I'm told (and then I'm told something else)

So, just as I suspected......

An anonymous tip came that made me laugh out loud and then feel kind of sad that chain letter are still chain letters even when the internet takes away the need for postage stamps. Read it and weep, or not.

This follows on the heels of...

"I'm told........

that the following comes from the Dalai Lama, that it was his message for 2006. I am not sure if this is true, and the fact that it came to me via email that had "FW" in the subject heading, and which had been forwarded to the sender by someone to whom it had been forwarded to previously tends to detract from its credibility. Still, it's a nice message, and if anyone gets even one good bit of advice from it, then it was worth posting. And by posting it here, I get to totally fly in the face of what the forwarded forwarded email told me to do, which is to forward it on to at least 15 of my friends within 96 hours, and the more friends I forward it to, the more good stuff will happen to me. Such crap. So unfortunate that good messages come wrapped in such crap. So, instead of peppering my friends' email inboxes with stuff they will probably ignore (I can tell you that I almost ALWAYS ignore anything that has "FW" in the subject line, although in this case, I made an exception because the subject line also contained the word "mantra" and thus made me feel curious), I will copy it here for you to read or ignore. Either way, you don't have to bother hitting the delete or the forward button when you're done:

I N S T R U C T I O N S F O R L I F E
1. Take into account that great love and great achievements
involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three R’s:
- Respect for self,
- Respect for others and
- Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a
wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great relationship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate
steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and
think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for
your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the
current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your
love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order
to get it.
19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

I know, I know, a little bit trite, a little bit abstract (be "gentle with the earth"), a little bit Nigella Lawson ("love and cooking...reckless abandon"), a little Psych 101 ("In disagreements...don't bring up the past" HA! Easy for YOU to say! Have you MET my husband?), a little too cute ("when you lose, don't lose the lesson"....awwwww), but if you can cut through the giggling in your head, there's some good stuff here, man."

YC