Happy Soul Food Friday!
This week:
- 3 Things to Learn from 92-Year-Old Shen Yu
- The ‘7-1’ Sleep Method That Could Add Four Years to Your Life
- Enjoy Every Sandwich- Powerful Life Lessons from Warren Zevon
- + Winners of the 2026 Underwater Photographer of the Year Contest
3 Things from Shen Yu:
I am ninety-two years old .
If I could pass on just three things, it would be these:
- Move your body every day. It does not need to be hard. A walk is enough. The day you stop moving is the day your body begins to forget how.
- Feed your body with care. Not with perfection. Eat real food. Eat slowly. What you put in today becomes how you feel tomorrow.
- Rest your body well. Sleep is not laziness. It is where your mind clears, your heart recovers, and your body repairs what the day has worn down.
And one more thing – never stop having something to look forward to.
A place to visit. A person to see. A small dream you have not given up on yet.
The moment you stop dreaming, you stop living. It does not matter if you are thirty or ninety-two.
Keep moving. Keep eating well. Keep resting. Keep dreaming. That is the whole secret.
Speaking of Sleep…
The ‘7-1’ Sleep Method Could Add Four Years to Your Life
“Even if one in four poor sleepers were to shift to this sleep pattern, the potential gains would be substantial.”
The ‘7-1’ Sleep Rule Could Add Four Years To Your Life | HuffPost UK Life
Enjoy Every Sandwich:
In August 2002, a doctor handed Warren Zevon a death sentence.
Inoperable mesothelioma. Maybe three months. Possibly a year if things went well. He was 55 years old.
For most people, that news ends everything — plans, ambitions, the ordinary forward motion of a life.
Warren Zevon made a phone call instead.
Not to a lawyer. Not to a therapist.
To his collaborator Jorge Calderón. And he said four words: “Let’s make a record.”
Here’s what made that remarkable. Warren had spent four decades as rock music’s brilliant cynic — the man who wrote about werewolves, mercenaries, and lawyers with guns because dark humor was easier than honesty. He was Hunter S. Thompson’s friend, Stephen King’s favorite songwriter, one of the most literate voices in rock history.
And he had never once made a truly vulnerable album.
Until now. Because when you have nothing left to lose, the armor comes off.
He reached out — not through a label or management, but simply as a friend — and one by one they showed up. Bruce Springsteen. Tom Petty. Don Henley. Ry Cooder. Jackson Browne. Emmylou Harris. Legends who had admired him for decades, coming to help him say goodbye.
The recording sessions were extraordinary. Warren was visibly weakening between takes, sometimes needing oxygen, sometimes barely able to stand. But when the microphone was in front of him, something shifted. His voice carried the weight of a man who finally understood what he wanted to say.
The song that became the album’s heart was called “Keep Me in Your Heart” — a simple, quietly devastating farewell with no clever wordplay, no ironic distance. Just a man telling the people he loved not to forget him.
“If I leave you it doesn’t mean I love you any less. Keep me in your heart for a while.”
Around that same time, David Letterman — a longtime admirer who had championed Zevon’s music for years — invited him back for one final television appearance. The conversation, watched by millions, eventually landed on the question everyone wanted to ask but no one knew how to phrase.
Did Warren have any wisdom to offer? Anything he’d learned?
He paused. Then smiled.
“Enjoy every sandwich.”
The audience laughed. Then went quiet. Because they understood it wasn’t a joke. It was the most honest philosophy imaginable — condensed into three words by a man who finally had the clarity that comes only when time runs out. Pay attention. Be present. The small things are the big things.
The Wind was released on August 26, 2003.
Warren Zevon died on September 7, 2003 — thirteen days later.
He had outlived his prognosis by nearly a year. Long enough to finish his work. Long enough to say everything he’d spent a lifetime avoiding. The album won two Grammy Awards, reached audiences who had never heard his name before, and produced a farewell song that has since been played at thousands of funerals around the world — for people who never knew who wrote it, but felt every single word.
The Wind now stands alongside Johnny Cash’s American IV, David Bowie’s Blackstar, and Leonard Cohen’s You Want It Darker — a small, extraordinary collection of albums made by artists who looked directly at death and responded with their finest work.
But here’s what stays with me.
Warren Zevon spent forty years hiding behind wit and cleverness. And then, given a deadline no one asks for, he finally let people see who he actually was. Not the cynic. Not the dark humorist. Just a man who loved his friends, feared being forgotten, and wanted desperately to matter.
He already did. He just needed to believe it.
We’re all on a timeline we can’t see. Warren’s just became visible.
And instead of spending those final months in fear or bitterness, he gathered the people he loved, walked into a studio, and told the truth for the very first time.
Three words for the rest of us, from a man who earned the right to say them:
Enjoy every sandwich.
Winners of the 2026 Underwater Photographer of the Year Contest
A collection of honored images from this year’s competition celebrating “photography beneath the surface of the ocean, lakes, rivers and even swimming pools”
Winners of the 2026 Underwater Photographer of the Year Contest – The Atlantic
Keep Moving and Eat and Rest Well!
Love,
Neville
Subscribe to the Free Weekly Blog Here: Welcome to Soul Food Friday: A weekly blog to feed, grow and energize your soul – Happy Soul Food Friday!
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nevillebillimoria
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nbillimoria
Happy Soul Food Friday! 