Proper balance

It occurs to me that there is a proper balance
between not asking enough of oneself and asking or expecting too much.
It may be that I set my sights too high and so repeatedly end a day in depression.
Not easy to find the balance, for if one does not have wild dreams of achievement,
there is no spur even to get the dishes washed.
One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.

        May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

Don't give up

 Life's perhaps the only riddle
That we shrink from giving up.

        W. S. Gilbert, Bab Ballads And Savoy Songs

Yom Kippur

Should I not atone for the sins I have committed,
All that I have ever said will be a lie.

        Milarepa, The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa