You can’t just be you. You have to double yourself. You have to read books on subjects you know nothing about. You have to travel to places you never thought of travelling. You have to meet every kind of person and endlessly stretch what you know.*
Mary Wells

Attention … just is life: your experience of being alive consists of nothing more than the sum of everything to which you pay attention.**
Oliver Burkeman

Growing ourselves is most difficult and the most
important work we’ll ever do:
When we choose the work that will also stretch us to become more
rather than less.
As Clarissa Pinkola Estés helpfully contrasts:
Three things differentiate living from the soul
versus living from ego only. They are:
the ability to sense and learn new ways,
the tenacity to ride a rough road,
and the patience to learn deep love over time.^
May we avoid all imitations.

*gapingvoid’s blog: Always Open Self;
**Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks;
^Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves.