Today is Evaluate Your Life Day, a day to take stock of your reality and assess your dreams. We admit it's difficult: in the words of Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard, "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

Nonetheless, in an effort to help you with your appraisal, let's look at more words from wise folks from days gone by.

More than two thousand years ago, Hippocrates wrote, "Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult." The father of Greek medicine may have found a kindred spirit in the 19th century, when American writer Elbert Hubbard shared his own similar view in fewer words: "Life is just one damned thing after another."

Another 19th-century American philosopher, Henry James, had a more encouraging perspective. He urged: "Live all you can: it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven't had that, what have you had?"

A few generations after Henry James, Swiss psychologist Carl Jung offered his thoughts to people searching for meaning in life: "As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being."