...

I like the pro-con comparison -


The value appearance,
Sexual grandiosity or tactile attraction?

Prepare to watch your body rot as years become decades
And a lifetime flashes behind old, closed eyes.

Value wealth?

Prepare for an insatiable addiction; 
A never enough, a never too much and a nothing without
That engineers its own thirst and overlooks the sense of quench.

Value love?
Prepare for heartbreak.

Value friends?
Prepare to fear being alone.

Value intellect?
Prepare for the inadequacy complex.

Value power?
Prepare to feel powerless.

Value Virtue?
Prepare for Vice. 

Value Life?
Prepare for Death.


The coin always has two sides,
The water's always deep
And at the bottom

There are always weeds.


So what to value?


Value it all.
Prepare for it all.
Experience as much as you can
And invest only that which you are already prepared to lose.

Cherish the Pros, 
Endure the Cons,
Understand the trade
And do it with grace.

You don't need to call it a religion.
You don't need to call it a mantra.

But the only reason the lesson leaves lips

Is in an effort to convert.

Don't forget where that comes from
And beware the dance with asceticism.


It is the loneliest of all roads

And heaven is not always where it leads.