Ellis Paul

1. Be still. Even on airplanes. Even in hurricanes. On escalators, elevators, and steel bullet trains.

2. Be the Weirdo not the norm.

3. Be the levee, not the storm.

4. Be the queen, when the hive starts to swarm

5. Be Buddhish, not Buddhist. Don’t buy into the “you’re nothing” part, because you are “something” and ever evolving. Seek the something out. Be monkish. But dress snazzy.

6. Bring light

7. Bring beauty

8. Bring jumper cables

9. Write. Then write again. Write songs and letters, quotes and notes, scribbles and doodles, to do’s and don’ts, lines with rhymes, lyrics and scripts, limericks and puns and one liner quips, zingers and ringers that spin round a phrase, and grocery list stories that run off the page. Write novels that grovel, unstable fables, a treatise of words that could break an oak table, a haiku, a sonnet, a speech, a play, a love song that takes the world’s tears all away. Write graffiti that makes a beating heart rush, write something so dirty Bukowski would blush, write comedies, jokes, and twenty act plays, tragedies with maladies only Shakespeare would say. Write like your bailing a boat with a cup, write like your pencil will never give up

10. Take little bites, and savor them

11. Take little sips, of flavor, of sin

12. Do 7 and 8. Again and again

13. Rhyme less

14. Avoid Alliteration Always

15. Play with your children

16. Laugh with your friends

17. Savor your loved ones, but do not eat them

18. Treat exercise like a means to an end but not an end that will kill you

19. Draw pretty pictures that teach and inspire

20. Remember to breathe when your world is on fire

21. Remember to notice the beauty you see, wherever you are, wherever you be

22. And be grateful enough to fall on your knees

23. But bring pillows that make a soft landing

24. Meet animals. Make them your friend.

25. Watch the last rays of a sunset end

26. Empty your mind from time to time

27. Remember that being lost is no crime

28. Apologize quickly and sometimes before

29. And remember what saying “I love you” is for

30. Forgive all you can, even when it’s your fault

31. Less sweets

32. less bourbon

33. less butter

34. less salt

35. When in doubt, repeat the above

36. be here

37. be present, and

38. love

39. love

40. love!