Finding Inspiration

For over a year, I have had a handwritten note pinned to my bulletin board at work.

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.

I am not one for making New Year's resolutions. Or perhaps, more accurately, I am not one for keeping New Year's resolutions so I have stopped making them, but if I had made a resolution (or four) I guess this quote would just about sum it up.

Yesterday, I had placed a phone call at work and was on hold, when this note caught my attention. I have always wondered who said it, so I typed it into the google search box and looked it up.

And then I looked again.  And I looked again, hoping that maybe I could find an entry that contradicted the first three answers I read.

Apparently, the whole quotation is

Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly, leave the rest to God.

Certainly a noble undertaking. And who do you think was the author of this sage advice? Mother Teresa? Archbishop Desmond Tutu?

No, and no.

It was Ronald Reagan.

I have spent the last year trying to live by the philosophy of none other than Ronald Reagan--or Ronald Reagan's speechwriter, as the case may be.

Maybe it is time for me to find my own inspiration.