn;
Macon, Briana; Maddox, Kaity; Marquino, Grace; Mattox,
Daniel; Mcknight, Kyle; Mcmanus, Brenna; Mcshane, Sarah;
Monkiewicz, Caroline; Nguyen, Michelle; Nguyen, Teresa;
Olinger, Emily; Patel, Darshan; Patel, Dilesh; Patel, Jenny;
Perez, Abby; Peters, Daniel; Quirin, Julia; Rawlins, Shelby;
Raynor, Nathan; Renn, Matt; Scott, Alicia; Sherry, Alex; Shin,
Christine; Stanton, Kate; Story, Charlotte; Swango, Summer;
Szyperski, Caroline; Windley, Taylor; Wooley, Caleb; Xu,
Alice; Yang, Michelle.
“You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem,
and smarter than you think.” -Winnie the Pooh
“And I know I can do this because I went to London on my
own, and because I solved the mystery …and I was brave
and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything” -Mark
Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win
or lose.” Lyndon B. Johnson
“Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a
shadow.” Helen Keller
“Talking about our problems is our greatest addiction. Break
the habit. Talk about your joys” Rita Schiano
“If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like
sunbeams and you will always look lovely.” Roald Dahl
“The important thing is not how long you live. It’s what
you accomplish with you life. While I live, I want to shine.
I want to prove that I exist. If I could do something
really important…that would definitely carry on into the
future…And so, if I were to disappear…I think all that I
have accomplished will go on. That is…That would mean…
that it’s living, right?” Grovyle, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon
Explorers of Sky
11
May 25th, 2016
Published by: Frank Church
Success isn’t about what you accomplish in your life, it’s about
what you inspire others to do.”
“So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.” Carl Spackler,
Caddyshack (1980)
“Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony.
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” Albert Einstein
“Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll
start having positive results.” Willie Nelson
“Perhaps this is the moment for which you have been created.”
Esther 4:14
“If you want to be happy, be.” Leo Tolstoy
“Don’t dig up in doubt what you planted in faith.” Elisabeth
Elliot
“This old world we’re livin’ in is might hard to beat. We get a
thorn with every rose but ain’t the roses sweet.” Stanton
“Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn
out the pain.” Joseph Campbell
“Positive anything is better than negative nothing.” Elbert
Hubbard
“If you’re not having fun, you’re doing something wrong.”
Groucho Marx
“The art of living does not consist in preserving and clinging
to a particular mode of happiness, but in allowing happiness
to change its form without being disappointed by the change;
happiness, like a child, must be allowed to grow up.” Charles
L. Morgan
“I think if you just look at life in a positive way, positive things
will happen” Jake Owen
“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be
happy. “Anne Frank
“The ship of my life may or may not be sailing on
calm and amiable seas. The challenging days of my
existence may or may not be bright and promising.
Stormy or sunny days, glorious or lonely nights, I
maintain an attitude of gratitude. If I insist on being
pessimistic, there is always tomorrow. Today I am
blessed.” Maya Angelou
Cover photo credit: http://www.inopictures.com/wpcontent/uploads/2016/01/Beach-At-Sunset-Pics.jpg
Positive-Negative
Sign
credit:
http://
www.leadershipwithsass.com/wp-content/
uploads/2014/03/iStock_000029458050Small-Resize.jpg
and
http://previews.123rf.com/images/lambros/
lambros1105/lambros110500137/9495584-positive-thedictionary-project-macro-shots-shallow-D-O-F–StockPhoto.jpg
“So far from forgetting this blessed place, I think my picture
of it grows clearer every year: It was as close to magic as I’ve
ever been.” Thomas Wolfe, UNC alum
“Every day may not be good, but there is something good in
every day.” Alice Morse Earle
“In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a
positive vision.” Dalai Lama
“It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to
be.” from the Harry Potter books
“Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one
alive who is you-er than you!” Dr. Seuss
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their
own dreams.” Eleanor Roosevelt
“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of
enthusiasm.” Winston Churchhill
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who
mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind” Dr.
Seuss
“Always turn a negative situation into a positive situation.”
Michael Jordan
“I believe in the person I want to become.” Lana Del Rey
“Whatever comes today, look it in the eye, take a deep breath,
and say to yourself “I got this”. Don’t let anything get the
better of you until you’ve given it the best of you.” (from a dear
friend, Randy Mullis)
“I am and always will be the optimist, the hoper of far-flung
hopes and the dreamer of improbable dreams.” The Doctor
(11th Doctor) from “Doctor Who”
12
May 25th, 2016
Chapter 6: A Parkinson’s
Reading Companion on
Courage | First published
05/16/2016
Published by: Frank Church
Daniel; Mcknight, Kyle; Mcmanus, Brenna; Mcshane, Sarah;
Monkiewicz, Caroline; Nguyen, Michelle; Nguyen, Teresa;
Olinger, Emily; Patel, Darshan; Patel, Dilesh; Patel, Jenny;
Perez, Abby; Peters, Daniel; Quirin, Julia; Rawlins, Shelby;
Raynor, Nathan; Renn, Matt; Scott, Alicia; Sherry, Alex; Shin,
Christine; Stanton, Kate; Story, Charlotte; Swango, Summer;
Szyperski, Caroline; Windley, Taylor; Wooley, Caleb; Xu,
Alice; Yang, Michelle.
“The sun himself is weak when he first rises, and
gathers strength and courage as the day gets on” Charles
Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop
”Great things never came from comfort zones.” Anonymous
”I always wonder why birds stay in the same place when they
can fly anywhere on the earth. Then I ask myself the same
question.” Harun Yahya
“Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. It’s courage that
counts.” John Wooden
“Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.” Winston Churchill
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is
the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try
again tomorrow.” Mary Anne Radmacher
“With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength
to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage
is the foundation of integrity.” Mark Twain
“We can judge our progress by the courage of
our questions and the depth of our answers, our
willingness to embrace what is true rather than
what feels good.” Carl Sagan
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while
loving someone deeply gives you courage.” Lao Tzu
Précis: “Thought-filled Responses” is a part of my
undergraduate course, “Biology of Blood Diseases”; students
submitted quotes on (five or more) hope, courage, journey,
persistence, positivity, strength, adversity, mindfulness, and
life (for further details click here). This current post is Chapter
6 including all of their quotes about ‘courage’ [click here to
read Chapter 1 (hope); click here to read Chapter 2 (life); click
here to read Chapter 3 (strength); click here to read Chapter 4
(adversity); click here to read Chapter 5 (positivity)].
Courage in the presence of Parkinson’s: Living with
Parkinson’s takes courage because your enemy is within you,
and you always feel its presence. Thus, your hourly-daily-effort
to live-fully is a measure of your courage. Your courage is
shown by your effort to keep working, by your attempt to
exercise, and by doing all the things you loved to do before
the diagnosis (these are but a few of the many courageous acts
you do everyday); this is all very consistent with the words
of Brené Brown “Courage is to tell the story of who you are
with your whole heart.” May these quotes about courage offer
you encouragement to continue to confront this unforgiving
disorder named Parkinson’s.
Courage: I am pleased to present Chapter 6 about
courage with my co-authors: Angle, Hannah; Arthur, Kallie;
Artov, Michael; Bagley, Kendall; Batista, Kayla; Blaylock,
Allison; Byrd, Emory; Cabell, Grant; Catalano, Michael;
Clark, Kendall; Cossaart, Kristen; Culpepper, Houston; Das,
Snigdha; Davis, Eric; Defazio, Stephanie; Doudnikoff, Alex;
Dua, Shawn; Evans, Jessica; Evick, Andrew; Farooque,
Tazeen; Ford, Kelsey; German, Zachary; Gouveia, Katie;
Hall, Nikita; Isler, Victoria; Kirkley, Joel; Koutleva, Elitza;
Laudun, Katie; Le, Kevin; Little, Sarah; Mackey, Josselyn;
Macon, Briana; Maddox, Kaity; Marquino, Grace; Mattox,
“No one has ever had the opportunity to be brave without first
being afraid.” Unknown
“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting
the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s
when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin
anyway and see it through no matter what.” Harper Lee, To
Kill a Mockingbird
“A sword wields no strength unless the hand that holds it has
courage.” Hero’s Shade
“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to
lose sight of the shore.” William Faulkner
“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because
without courage, you cannot practice any other virtue
consistently” Maya Angelou
“Courage, dear heart.” C.S. Lewis
“Therefore, do no worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will
worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
Matthew 6:34
“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”
Galileo
“At the end of the day, the fact that we have the courage to still
be standing is reason enough to celebrate.” Grey’s Anatomy
“Today if you become frightened, instead become inspired.”
Grey’s Anatomy
“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to
lose sight of the shore.” William Faulkner
“I’ve reached the point in my life where my brain switched
from ‘you probably shouldn’t do that’ to ‘what the hell, let’s
see what happens’.”
13
May 25th, 2016
Published by: Frank Church
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out
how far one can go” T.S. Eliot
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every
experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.
You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I
can take the next thing that comes along.” Eleanor Roosevelt
“The greatest battle is not physical but psychological. The
demons telling us to give up when we push ourselves to the
limit can never be silenced for good. They must always be
answered by the quiet, the steady dignity that simply refuses
to give in. Courage. We all suffer. Keep going.” Graeme Fife
“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is
also what it takes to sit down and listen.” Winston Churchill
“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt
anything” Vincent Van Gogh
“Don’t ever let somebody tell you you can’t do something, not
even me. Alright? You dream, you gotta protect it. People
can’t do something themselves, they wanna tell you you can’t
do it. If you want something, go get it. Period.” Chris Gardner
from The Pursuit of Happyness
“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because
without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue
consistently.” Maya Angelou
“It’s better to cross the line and suffer the consequences than
to just stare at the line for the rest of your life.”
“Take into account that great love and great achievements
involve great risk.” Dalai Lama
“Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment
that something is more important than fear; the brave may
not live forever but the cautious do not live at all.” Meg Cabot
“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage
to lose sight of the shore.” Andre Gide
“Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because
without courage you can’t practice any other virtue
consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but
nothing consistently without courage.” Maya Angelou
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the
triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel
afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” Nelson Mandela
“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies,
but just as much to stand up to our friends.” Albus
Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
“You go on by doing the best you can. You go on by
being generous. You go on by being true. you go on
by offering comfort to others who can’t go on. You
go on by allowing the unbearable days to pass and
by allowing the pleasure in other days. You go on by
finding a channel for your love and another for your
rage.” Cheryl Strayed
Cover photo credit: http://www.judithsfreshlook.com/wpcontent/uploads/2012/07/untitled-4213.jpg
14
May 25th, 2016
Chapter 7: A Parkinson’s
Reading Companion on
Persistence | First published
05/18/2016
Published by: Frank Church
Farooque, Tazeen; Ford, Kelsey; German, Zachary; Gouveia,
Katie; Hall, Nikita; Isler, Victoria; Kirkley, Joel; Koutleva,
Elitza; Laudun, Katie; Le, Kevin; Little, Sarah; Mackey,
Josselyn; Macon, Briana; Maddox, Kaity; Marquino, Grace;
Mattox, Daniel; Mcknight, Kyle; Mcmanus, Brenna; Mcshane,
Sarah; Monkiewicz, Caroline; Nguyen, Michelle; Nguyen,
Teresa; Olinger, Emily; Patel, Darshan; Patel, Dilesh; Patel,
Jenny; Perez, Abby; Peters, Daniel; Quirin, Julia; Rawlins,
Shelby; Raynor, Nathan; Renn, Matt; Scott, Alicia; Sherry,
Alex; Shin, Christine; Stanton, Kate; Story, Charlotte; Swango,
Summer; Szyperski, Caroline; Windley, Taylor; Wooley,
Caleb; Xu, Alice; Yang, Michelle.
“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are
not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us
a chance to show how badly we want something. ” Randy
Pausch, The Last Lecture
“It is better to take many small steps in the right
direction than to make a great leap forward only to
stumble backward.” Louis Sachar
“We are human. We are not perfect. We are alive.
We try things. We make mistakes. We stumble. We
fall. We get hurt. We rise again. We try again.
We keep learning. We keep growing. And we are
thankful for this priceless opportunity called life.”
Ritu Ghatourey
Introduction: The 62 students in my undergraduate course,
“Biology of Blood Diseases”, submitted quotes on five of
the following: hope, courage, journey, persistence, positivity,
strength, adversity, mindfulness, and life (for further details
click here). This blog post is Chapter 7 including all of their
quotes about ‘persistence’ [click here to read Chapter 1 (hope);
click here to read Chapter 2 (life); click here to read Chapter 3
(strength); click here to read Chapter 4 (adversity); click here
to read Chapter 5 (positivity); click here to read Chapter 6
(courage)].
Persistence and Parkinson’s: Persistence is continuing
to try, an effect that continues even after the cause has
been removed or something that sticks around for a long
time (http://www.yourdictionary.com/persistence). To me
another way of saying this is that persistence is steadfastness.
I spend a lot of time staying hopeful and being positive in
dealing with this disorder. Yet perhaps the best trait to have is
to remain persistent. When you have an incurable progressive
neurodegenerative disorder, your effort needs to be constant
and unwavering. Your persistence in dealing with this minuteby-minute really will make a difference. May these quotes
about persistence reinforce your will and effort to deal daily
with this unrepentant disorder named Parkinson’s
Persistence: I am pleased to present Chapter 7 about
persistence with my co-authors: Angle, Hannah; Arthur,
Kallie; Artov, Michael; Bagley, Kendall; Batista, Kayla;
Blaylock, Allison; Byrd, Emory; Cabell, Grant; Catalano,
Michael; Clark, Kendall; Cossaart, Kristen; Culpepper,
Houston; Das, Snigdha; Davis, Eric; Defazio, Stephanie;
Doudnikoff, Alex; Dua, Shawn; Evans, Jessica; Evick, Andrew;
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the
unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to
himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable
man.” George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman
“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day,
or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else
will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts for a lifetime.”
From Lance Armstrong on his fight against cancer
”It always seems impossible until it’s done. ” Nelson Mandela
”A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor. ” Franklin D.
Roosevelt
“Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. It’s courage that
counts.” John Wooden
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain
way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” Thomas
Edison
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful
men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is
almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of
educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are
omnipotent.” Calvin Coolidge
“A failure is not always a mistake. It may simply be the best
one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to
stop trying.” B. F. Skinner
“Failure is only postponed success as long as courage
‘coaches’ ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of
victory.” Herbert Kaufman
” The master has failed more times than the beginner has even
tried.” Stephen McCranie
“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall,
don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go
through it, or work around it.” Michael Jordan
“The best way out is always through.” Robert Frost
“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of
enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill
15
May 25th, 2016
Published by: Frank Church
“Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It
takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes
a willingness to try.” Atul Gawande
educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are
omnipotent.” Calvin Coolidge
“Promise me you will not spend so much time treading water
and trying to keep your head above the waves that you forget,
truly forget, how much you have always loved to swim.” Tyler
Knott Gregson
Agent Smith: “Why, Mr. Anderson? Why, why? Why do
you do it? Why, why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you
believe you’re fighting… for something? For more than your
survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is
it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Could it be for love?
Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. Temporary
constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to
justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And
all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although… only a
human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You
must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson. You must know it by
now. You can’t win. It’s pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mr.
Anderson? Why? Why do you persist?”
Neo: “Because I choose to.” From the movie Matrix
Revolutions
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost
almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the
game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and
over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Michael
Jordan
“Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before
which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.” John
Quincy Adams
“At first they’ll ask you why you’re doing it. Later they’ll ask
you how you did it.” Anonymous
“A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what
seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.” Elbert
Hubbard
“The best view comes after the hardest climb.” Unknown
“The phoenix must burn to emerge.” Janet Fitch
“When you find yourself feeling down, just think about how
far you’ve come, all the obstacles you’ve managed to get over.
You didn’t make it this far to quit now.” (from a dear friend,
John Lian)
“The quality of a persons life is in direct proportion to their
commitment to excellence regardless of their chosen field of
endeavor” Vince Lombardi
“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you
can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep
moving forward.” Martin Luther King Jr.
“It gets easier, everyday gets a little easier. But you got to do it
everyday, that’s the hard part, but it does get easier” BoJack
Horseman (Season 2)
“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems
longer.” Albert Einstein
“Patience, persistence, and perspiration make an unbeatable
combination for success.” Napoleon Hill
“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be
defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats,
so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how
you can still come out of it.” Maya Angelou
“Perfer et obdura, dolor hic tibi proderit olim.” (Be patient
and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you.) Ovid (I
saw this on The Walking Dead)
“The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then
coming back. That’s real glory. That’s the essence of it.” Vince
Lombardi
“The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your
full potential… these are the keys that will unlock the door to
personal excellence.” Confucius
“Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It
takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes
a willingness to try.” Atul Gawande
“Every man at some point in his life is going to lose a battle.
He’s going to fight and he is going to lose. But what makes him
a man is, at the midst of that battle, he does not lose himself”
Friday Night Lights
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful
men with talent. Genius will not: unrewarded genius is
almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of
“The most essential factor is persistence- the determination
never to allow your energy or enthusiasm to be dampened
by the discouragement that must inevitably come.” James
Whitcomb Riley
“If plan A doesn’t work, the alphabet has 25 more letters –
204 if you’re in Japan.” Claire Cook
“A river cuts through rock, not because of its power, but
because of its persistence.” Jim Watkins
“That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that
the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do
has increased.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not
stop.” Confucius
This one is one of my favorites. I accidentally messed
up a Michael Jordan quote in attempts to rally my
softball team to fight back and win a crucial game,
but I think this one is really cool… So after Michael
Jordan and the Bulls had gone 7 games with the
Pacers to head to the NBA finals to face a well rested
Utah Jazz. After they just won the game MJ was
interviewed. The reporter basically said something
to the effect of people are saying that you are all
fatigued. MJ’s reply was great. He said “Our hearts
are not fatigued. That’s the most important thing.”
My take on the quote was more like this… Our bodies
are tired, but our hearts are not…so I was kind of
close, and it worked for the Bulls to persist and win
the finals, and it did the same for my team. I think it’s
a pretty awesome quote.
16
May 25th, 2016
Published by: Frank Church
Cover
photo
credit:
https://
marisageraghty.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/race-pointbeach-entrance-path.jpg
17
May 25th, 2016
Chapter 8: A Parkinson’s
Reading Companion on
Mindfulness | First published
05/22/2016
“The moment one gives close attention to
anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a
mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent
world in itself.” Henry Miller
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry,
but why on earth should that mean that it is not
real?” Dumbledore in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter
and the Deathly Hallows
Précis: The students from my undergraduate course,
“Biology of Blood Diseases”, submitted quotes about
these words: hope, courage, journey, persistence, positivity,
strength, adversity, mindfulness, and life (for further details
click here). This blog post is Chapter 8 including all of
their quotes about ‘mindfulness’ [click here to read Chapter
1 (hope); click here to read Chapter 2 (life); click here to
read Chapter 3 (strength); click here to read Chapter 4
(adversity); click here to read Chapter 5 (positivity); click here
to read Chapter 6 (courage); click here to read Chapter 7
(persistence)].
Mindfulness and Parkinson’s: Recently, I described
mindfulness (click here to read post): “The simplest view
of mindfulness is to be aware of what is happening right
now, unable to change this time but to embrace the current
moment. Much of our lives are led at a pace where we fret
for the future, remorseful of the past, and frequently, we are
oblivious to the current moment.” Life with Parkinson’s is best
lived in the current moment without dwelling on the past and
dreading the future. To my thinking, this comment by Michael
J. Fox is a nice description of mindfulness in the presence of
Parkinson’s where he embraces (accepts) the current moment,
“There’s an idea I came across a few years ago that I love. My
happiness grows in direct proportion [to] my acceptance and
in inverse proportion to my expectations. That’s the key for
me. If I can accept the truth of ‘This is what I’m facing — not
what can I expect but what I am experiencing now’ — then
I have all this freedom to do other things.” May these quotes
on mindfulness allow you to focus on what’s happening right
Published by: Frank Church
now, and they remind you to be mindful and thankful for what
you have today.
Mindfulness: I am pleased to present Chapter 8 about
mindfulness with my co-authors: Angle, Hannah; Arthur,
Kallie; Artov, Michael; Bagley, Kendall; Batista, Kayla;
Blaylock, Allison; Byrd, Emory; Cabell, Grant; Catalano,
Michael; Clark, Kendall; Cossaart, Kristen; Culpepper,
Houston; Das, Snigdha; Davis, Eric; Defazio, Stephanie;
Doudnikoff, Alex; Dua, Shawn; Evans, Jessica; Evick, Andrew;
Farooque, Tazeen; Ford, Kelsey; German, Zachary; Gouveia,
Katie; Hall, Nikita; Isler, Victoria; Kirkley, Joel; Koutleva,
Elitza; Laudun, Katie; Le, Kevin; Little, Sarah; Mackey,
Josselyn; Macon, Briana; Maddox, Kaity; Marquino, Grace;
Mattox, Daniel; Mcknight, Kyle; Mcmanus, Brenna; Mcshane,
Sarah; Monkiewicz, Caroline; Nguyen, Michelle; Nguyen,
Teresa; Olinger, Emily; Patel, Darshan; Patel, Dilesh; Patel,
Jenny; Perez, Abby; Peters, Daniel; Quirin, Julia; Rawlins,
Shelby; Raynor, Nathan; Renn, Matt; Scott, Alicia; Sherry,
Alex; Shin, Christine; Stanton, Kate; Story, Charlotte; Swango,
Summer; Szyperski, Caroline; Windley, Taylor; Wooley,
Caleb; Xu, Alice; Yang, Michelle.
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though
nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a
miracle.” Albert Einstein
“A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all
the difference.” Eeyore (Winnie the Pooh)
“To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an
hour.” William Blake
“Mind is a flexible mirror, adjust it, to see a better
world.”Amit Ray
“You are confined only by the walls you build yourself.”
Andrew Murphy
“Life is a dance. Mindfulness is witnessing that dance.” Amit
Ray
“Stop, breathe, look around
and embrace the miracle of each day,
the miracle of life.”
Jeffrey A. White
18
May 25th, 2016
Published by: Frank Church
“So often, we become focused on the finish line that we fail to
enjoy the journey.” Dieter F. Uchtdorf
“There is plenty of time, but each moment counts.” Billy
Graham
“How to stop time: kiss. How to travel in time: read. How to
escape time: music. How to feel time: write. How to release
time: breathe.” Matt Haig
“For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty
seconds of peace of mind.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Science and mindfulness complement each other in helping
people to eat well and maintain their health and well-being.”
Nhat Hanh
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your
own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world
can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were
made for another world.” C.S. Lewis
“Nothing is more important than empathy for another
human being’s suffering. Not a career. Not wealth. Not
intelligence. Certainly not status. We have to feel for one
another if we’re going to survive with dignity.” Audrey
Hepburn
“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you
are attentive, you will see it.” Thich Nhat Hanh
“The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that
they can be great in whatever they want to do.” Kobe Bryant
“Make sure your worst enemy isn’t living between your own
two ears.” Laird Hamilton
“Be gentle with yourself; you’re doing the best you can.”
Unknown
“We’re all a little crazy. Some just hide it better than others.”
Kermit the Frog
“We have no right to ask when a sorrow comes, ‘why did this
happen to me?’ unless we ask the same question for every joy
that comes our way.” Anonymous
“When things are going well, be mindful of adversity.
When prosperous, be mindful of poverty.
When loved, be mindful of thoughtfulness.
When respected, be mindful of humility.”
Buddha
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is
going to get better, it’s not.” Dr. Seuss, The Lorax
“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with
stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are
incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“Mindfulness is simply being aware of what is
happening right now without wishing it were
different; enjoying the pleasant without holding on
when it changes (which it will); being with the
unpleasant without fearing it will always be this
way (which it won’t).” James Baraz
Cover photo credit: http://www.wallpapers13.com/wpcontent/uploads/2016/01/Coast-beach-spring-flowers-HDwallpaper.jpg
Mindfulness images: http://ritaharvey.counselling.co.uk/
_sitedata/1398682330%206ZngCeReO/today.png; http://
rootedreveries.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/
Mindfulness-quote.jpg; http://www.verybestquotes.com/wpcontent/uploads/2013/01/Mindfulness-quotes-acceptancejoy-peace-and-love.-Thich-Nhat-Hanh-Quotes.jpg;
http://
static.oprah.com/images/201204/orig/quotes-thich-nhathanh-06-600×411.jpg.
“Do not ruin today with mourning tomorrow.” Catherynne
M. Valente
“Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.” Bob Dylan
“Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but
around in awareness.” James Thurber
“Quiet people have the loudest minds.” Stephen King
“The key to creating the mental space before responding
is mindfulness. Mindfulness is a way of being present:
paying attention to and accepting what is happening in
our lives. It helps us to be aware of and step away from
our automatic and habitual reactions to our everyday
experiences.” Elizabeth Thornton
“Be happy in the moment, that’s enough. Each moment is all
we need, not more.” Mother Teresa
“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open.”
Frank Zappa
“Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present
experience. It isn’t more complicated than that. It is opening
to or receiving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant,
just as it is, without either clinging to it or rejecting it.” Sylvia
Boorstein
19
May 25th, 2016
Chapter 9: A Parkinson’s
Reading Companion on
Journey | First published
05/24/2016
Published by: Frank Church
Snigdha; Davis, Eric; Defazio, Stephanie; Doudnikoff, Alex;
Dua, Shawn; Evans, Jessica; Evick, Andrew; Farooque,
Tazeen; Ford, Kelsey; German, Zachary; Gouveia, Katie;
Hall, Nikita; Isler, Victoria; Kirkley, Joel; Koutleva, Elitza;
Laudun, Katie; Le, Kevin; Little, Sarah; Mackey, Josselyn;
Macon, Briana; Maddox, Kaity; Marquino, Grace; Mattox,
Daniel; Mcknight, Kyle; Mcmanus, Brenna; Mcshane, Sarah;
Monkiewicz, Caroline; Nguyen, Michelle; Nguyen, Teresa;
Olinger, Emily; Patel, Darshan; Patel, Dilesh; Patel, Jenny;
Perez, Abby; Peters, Daniel; Quirin, Julia; Rawlins, Shelby;
Raynor, Nathan; Renn, Matt; Scott, Alicia; Sherry, Alex; Shin,
Christine; Stanton, Kate; Story, Charlotte; Swango, Summer;
Szyperski, Caroline; Windley, Taylor; Wooley, Caleb; Xu,
Alice; Yang, Michelle.
“And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you
dance.” Lee Ann Womack
“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my
sails to always reach my destination.” Jimmy Dean
“Accept what comes. In fact, be grateful for it. Be
the one who sees opportunity in any circumstance,
the one who doesn’t blink when looking into fate’s
eyes.” (from a dear friend of a classmate, Carolyn
Huang)
“It matters not what someone is born, but what they
grow to be” J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the
Goblet of Fire
Précis: “Thought-filled Responses” is a part of my
undergraduate course, “Biology of Blood Diseases”; students
submitted quotes on (five or more) hope, courage, journey,
persistence, positivity, strength, adversity, mindfulness, and
life (for further details click here). The current post is Chapter
9 including all of their quotes about ‘journey’ [click here to
read Chapter 1 (hope); click here to read Chapter 2 (life); click
here to read Chapter 3 (strength); click here to read Chapter
4 (adversity); click here to read Chapter 5 (positivity); click
here to read Chapter 6 (courage); click here to read Chapter 7
(persistence); click here to read Chapter 8 (mindfulness)].
The Journey With Parkinson’s: There is no doubt that
we are all on a journey with life, with differing destinations
and widely varied paths. When I think about living with
Parkinson’s, I feel it’s somewhat analogous to white water
rafting (e.g., rafting the New or Lower Gauley Rivers in West
Virginia): sometimes you’re paddling fiercely without going
forward; yet a few minutes later you are not paddling and you
can relax and enjoy the view; and then your team is paddling
in sync as you progress down the river through its many
changing rapids. The obstacles of this disorder are always
present and our journey will be a challenge. The journey with
Parkinson’s requires effort, teamwork, awareness, and a heartfilled attitude to keep going. May these quotes on journey
inspire you to live-positively as you strive for wellness in the
presence of Parkinson’s .
Journey:
I am pleased to present Chapter 9 about
journey with my co-authors: Angle, Hannah; Arthur, Kallie;
Artov, Michael; Bagley, Kendall; Batista, Kayla; Blaylock,
Allison; Byrd, Emory; Cabell, Grant; Catalano, Michael;
Clark, Kendall; Cossaart, Kristen; Culpepper, Houston; Das,
“Never let your memories be greater than your dreams.”
Doug Ivester
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service
of others.” Mahatma Gandhi
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” George
Eliot
“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the
changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” Maya
Angelou
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given
to us.” J.R.R. Tolkien
”Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not;
but remember that what you now have was once among the
things you only hoped for.” Epicurus
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” Lao
Tzu
“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional” John Maxwell
“Little by little, one travels far.” J.R. Tolkien
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where
there is no path and leave a trail. Only those who will risk
going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” T.S.
(Thomas Stearns) Eliot
“Every man dies, not every man truly lives.” William Wallace
“Life is a journey to be experienced, not a problem to be
solved.” Winnie the Pooh
“Anything in life worth doing is worth overdoing, moderation
is for cowards.” -Ballad of the frogman (Navy SEALs thing)
“Life is a journey, not a destination.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.
“You take people, you put them on a journey, you give them
peril, you find out who they really are.” Joss Whedon
“Let our hearts and hands be stretched out in compassion
toward others, for everyone is walking his or her own difficult
path.” Dieter F Uchtdorf
“There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”
C.S. Lewis
20
May 25th, 2016
“To get through the hardest journey, we only need to take one
step at a time, but we must keep stepping.” Rachel Kennedy
“There are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going.”
Anonymous
“Life’s a roller coaster. You can either scream every time there
is a bump, or you can throw your hands up and enjoy the
ride.” Unknown
“Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.” Edgar
Allan Poe
“You never know what’s around the corner. It could be
everything or it could be nothing. You keep putting one foot in
front of the other and then one day you look back and you’ve
climbed a mountain.” Anonymous
“All that is gold does not glitter. Not all those who wander are
lost. The old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not
reached by the frost.” JRR Tolkein
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to
continue that counts.” Winston Churchill
“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the
whole staircase.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
“In the end, people don’t view their life as merely the average
of all its moments—which, after all, is mostly nothing much
plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because
it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc
is determined by the significant moments, the ones where
something happens. Measurements of people’s minute-byminute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental
aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life maybe
empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a
great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves.” Atul
Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the
End
Published by: Frank Church
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
Robert Frost
“We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves
after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.”
Marcel Proust
“I am fated to journey hand in hand with my strange heroes
and to survey the surging immensity of life, to survey it
through the laughter that all can see and through the tears
unseen and unknown by anyone.” Nikolai Gogol
“If my ship sails from sight, it doesn’t mean my journey ends,
it simply means the river bends.” Enoch Powell
“A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on
arriving.” Lao Tzu
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in
your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you
choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you
know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to
go…” -Dr. Seuss’ Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
Cover photo credit: http://www.free-hdwallpapers.com/
wallpapers/nature3/71540-nature-974.jpg
“It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the
journey that matters, in the end.” Ursula Le Guin
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you
there.” Lewis Carrol
“Press forward. Do not stop, do not linger in your journey,
but strive for the mark set before you.” George Whitefield
“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world
around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden
in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic
will never find it.” Roald Dahl
“Beware of Destination Addiction – a preoccupation with the
idea that happiness is in the next place, the next job, and with
the next partner. Until you give up the idea that happiness
is somewhere else, it will never be where you are.” Robert
Holden
“Don’t be scared to walk alone. Don’t be scared to like it.” John
Mayer
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the
journey that matters, in the end.” Ernest Hemingway
“The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are
about to succeed.” Chinese Proverb
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
21
May 25th, 2016
Words Worth Living | First
published 07/24/2015
Published by: Frank Church
“Courage is found in unlikely places.” J.R.R. Tolkien
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to
continue that counts.” Winston S. Churchill
“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth
and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never
weakness.” Brené Brown
“Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every
virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest
reality. ” C.S. Lewis
“You have plenty of courage, I am sure,” answered Oz. “All
you need is confidence in yourself. There is no living thing
that is not afraid when it faces danger. The true courage is in
facing danger when you are afraid, and that kind of courage
you have in plenty.” L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard
of Oz
“In all things it is better to hope than to despair.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What we know matters but who we are matters
more.” Brené Brown
A beginning: A common theme throughout this blog has
been the inclusion of quotes to accompany my comments.
Searching and vetting these words are important to me,
and several of you have commented on specific quotes used
to-date. The theme here revolves around words worth
living, words of inspiration; consistent with the comment by
Cassandra Clare that “We live and breathe words.”
Being positive and staying strong: Having a disorder like
Parkinson’s is like walking on the ocean’s shoreline where your
feet sink a little into the sand as the wave moves you slightly
by its impact; slowly evolving, subtly changing, mysteriously
arriving. Finding meaning for a chronic illness requires being
positive and staying strong. Pave a path as you walk through
your own personal ‘ocean’s shoreline’ by constantly trying,
step-by-step, and stay courageous. To support our journey,
here are some words worth living derived from quotes
on hope, courage, journey, persistence, positivity, strength,
adversity, mindfulness, and life (please note that some quotes
below have previously been used in these blog posts).
Hope: “Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark.” George
Iles
“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or
exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the
possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment,
and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” Thomas
Merton
Journey: “We are each on our own journey. Each of us
is on our very own adventure; encountering all kinds of
challenges, and the choices we make on that adventure will
shape us as we go; these choices will stretch us, test us and
push us to our limit; and our adventure will make us stronger
then we ever know we could be.” Aamnah Akram
Wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now.” Maya Angelou
“Every journey has a destination, known or unknown.” Dean
Koontz
“The only journey is the one within.” Rainer Maria Rilke
“The journey itself is going to change you, so you don’t have
to worry about memorizing the route we took to accomplish
that change.” Daniel Quin
Persistence:
“We are made to persist. That’s how we find out who we are.”
Tobias Wolff
“It is in our genes to understand the universe if we can, to keep
trying even if we cannot, and to be enchanted by the act of
learning all the way.” Lewis Thomas
“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.”
Calvin Coolidge
“You may be the only person left who believes in you, but it’s
enough. It takes just one star to pierce a universe of darkness.
Never give up.” Richelle E. Goodrich
“Sometimes life knocks you on your ass… get up, get up, get
up!!! Happiness is not the absence of problems, it’s the ability
to deal with them.” Steve Maraboli
“No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always
possible.” George Chakiris
Positivity:
“The question is not how to survive, but how to thrive with
passion, compassion, humor and style.” Maya Angelou
“While the heart beats, hope lingers.” Alison Croggon
“The most important thing is to stay positive.” Saku Koivu
“I plead with you–never, ever give up on hope, never doubt,
never tire, and never become discouraged.” Pope John Paul II
“Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help
create the fact.” William James
“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you
hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not
admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.”
Barbara Kingsolver
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or
the mirror that reflects it.” Edith Wharton
“At the center of your being you have the answer; you know
who you are and you know what you want.” Lao Tzu
Courage:
22
May 25th, 2016
Strength
“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that
oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made
under pressure.” Peter Marshall
“Be strong. Live honorably and with dignity. When you don’t
think you can, hold on.” James Frey
“Perhaps I am stronger than I think.” Thomas Merton
“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles
develop your strengths. When you go through hardships
and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” Arnold
Schwarzenegger
“Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and
more resilient.” Steve Maraboli
Adversity: “Everyone is handed adversity in life. No one’s
journey is easy. It’s how they handle it that makes people
unique.” Kevin Conroy
Published by: Frank Church
“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to
have the life that is waiting for us.” Joseph Campbell
An ending with two different thoughts: The words
of Michael J. Fox always deal with the truth and reality
of Parkinson’s yet they are reinforced by hope, courage
and perseverance: “For everything this disease has
taken, something with greater value has been given–
sometimes just a marker that points me in a new
direction that I might not otherwise have traveled.
So, sure, it may be one step forward and two steps
back, but after a time with Parkinson’s, I’ve learned
that what is important is making that one step count;
always looking up.”
And I listened to this song recently, which has a meaningful
sentiment (The Beatles “The End” from Abbey Road): “And
in the end / The love you take / Is equal to the love /
You make.”
“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create,
to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater
than our suffering.” Ben Okri
“Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but
the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we
truly are.” Arthur Golden
“Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible
circumstances and they become more extraordinary because
of it.” Robertson Davies
“A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery
of hardships.” Helen Keller
Mindfulness:
“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you
are attentive, you will see it.” Thich Nhat Hanh
“To meditate means to go home to yourself. Then you know
how to take care of the things that are happening inside you,
and you know how to take care of the things that happen
around you.” Thich Nhat Hanh
“We have more possibilities available in each moment than
we realize.” Thich Nhat Hanh
“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis
on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without
rushing toward the future. Live the actual moment. Only this
moment is life.” Thich Nhat Hanh
Life: “We cannot tell what may happen to us in the strange
medley of life. But we can decide what happens in us —how
we can take it, what we do with it —and that is what really
counts in the end.” Joseph Fort Newton
“He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“Live to the point of tears.” Albert Camus
“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our
courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there
is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in
saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait.
Life does not look back.” Paulo Coelho
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