Rat's Country: You are your own saboteur when...

You are your own saboteur when the need to not get what you need is greater than the need to get what you need.

Favorite quotes: Aristotle plans...

"Aristotle said that the most characteristically human activity is planning your life, yet it's amazing how few people take life planning seriously.  Those who do are productive people: those who don't disappear under the surface without leaving a bubble behind to brighten the world.  So strongly did the Greeks believe in planning that they literally planned their lives, dividing them into seven-year periods and deciding what they wanted to accomplish during each of those periods."

                   "Author's Note" A Writer's Time.  Kenneth Atchity.

Favorite Quotes: Does it help that famous people have said this"

"How I interest myself!"

             from A Writer's Diary by Virginia Woolfe

Favorite Quotes: Jack Kerouac says...

"No fear or shame in the dignity of your experience, language, and knowledge."

                                Jack Kerouac

Rat's Country: "Working through" something

“Working through” something doesn’t mean your feelings have to change.  It means honestly experiencing the stages of feeling, examining them, and if there doesn’t seem enough internal justification to stay in one particular state of mind, don’t.

Favorite Quotes: Susan's e-mail from Italy

"...keep turning another corner with an open mind and heart.  Life begins at the end of your comfort zone..."

Rat's Country: "I am I plus my surroundings..."

“I am I plus my surroundings and if I do not preserve the latter, I do not preserve myself.”

                                       Jose Ortega Y Gasset, philosopher and essayist (1883-1955)

Rat's Country: How I Feel on Mondays

As inconspicuous as rubber bands around a doorknob.

Rat's Country: I Know a Woman with Tissues

I know a woman with tissues.  She wads tissues into the pockets of her jackets.  Her tissues pad the bottom of her purse.  She keeps tissues on the lid of her toilet, beside her bed.  There are tissues in every room of her house.

Actually, she has more tissues than anyone I know.

Rat's Country: Another Parable about Going Down a Road

We know this woman who goes down the road with a monkey on her back, a toad on her head, and leading an ass.  As she walks, she wails, "Look at me.  I have a monkey on my back.  I have a toad on my head.  I have to lead an ass."

She thinks we care, but we don't.

Rat's Country: The party's over...

The party's over.  Move everything forward with a mental janitor's broom:  the paper cups, dirt, and streamers.