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The ultimate parental irony—parents thinking they are helping their children by cheating to get them into top colleges they couldn’t qualify for on their own merits.

Isn’t it a parent’s priority and duty to teach their children ethics? But for these parents, paying for higher SAT scores and fabricating sports prowess to get their kids into Stanford and Yale outweighed having their kids earn their honest way into the right schools to match their actual accomplishments.

So far, it is said the students won’t be prosecuted because most of them were unaware of their parents’ scams. Really? A kid recruited for the crew team, once on campus, declares injury but in fact never touched an oar in her life?
Many of these kids knew just how they sneaked in to these elite scools. And if they didn’t know at the time, they do now.
They will carry forever the dark shame of cheater, not to mention in some cases the guilt of having taken some other fully qualified student’s place in that freshman class.

How in the world did these parents ever twist this idea around into believing they were carving out a better future for their children? ... See more

International Women’s Day gets me thinking about that dinner party game where you’re asked:
If you could have lived in any other era, what would you choose?
And my question back: As a woman?

Name me a time, a place, that has offered a life replete with opportunities, equality, and respect for women.

We’re not even there yet today, in these modern United States of America. When we look in horror to much of the Middle East, where women in some places are still stoned to death for having sex out of marriage, to much of Africa, where women are raped as part of land control, we American women can certainly feel strong about our societal position.

Yet, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobushar and Hillary Clinton can run for president at the same time 2/3 of qualified women in the military are sexually assaulted and equal pay for equal work is still nowhere near de rigeur in our country. #InternationalWomensDay
Yes, as a woman, I would only choose this time. And yet this time still begs a mountain of work before we achieve true equality.

Today we celebrate, eyes open to creating the first ever era when it will indeed be a good time to be a woman.

Onward toward justice for all, my sisters—and brothers ... See more

Let’s talk pain, chime in by commenting below and join the conversation...

Millions of people live with chronic pain. I don’t know how they do it.
Me? I am suffering a broken wrist. It was a nasty break yet there is no reason for me to worry that I won’t be 100% healed a few months down the road.

How can I own up to the pain of the past couple of weeks, pressing at a perpetual 9-10, day and night, when one friend faces a bone marrow transplant, another undergoes radical treatment for a brain tumor, another is on a gradual decline toward paralysis, and yet another cannot seem to reach a solution for a debilitating form of leukemia?

I have a broken bone. It will heal. I will soon be swimming and playing tennis.

Yet my leukemia friend asks about my wrist and tells me there is no ownership of pain. I am not grappling with a dire medical circumstance. But my life right now revolves around this broken wrist and I must say it has been downright excruciating, one extenuating factor my being allergic to most pain meds and all antiinflammatories.

I was tough when the searing rip of the box jellyfish hit. I swam all through the night,
tentacles wrapped around the neck and biceps. I dug down to true grit and pushed through. But that was survival mode. A case of will needing to prevail. No hyperbole that death lay in the balance of those often fatal stings.
But this wrist is everyday life.

I’m curious. Do you know pain? Chronic pain How do you summon the attitude to get you through? How do you live your own life and refrain from comparing yourself to others? Does the perspective of others suffering more than you assuage your own suffering?

Talk to me.
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Last night a Celebration of Life for screenwriter Audrey Wells was hosted at the Writers Guild of America here in Los Angeles.
Some 500 people, from the Hollywood likes of Diane Lane to friends and family from near and far, flooded the room with deep love, utter respect, and high inspiration.

I met and became friends with Audrey only three years ago at a crowded, noisy restaurant closing party. An attractive woman singled me out, pulled me aside, locked me into a fixed gaze and said: “I don’t have time for small talk. My prognosis isn’t good and I need to tell you your memoir has helped me more than all my medical protocols.

She kept Find a Way in her bathroom, where she had to spend most of her time, rereading passages that embodied the credo of “Never Ever Give Up”.

The waiters passing shrimp empanadas, the boistrous crowd, virtually went stone cold silent for Audrey and me in our corner.
Her husband Brian joined us. They had only been married a year or so at that point. He said during their first six months of dating, he asked her to marry him a hundred times.

They were together in the doctor’s office when the bad news came down. Audrey said to Brian: “Today I set you free. You deserve to be with someone for a lifetime”.
Brian went to a knee and asked Audrey for the 101th time.

Audrey's talents were vast. Revisit “Under the Tuscan Sun”, if you are looking for a dose of sweet magic. Her effect on all who knew her is powerful. I’m so darn lucky to be one of them.

RIP beautiful Audrey Wells, 58. You left us far too soon. ... See more

So many of Dr. King’s words of wisdom have weathered the test of time. But in these particular days, when we yearn for bridges worldwide, rather than walls, perhaps this guidance from MLK serves us as a healing potion:

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." ... See more

The most poignant poet of our times has died today. Yet we citizens of the world are fortunate to be left with Pulitzer Prize winner Mary Oliver’s many profound words.

Along with thousands of others, I have quoted and tried to live by a number of Oliver’s gripping lines. I put her perhaps most famous line as a stand-alone at the beginning of my recent memoir, Find a Way. Who could ask us, all of us, a more provocative, more inspiring call to action:

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Oliver’s countless wisdoms are worth finding… and keeping in front of you as mantras for both one’s everyday doings and one’s big picture philosophies,

“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

I could fill pages with Oliver poems that have helped open my eyes to truths I will always cherish.

But for today, it is only fitting to leave you with Oiver’s hope to hear herself say these words on her last day, January 17, 2019:

“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.”

Poet genius, expansive philosopher, Mary Oliver, how will we ever thank you for the wealth of wisdom you gave us? ... See more

Update on Adrianne Haslet’s condition.
Adrianne went through eight hours of surgery on Monday, multiple plates and screws in both her left shoulder and elbow. Her shoulder will be immobilized for six weeks.
Was literally shattered.

Prognosis is best it will get is a 90-degree range of motion, meaning perhaps able to raise her arm from her side to straight out in front, not above that, not over head. A pretty serious disability for a dancer.

To go through a second trauma, following losing her leg to the Boston Marathon bombing, is weighing heavily on Adrianne but she is looking for any bright vision of the future she can find.

Adrianne says she has been extremely grateful for all your notes of compassion.
Keep ‘em coming!
ONWARD, Adrianne, ONWARD!
diana

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Adrianne-Haslet-367670170038419/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/AdrianneHaslet
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AdrianneHaslet ... See more

Adrianne Haslet certainly considered it enough of a life challenge, to have, in a heartbeat, an innocent bystander at the Boston Marathon 2013, lost her leg to the terrorist bomb explosion at the finish line.
She found the courage and dug down to her true grit to find the pluck to carry on, to dance again, to smile every day.
The bomb crushed her world that day. She lost her leg but she didn’t lose her will to live a full life.

‪This Saturday night, just a few blocks from the bombing‬ site, doing everything right as she crossed Commonwealth Ave, in the crosswalk, with the pedestrian right of-way, a car came around the corner and struck Adrianne. She flew through the air, head over heels, remained conscious and feared she would break her neck coming down onto the pavement on her head.
She instinctively ducked her left shoulder to roll and the left side of her body hit with a terrifying impact.

Yesterday, in the very same hospital of her amputation, Adrianne went through hours of surgery whereby the med team inserted a number of plates and screws into her shattered left shoulder and elbow.

She is now listed in “fair condition” but I spoke to Adrianne right out of the OR and she said this trauma, dragging her back to the unspeakable event of 2013, has rocked her to the core.
The shoulder is a tricky joint to start with and now she faces another long haul of rehab toward full recovery.

I know Adrianne’s spirits would be lifted to hear from you guys. Somehow, other people caring can boost the vision of getting through. Help me, will you, with some encouraging words she can take to heart from her hospital bed?

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Adrianne-Haslet-367670170038419/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/AdrianneHaslet
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AdrianneHaslet

Thanks, everybody.
diana ... See more

Sharing my 2019 Mantras, tune in LIVE now and chime in and let us know if you have any mantras of your own that you will like to SHARE!