"Do what the Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, 'Is today the day? Am I read? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I … - Mitch Albom

Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, 'Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person i want to be? Is today the day I die?

Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?

Fairness doesn't govern life and death. If it did, no good man would ever die young.

"Now that child reminds me of something our sages taught. When a baby comes into the world, it's hands are clenched, right? Like this?"
He made a fist.
"Why? Because a baby, not knowing any better, wants to grab everything, to say 'The whole world is mine.'
"But when an old person dies, how does he do so? With his hands open. Why? Because he has learned the lesson."
What lesson? I asked.
He stretched open his empty fingers.
"We can take nothing with us.

"Have you ever considered how many living things there are on earth?" Cleo asked. "People. Animals. Birds. Fish. Trees. It makes you wonder how anyone could feel lonely. Yet humans do. It's a shame."
She looked to the sky, now a deep shade of purple. "We fear loneliness, Annie, but loneliness itself does not exist. It has no form. it is merely a shadow that falls over us. And just as shadows die when light changes, that sad feeling can depart once we see the truth."
"What's the truth?" Annie asked.
"That the end of loneliness is when someone needs you." The old woman smiled. "And the world is so full of need."