A lot of people have heard me say a lot of things, but friends and family know that there are indeed words that I live by. Allow me to elucidate:

• "Fear is for the unenlightened" This is pretty simple; we all have fear. What makes you strong or weak is your response, or non-response to it. Enlightenment, in terms of dealing with fear, has everything to do with being prepared for that which you face. And if you can't be prepared for it for some reason, then by all means, SLOW DOWN! Feel your way in the dark until you CAN get a grip on something, or someone, but a blind rush will only make you die faster. And standing still will only make you a dinosaur, extinct in your thoughts and useless to anyone until you're good and dead.
• "Fair is for cows, and even they're halfway to hamburger." My daughters don't get this one. Yet. Big picture, there is no such thing as genuine equity, unless you have a mortgage. In life terms, fair play is about making sure you can sleep at night, and look at yourself in the mirror every morning. Of course, some people don't play fair and they can still do both, which is mind-boggling to me. But I find myself actually HAVING a soul, which means I couldn't hang with being that way.
• "Live like you mean it." Being wishy-washy didn't even serve Charlie Brown very well, judging by the fact that Lucy managed to get him with the same football trick year after year. Intelligence without decisiveness will, once again, make you a dinosaur. Which is not to say that every moment needs to be totally linear, from one move to the next, but make the moves with regard to what is positive, and what works for you. Live close to your soul for your own benefit, and, in the words of The Bard, "to thine own self be true." A retrograde move, however comforting it might be, (which should be the only reason you'd ever do such a thing, unless you're like Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer, and totally desperate,) is still going backwards. The move I made in going 6000 miles away from everything and everyone I knew had more to do with simply being able to continue to function productively, than any real screaming desire to teach ESL to Koreans, which I had never in my wildest dreams contemplated before. Where will it take me, long term? Hell, I don't know, but come next year, it'll just be toes on the nose, and surf it, knowing I CAN function now.
• "Ambition is a dream with a V-8 engine." I can't claim this gem, those are the immortal words of Elvis Presley. It's been a long time since any words planted themselves so firmly in my mind, but they do ring true. Oddly, I'm not one who's known to speak a lot, but when I open my mouth, I mean to. I call that odd, because words, and sounds, and images have always been important to me. They are what sticks in my mind, coming out however they're going to. But mental clarity matters.
• A million other little beauties litter my mind, like Enzo Ferrari's fabulous words about what's behind you not being important, to ad slogans for products I wouldn't contemplate buying (Pirelli's famous "Power is Nothing Without Control," although part of the attraction of that may still have been the famous ad with Olympic sprinter Carl Lewis wearing pumps,) but the overall message, I think is clear; words matter, but actions matter more. And all that, of course, leads to the Gangsta's #1 rule of being a real man or woman, which is.........
• Handle your business. Know what really is important in your life, and focus on that, and on keeping things from getting so totally out of hand you can never contain the damage. Above all else, I'm a dad, and I'm proud to be a dad to the two little girls who are counting on me, and doing what I have to to make sure their needs are met to the best of my ability. What lives in your heart and soul NEEDS your constant attention, and will make you better, and prouder, and stronger than you could ever imagine. Everything else is secondary. And that's the truth, Gangsta-style.