the-legacy-letters

No, you become a man when you first decide to put away the things of childhood, the talk of childhood, and the thoughts of childhood. You decide because you cannot be treated as both a man and a boy. Because you are either one or the other, but you are not both . . .

Be the greatest of who you were meant to be. Life goes on ferociously-with or without you. It is your choice. Truly and magnificently your choice.

Your time is your time. Be awake to it. It's hard work to be wisely alive.

No one OWES you a THING. So don__ EXPECT it. You__e on your OWN.

Make doing your best a habit, and you__l never know not doing your best.

Dream young. Don't settle for old - for to be old is to be superstitious and without curiosity and always questioning your faith. And be ferocious in your dreaming - run like a sun's explosion, and skip across bluing waves, and dance upon tips of swan feathers.

Enjoy what you are learning and doing. This is one of the hardest concepts in the entire world to understand. Harder yet to put into practice.

Spring is a time to make up a big bouquet of flowers for someone you love, or are trying to love, or are in love with.

I gather the last remnants of the evening__ breeze, so cool and lazy within my arms, feeling it curl up like a small and innocent kitten.

Time. Either you are for it or against it. So be here now. Not later.

Sometimes we make being happy so difficult. And being thankful such a chore.

Reading teaches us the nuances of humanity. To find the beauty of what is moral and ethical in your own actions and discover the strange subtlety of what it is to question why you should exist.

You know there's got to be a better way of life - somewhere, sometime, somehow - but you're not exactly sure what better is.

Old is old at any age. Old is when you quit asking questions about this, that, and everything. Old is when you forget how to love-or worse, don't care. Old is when you don't want to dance anymore. Old is when you don't want to learn anything new except how to be old. Old is when people tell you that you are old-and you believe them.

A good man lives for the joy in life and the happiness of being alive, not shackled to the wants of the future or the regrets of the past.

Start with a brand new good-morning. To your husband or your wife. To your kids. To those you work with - and don't work with. What's the harm? How difficult is it? And it isn't, and you know it. So do it.

Only you can know the difference between your wants and your needs, and your sacrifice of your life's time to both.

Take off my clothes and there becomes a man. Take off my skin and there becomes my bones. Break all my bones and there becomes my heart. Smash my heart and there becomes my soul. And that you cannot take.