‘Ethos’ in its first meaning in Ancient Greek signifies ‘place’, ‘abode’, ‘territory’, ‘nest’.  The ethea of birds, the ethea of the Persians. From that point-tell me where your abode is, and I’ll tell you who you are-it came to mean ‘manners’ and ‘customs’, ‘behaviour’, ‘quality’. Without bombast, rhetoric, garrulity. Instantaneously, as if you were drinking down a glass of cold water in a single gulp. Beauty which you can drink.

Our instincts for history led us, as it did the traveler Pausanias, who set  down the practices and events which had taken place many years before in places now ruins, in a deserted land-scape to divine human attitudes, passions unquenched, dramatic affairs of the heart in moments of paroxysm, slaughters, tranquil images of the thrills of adolescence, fishing from the little boats, the songs of harvesters, people stretched out in the moonlight after gathering the olives, exiles, escapes, executions of resisters, processions to pray for rain, builders on the scaffolding carving a triglyph, or with the plumb-line in their hands.

I believe your story! It was a gift…that succeeded the test of time and has been given to me.  You know why? because you say what you mean and you mean what you say. But let me tell you my story:  We have got to put a lot of self sacrifice into changing behavior.

Waking up every day with gratitude for being alive it is like starting the day with a built-in advantage. It doesn’t matter what happens the rest of the day because it is all extra.