What’s In Your “Thank You” Box?

I am Humbled that the amazing best-selling author and Oprah columnist Karen Salmansohn of notsalmon.com took my words and made one of her famous posters with them! (We are about to do a project together so stay tuned.)

The poem below is where the line came from.

I would love to hear what is in your own personal box?

How to Make a Life

First: Take everything you’ve ever learned and everything
you’ve yet to discover and place it in a box labeled “Thank You.”

Second: Take a picture of your face and remember
that in ten years time you will be amazed at how gorgeous you were.
Be amazed now.

Third: Find someplace to live.
Make sure it has the ability to let light fall
across the room in such a way that every so often,
you’ll stop and mouth the words “Ah, sunlight”

Before you finish dusting the books.

Don’t let the books get dusty.

Open them and reread your favorite sentences.

Or give the books away to someone who will love them as you once did.

Fourth: Fall in love.
Touch. More than you think.
Have a child if you want one.
If you don’t—don’t.
Let your child out into the world,
discovering for themselves just how magical it is.
Or it isn’t.
It’s theirs to decide.

Give your child a lot of books, especially fairy tales.

Fifth: Get a job.
Remember this job is not who you are.

Sixth: Do yoga.
Let your body discover what it’s like to move
without your brain holding its hand.
Tell your brain to take a hike.
Let your body believe fully in its own powers.
Let every person you’ve stored inside your muscles out
to breathe now and again.

Seventh: Do things that make you feel good.
Let your joy be contagious and spread through
your home, your job, your children.
Let it spread through the world like a virus,
so that when you forget it,
every so often, you’ll catch it from someone else.

 
Jennifer Pastiloff will be teaching at the Tadasana International Yoga & Music Festival over Earth Day weekend on the beach in Santa Monica, CA, April 20– 22. Click here to check out the festival website and purchase tickets. Enter the code Pastiloff for a $50 discount! (Please note that discount codes expire April 1.)