I can’t stand to watch the morning news with my coffee anymore, and there are only 200 or so Law and Order episodes, so I like to sample Youtube and found Anne Lamont’s TED talk on 12 truths she came up with as she approached her 61st birthday. She can be acerbic at times, but always interesting and humorous. I know your time is valuable, so I’ve listed just a few of her insights, but you owe it to yourself to go on Youtube and listen to her. The talk lasts 16 minutes. Most are direct quotations mingled with some paraphrasing.
Anne Lamont: The 12 Truths I Learned from Writing and
Life – TED talk
“I’m not 47, the age I like
to feel but I’m not. I’m every age I’ve ever been and so are you.”
1.
“All truth is a
paradox. Life is a precious, unfathomable, and a beautiful thing.”
2.
“Almost
everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes. Including you.”
3.
Almost nothing
outside of you will help you in a lasting way unless you’re waiting for an
organ. You can’t buy or achieve or date serenity or peace of mind. I so resent
that, but improvement is an inside job.
4.
Try not to compare your insides to other
people’s outsides. We’re all broken at times. No one could help me get sober
except me. I had to reach out to my higher power that I call God. An acronym
for God can be “gift of desperation.”
5.
Chocolate is not actually
a food.
6.
“Grace is
spiritual WD40. The mystery is that God loves Henry Kissinger and Vladimir
Putin and me exactly as much as he loves my grandchild. Go figure. The movement
of grace is what changes us, heals us. Grace finds you exactly where you are
but doesn’t leave you where it found you.”
7.
“Laughter is
carbonated holiness that lets us breathe.”
8.
“God means
goodness. A good name for God is not me.”
9.
“Food. Try to do
a little better. I think you know what I mean.”
10. Death – “We Christians like to think of death as a
major change of address, but the person that died will live again fully in your
heart if you don’t seal it off.” Leonard Cohen said, “There are cracks in
everyone. That’s how the light gets in.”
