Growing up, you learn all about the geniuses that helped shape our world into what it is today..  People like Einstein, Galileo and many others.  These people definitely did a lot to contribute to the advancement of our civilization.

I am going through some very personal, painful things at the moment.  Suddenly a few days ago, this familiar quote just came to me, giving me peace.  “If you love something, set it free, if it comes back to you it’s yours, if it doesn’t it never was”.  Of course, there are many versions of this same quote, paraphrases of it, if you will.  I started wondering who originally said this, for in my mind, they should be on all lists of the top geniuses of all time!

I started looking into it, and it seems that “anonymous” is often cited for this quote, but I did find two names associated with it.  I have no idea which one said it first, but they are both credited for it at some point.

The two prospects for my genius list are Doug Horton (1891-1968) and Khalil Gibran (1883-1931).  I was surprised that both of these men were quite faithful, very “religious” men.  I never really thought of this quote as having these origins, but now knowing, makes the fact that it popped into my head on a particularly bad day all the more comforting.  I believe it is something that will be the hardest thing anyone can do, but also quite necessary, in my case anyway.

I realize many of you who read this will think I’m being silly, over-dramatic, or putting too much stock in an old saying.  Maybe I am, but it feels like the perfect mantra for me at this point in my life, and it does give me comfort.  This is not meant to be an informative post, teaching anything, it’s just the ramblings of a soon to be single mom of two wild little boys…

I found this photo here, a great post on the same subject.  Check it out!