Joy Yao

“Thousands of hopeful days came to naught before this one. This was a golden day. Never give up.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year

“Maybe it's because we innately know that everything is impermanent that we so desperately cling to it.
But cling we do.

We know that our youth vanishes that we and our loved one will die one day, that whatever we have accumulated can easily be taken away from us, that one day our skills might not be wanted, that a day may come when our love might not be reciprocated. But we go on clinging.

Everywhere we turn we are faced with impermanence. (..)
The more we cling - of course - the more pain we feel as things fade, disappear, die around us.
And sometimes the more we cling, the more these things happen. (..)

The key to being able to let go of all the stuff you're holding on to is knowing that you'll be okay if you don't have it.
And that's the truth.
You can survive with very little. And though the passing of people and things can be painful, you will survive.”
― John C. Parkin, F**k It: The Ultimate Spiritual Way

“Odd, the words: ‘while away the time’.
How to hold it fast the harder thing.
Who is not fearful: where is there a staying,
where in all this is there any being?

Look, as the day slows towards the space
that draws it into dusk: rising became
upstanding, standing a laying down, and then
that which accepts its lying blurs to darkness.

Mountains rest, outgloried be the stars -
but even there, time’s transition glimmers.
Ah, nightly refuged in my wild heart,
roofless, the imperishable lingers.
---
Wunderliches Wort: die Zeit vertreiben!
Sie zu halten, wäre das Problem.
Denn, wen ängstigts nicht: wo ist ein Bleiben,
wo ein endlich Sein in alledem? -

Sieh, der Tag verlangsamt sich, entgegen
jenem Raum, der ihn nach Abend nimmt:
Aufstehn wurde Stehn, und Stehn wird Legen,
und das willig Liegende verschwimmt -

Berge ruhn, von Sternen überprächtigt; -
aber auch in ihnen flimmert Zeit.
Ach, in meinem wilden Herzen nächtigt
obdachlos die Unvergänglichkeit.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“The most beautiful moments always seemed to accelerate and slip beyond one’s grasp just when you want to hold onto them for as long as possible.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly