Everyone should find the centre of his life in his work and be able to grow outward from this point as far as possible.*
(Rainer Maria Rilke)

It may make sense in our head but does it make sense in our heart? Commitment for a long haul comes from the heart, the willingness to connect at our deepest levels to what life is asking of us.

Seth Godin has just launched a new book. In his trailer for this he claims:

The path forward is about curiosity, generosity and connection. These are the three foundations of art. Art is a tool that gives us the ability to make things better and to create something new on behalf of those who will use it to create the next thing. Human connection is exponential; it scales as we create it, weaving together culture and possibility where none used to exist.**

I’ve just ordered the book, not because my head thought there’d be lots of good things in the book – although it did and there will be – but because I can feel what I call the zing in my chest as I listened to Godin speak and then wrote his words down for you to read.

Godin reminded me of my response to a question my friend Alex McManus asked a group I was a part of: What does it mean to you to be human?

I thought for a number of weeks before replying that for me it is to live with creativity, generosity and enjoyment – the latter only emerging when the first two are practised.

David Brooks writes about three themes found in the second mountain people he has met – the second mountain being the one we “climb” for others rather than for ourselves – and these themes are love, care and commitment.

Three sets of three words.

Perhaps there are three words that take what you must do from your head to your heart, words to play with each day.

(*From Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters on Life.)
(**From Seth Godin’s trailer for The Practice.)