When I read something powerful -- a quote, a story, a reflection -- I write it down or cut it out or make a copy of it and drop it into a file folder I've titled inspiration. This file, among others, has been on many a moving van and has traveled with me all over the East coast, from city to city, house to house. And every once in a while, when I need a lift, this is my go-to file -- I go to it, pluck something out, and refresh my mind and spirit.

This file has been with me since at least 1997 -- the date on a photo-copied Ann Landers column I have sitting before me. It's 10 years old, but there's nothing dated about the words printed on this single sheet of paper. They are as touching and moving and relevant now as they were when I first read them. They may be even more meaningful today, because of the thread of cancer that is now woven throughout my days.

These are life lessons, offered by a publisher of the Mount Pleasant News in Iowa, for students about to graduate from high school. They go like this:

Dear Graduates:

There is the kind of education you get in school and the kind you get afterward. Both are important. Put them together, and you have wisdom. The trouble is, life is generally half over before you figure out what is going on.

Graduating seniors can save 25 years of trial, error, and hard knocks by memorizing the lessons of life listed below.

On the average, you learn about one big lesson per year after you leave high school. In really tough years, you learn two or three. Some years, you don't learn anything. After 40, you forget things and have to learn them again.

Some of this information is borrowed. Some is stolen. Some may even be original, but that's doubtful. It's pretty hard to be original in a world as old as this one.

25 Things You'll Need To Know After High School

1. Don't sweat the small stuff, and remember, most stuff is small.
2. The most boring word in any language is "I."
3. Nobody is indispensable, especially you.
4. Life is full of surprises. Just say "never" and you'll see.
5. People are more important than things.
6. Persistence will get you almost anything eventually.
7. Nobody can make you happy. Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
8. There's so much bad in the best of us and so much good in the worst of us that it doesn't behoove any of us to talk about the rest of us.
9. Live by what you trust, not by what you fear.
10. Character counts. Family matters.
11. Eating out with small children isn't worth it, even if someone else is paying.
12. If you wait to have kids until you can afford them, you probably never will.
13. Baby kittens don't begin to open their eyes for six weeks after birth. Men generally take 26 years.
14. The world would run a lot smoother if more men knew how to dance.
15. Television ruins more minds than drugs.
16. Sometimes there is more to gain in being wrong than right.
17. Life is so much simpler when you tell the truth.
18. People who do the world's real work don't usually wear neckties.
19. A good joke beats a pill for a lot of ailments.
20. There are no substitutes for fresh air, sunshine, and exercise.
21. A smile is the cheapest way to improve your looks, even if your teeth are crooked.
22. May you live life so there is standing room only at your funeral.
23. Mothers always know best, but sometimes fathers know too.
24. Forgive your friends and your enemies. You're all only human.
25. If you don't do anything else in life, love someone and let someone love you.

Valerie Monroe, beauty director for The Oprah Magazine, writes a monthly column -- Ask Val -- that appears on the pages of Oprah's feel-good publication. She responds to questions about make-up, skin care, hair care, and overall body care too.

In her February 2007 column, Val writes, "Many of you have written to tell me that you began to be less critical of your body when you appreciated the things it could do." As I read this, I had what Oprah would call an Aha! moment, a moment when something just clicks and makes sudden sense. Aha!, I thought, as I considered all the things my body can do, completely independent of how I look on the outside. So while I was jogging today -- my body can now easily run three miles -- I ran through all of my body's accomplishments, and I stored them in the files of my mind so I could later write them down.

Here are seven things my body can do. As you read them, consider your own body -- its strength, its power, its capacity for greatness -- and remind yourself of your wondrous self the next time you start to criticize the way you look.

• My body can partner in the creation of human life. It can carry babies and deliver them and love them and care for them and raise them. Not all bodies have this power. I am lucky.

• My body can climb an attic staircase, crawl into cramped and dark corners, pull large boxes out of wedged spaces, drag them back to the staircase, and walk backwards down the stairs with goods balancing on my head so that I can fulfill the wish my five-year-old child who wanted so badly in early November to assemble our Christmas tree and decorate our house for the holidays. "Let's wait until Daddy gets home," I told Joey when I found myself crammed into a tiny space in the attic, wrestling with a heavy box full of artificial tree parts. "You can do it, Mommy," Joey said. "You are strong." And so I fought my way through the frustrating feat because I was afraid of the lessons I would teach this little boy if I didn't. In the end, it was Joey who taught me the lesson. I can do it. I am strong.
  

• My body can endure and conquer a 5K run when it once could barely run around the block. With a little extra effort and push, I think my body can accomplish even more.

• My body, once weak and without definition, can lift increasingly heavy weight and can generate muscle tone. It can even do push-ups -- real push-ups. It takes dedication and practice and persistence and mental toughness too. But I see progress. I feel progress. And I want more.

• My body can help others. I can use my fingers to type words on a keyboard that will reach friends and family and people I don't even know. My words can inform and support and encourage and heal. I can use my hands and my semi-creative talents to create hand-made gifts, to cook and deliver very mediocre meals for friends in need, to massage my husband's sore back, to braid my niece's beautiful hair and paint her tiny nails. I can use my arms to hug my little boys with all my might. I can use my voice to communicate, my ears to listen, my senses to feel.
  

• My body can tolerate surgery and chemotherapy and radiation and horrible allergic reactions to antibiotics. My body was badly beaten by a treatment protocol intended to cure me of a disastrous disease. And somehow, in some way, it survived.
  

• My body killed cancer. With the aid of medical intervention and a hopeful attitude, my body overcame the worst and best thing that has ever happened to me. And if it could do nothing else, I would be truly happy for this one thing my body can do.
  

Glamour editor and leukemia cancer survivor Erin Zammett Ruddy blogs Life with Cancer and is the author of My (So-Called) Normal Life. Five years ago, at the age of 23, Erin was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Immediately after her cancer diagnosis, Erin began chronicling her life with cancer in a monthly Life with Cancer column for Glamour magazine. Recently, she has launched a blog after the same name as her column.

"I am excited to be starting my blog for Glamour. I am going to be talking about whatever it is I am feeling about that particular day.

I hope to hear from readers that instead of being a patient or a victim -- it's something like I have this disease, what can I do with it -- how can I help other people.

Do I wish I didn't have cancer? Yes, but I wouldn't trade my life right now for anything and that life includes cancer."

While Erin is new to blogging, she is not new to writing, and she is an excellent writer. Frank, serious, open, vulnerable, and bouyant with a delightful sense of humor, her writing makes for a blog that is difficult to leave until you have read every post. Erin takes Gleevac, and in order to have a baby she will need to stop taking the drug that keeps her in cancer remission. She is very honest in sharing the anxiety and anticipation of making this choice.

From the blog, you can access the monthly column Erin writes for Glamour magazine. One of the most recent features an interview with MTV's Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Fresh Meat Diem Brown, a 25-year-old woman currently battling ovarian cancer. After hearing about Diem, and watching her on the reality show, Erin was intrigued to meet her. As a result of the time the two spent together, and sharing stories with Diem, Erin was inspired to stay positive in the midst of uncertainty.

Erin Zammett Ruddy is a phenomenal woman with a terrific attitude, and a blog we are glad she keeps.

When Amy Turner Tunick, an actress and writer who wrote The Feel Good Column for the South Florida Sun-Times, was first diagnosed with cancer she wrote:

"It doesn't seem real. There were no signs or symptoms. Maybe it's a genetic thing. But will I ever really know? I've been a very healthy active 44 year-old woman. I don't drink or smoke.  But, sometimes, unfortunate things do happen to good people. And I don't doubt I'm a good person. Actually, I believe I'm an exceptional person. I'm positive, optimistic, inspiring and enthusiastic. I try to be caring, loving and honest. So, sadly, I'm not blaming anyone, including God, that I've just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer." 

Tunick did not exaggerate when she described herself as a positive, optimistic, inspiring and enthusiastic person. Her columns reflected that, and she had a way of inspiring the reader to feel optimistic about life. She had a way of reminding you of the simple joys of life and the importance of the people in your life. In one of her last columns, she wrote, ''Cry, scream, feel sorry for yourself -- but not for long. Basically, this is all about hope. Never lose it. Never give in or give up.''

Tunick had this to say about death, "I believe that Death teaches us that the time is now. The time is now to pick up a telephone and call the person that you love. Death teaches us the joy of the moment. It teaches us we don't have forever. If teaches us that nothing is permanent. It teaches us to let go, there's nothing you can hang on to. And it tells us to give up on expectations and let tomorrow tell its own story, because nobody knows if they'll get home tonight."

Tunick won't be getting home tonight. She lost her battle to cancer and the world lost more of its light. Tunick was 47.

In woman with fake boobs has real health worries, Busty and bothered wrote to women's medical health expert Dr. Judith Reichman asking if her breast implants will rupture during a mammogram or if there is a possibility that the implants will obscure signs of breast cancer. Dr. Reichman, who is NBC Today show's medical contributor on women's health, responded that both are valid concerns for the over four million women who have had breast augmentation. According the doctor, there were only 41 cases of implant ruptures during mammography reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration between June 1992 and October 2002.

As to breast implants obscuring mammography readings, implants can cause a 15 to 50 percent decrease in the mammographically visualized breast tissue and several studies have reported false negative mammograms -- those that missed the cancer -- in 12 to 67 percent of women with breast implants. So, it's a bit of good news and bad news but women with breast implants should not put off having mammograms because of fear that the implants will be damaged or that there is no point in having a mammogram because there is a possibility the implants will obscure the early signs of breast cancer.