Angelou wisdom: Living Well is an Art

(a friend forwarded me the following piece from Angelou.
many who know me, will find this blog addresses many of the same issues...albeit not as eloquently.
so, i thought i'd share the real STUFF below...{this painting, entitled "favorite things," is a couple years old, from one of my first classes. the selection was made for this post because angelou addresses some of my favorite things and because sometimes it's good to return to earlier work.})





"...LIVING WELL IS AN ART which can be developed. Of course, you will
needthe basic talents to build upon: They are a love of life and ability to
take great pleasure from small offerings, an assurance that the world owes
you nothing and that every gift is exactly that, a gift. That people who
may differ from you in political stance, sexual persuasion, and racial
inheritance can be founts of fun, and if you are lucky, they can become
even convivial comrades.

BECAUSE OF THE ROUTINES we follow, we often forget that life is an
ongoing adventure. We leave our homes for work, acting and even believing that
we will reach our destinations with no unusual event startling us out of
our set expectations. The truth is we know nothing, not where our cars will
fail or when our buses will stall, whether our places of employment will be
there when we arrive, or whether, in fact, we ourselves will arrive whole and
alive at the end of our journeys. Life is pure adventure and the sooner
we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art: to
bring all our energies to each encounter, to remain flexible enough to notice and
admit when what we expected to happen did not happen. We need to
remember that we are created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently
as they are needed."

Maya Angelou, from "Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now"