“Into each life some rain must fall.” Do you recall when you first heard this time-honored adage? Recording artists from Ella Fitzgerald to the Ink Spots to Queen have crooned serenades featuring this famous phrase. It was referenced in Steve Martin’s movie “My Blue Heaven.” But the true source of this inspired wisdom harks back to the early America of the nineteenth century. For it was, in 1842 – undoubtedly on a dark and dreary day – that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow sat down at his desk and penned his classic poem “The Rainy Day.”
What might have moved Longfellow to write these words? Perhaps he still mourned the loss of his first wife Mary, who died in 1831. Maybe he had become despondent over his near decade long courtship of Frances, the woman who would eventually become his second wife. What ever the source, the expression packs power. It’s the kind of power the Continue Reading “The Power of Losing Positively”
Too Many Mondays
What red lights do to cars, Mondays do to you.
Think about it. Why has no other day been as universally panned as Monday? From Garfield’s primordial meme—“I hate Mondays”—to the Carpenters’ immortal “Rainy days and Mondays always get me down,” the first day of the week has always borne the brunt of criticism.
Unlike what the calendar implies, Sunday is not really the first day of the week. For those unfamiliar with the Bible, the Lord’s Day is the seventh day of creation; ergo, the seventh day of the week.
But even if you go by your day planner, at the very least, Monday remains the first day of Continue Reading “Too Many Mondays”