As one Buddhist author put it, the “craving to be otherwise, to be elsewhere” permeated my whole life.*
Dan Harris

Personhoods are staked on the cards dealt and not the hands played, as if we evolved opposable thumbs of our agency for nothing.**
Maria Popova

Trying to stay present to and in
our own lives
is a difficult thing to do –
Perhaps more difficult than ever before.
We can become fixated on
a version of ourselves, or
someone else, that
we can never become,
But to trust and fully live the life we have not only
makes a difference to us but
also to others.
This is how our
“opposable thumbs of our agency” alchemise
flexibility from rigidity.

*Dan Harris’ 10% Happier;
**Maria Popova’s The Marginalian: The Good Luck of Your Bad Luck: Marcus Aurelius on the Stoic Strategy for Weathering Life’s Waves and Turning Suffering into Strength.