This is art. Not painting, but art: the act of doing something that might not work, simply because it’s a generous things to do. The combination of talent, skill, craft, and point of view that brings new light to old problems.*
(Seth Godin)

A committed life involves some common struggles. It is, for example, a constant struggle to see people at their full depths. In the business of daily life there is the constant temptation to see the other person as an object and not a whole.**
(David Brooks)

Many of us will find our way and purpose in life by noticing a problem others do not, even though we may all be looking at the same thing.

Where others pass by, you decide to commit and bring your talent, skill, craft and way of seeing to bear.

You must trust that if this is so then there will also be the elegant solution within you. When you recognise this it comes to life, but it also needs form, and life and form equals beauty.

When this happens you will have begun a great struggle, not only with the forces surrounding the problem you have noticed, but also those within, as Richard Rohr recognises:

What the ego (the False Self) hates and fears more than anything else is change.^

We will find many reasons for not turning the life of our elegant solution into form, the thing that will shape our lives – our True Self.

By heart I mean the place emotions meet reason, mobilise the will, and shape identity.^^

(*From Seth Godin’s The Practice.)
(**From David Brooks’ The Second Mountain.)
(^From Richard Rohr’s Immortal Diamond.)
(^^From Alex McManus’ Makers of Fire.)