What’s this? I’m trying to blog once a day for 50 days! Inspired by Forking Mad and Lou Plummer.

Do you have a set of rules or guidelines for your life? Did you write them? Why do you use them?

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.

“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

  • F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

…deep down in him lived still unconquered his plain hobbit-sense: he knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden, even if such visions were not a mere cheat to betray him. The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command.

  • J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

The world needs more Samwise Gamgees.