Are we doing the best we can yet?

Writ large, sociality is both a modest and an honest social bond.*
Richard Sennett

Don’t fight with people, study them.**
Austin Kleon

I was asked to sit in on an important meeting as
a listener and doodler.
The room was filled with stories, both personal and group
It highlighted for me how are greatest hope is yet found in
our capability to create new stories for solving our problems:
My own sense … is that there is something
deeply built into us that needs story itself.
Story is such a source of nurture that
we cannot become really true human beings
for ourselves and
for each other without story –
and without finding ways in which
to tell it, create it, encourage younger people
to create their own story.^

*Richard Sennett’s Building and Dwelling;
**Austin Kleon’s blog: A gratitude zine;
^Vincent Harding, from Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise.

You know it

Elevate from needing to wanting to knowing.*
Ben Hardy

You may think you have to wait for someone else
to give you what you need, or
you may now believe it necessary to go out and get it yourself, but
what if it’s already in you, and
a little bit of self investment will find it?

*Ben Hardy’s Be Your Future Self Now.

Bring us fire

MERAKI adj. Pouring yourself wholeheartedly in to something, such as cooking, and doing so with soul, creativity, and love.*
Ella Frances Sanders

Whatever the pain you can’t get rid of, make it your creative thing – or find someone who makes it for you.**
Susan Cain

Perhaps there is purpose
in the pain you carry, a
burning that may become a fire:
Nothing happens until someone feels something.^

*Ella Frances Sanders’ Lost in Translation;
**Susan Cain’s Bittersweet;

^gapingvoid’s blog: The Secret Key to Greatness.

You are more than this

There are no ordinary people.*
C. S. Lewis

We are all extremely ignorant and limited in our current perspectives, and our Future Selves will see things from a more elevated state.**
Ben Hardy

Each of us is
more than we are, and,
Often,
More than we know.
All around us lies
everything we need to grow when we
enter through humility.

*Ben Hardy’s Be Your Future Self Now.

Letting go and letting come

It’s your choice the extent to which you’ll invest in loss and learning.*
Ben Hardy

the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it**
Jesus of Nazareth

When our now becomes
habitual, then
we need to introduce some future to
stir things up;
Of course, that means we become
learners again and we’ll
make mistakes, but if we can handle being seen as a beginner,
An incompétent(e),
It’s the kind of investment that will lead us to
the more lively life.

*Ben Hardy’s Be Your Future Self Now;
**Matthew 13:46)

The gift and the wound

Story is a metaphor for life, and to be alive is to be in perpetual conflict.*
Robert McKee

We are kept from our goals not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal.**
Robert Brault

Gift and wound,
We find both within the meaningful life,
And if the wound is finally healed,
Perhaps we will lose the gift
we seek to bring to others:
But true healing and transformation
come from being able to sponsor the wound,
sponsor the demon,
sponsor the shadow …
receiving and accepting what’s there,
but holding it within a bigger framework …
in a way that allows other possibilities to emerge.^

*Robert McKee‘s newsletter: The World According to Writers;
**Ben Hardy’s Personality Isn’t Permanent;
^Stephen Gilligan and Robert Dilts’ The Hero’s Journey.

And let me be clear …

Now is the time to free the heart,
Let all intentions and worries stop,
Free the joy inside the self,
Awaken to the wonder of your life.*

John O’Donohue

Pursue clarity instead. 
In the pursuit of clarity, style reveals itself. 
Your clarity will differ from anyone else’s without
your intention to make it differ.*

Verlyn Klinkenborg

To be unclear is to sleep,
Unable to take or make the opportunities that allow us
to bring our boutique contribution into the world
for others.
It’s why taking some time to discover what
lies within
ushers in the day, and with it
direction and alacrity.^

*John O’Donohue’s Benedictus: For an Occasion of Celebration;
**Verlyn Klikenborg’s Several short sentences about writing;
^Drop me a line to find out more about dreamwhispering.

And the genre is you

But genres are merely outlines by another name
Better to be discovering what’s worth discovering.
Noticing what you notice … .*

Verlyn Klinkenborg

All behaviour is about learning to hear the voice of your own soul. It is always there and there deeply you lear to listen, the greater the surprises and discoveries that will unfold. To enter into the gentleness of your own should chances the tone and quality of your life.**
John O’Donohue

You may have been categorised, listed and
measured from your earliest days,
Yet beneath the surface of you lies
a uniqueness of seeing and questioning, of
imagining and making;
An off-script, irreplaceable bespokeness to give expression to.

*Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several short sentences about writing;
**John O’Donohue’s Divine Beauty
.

Not another “get rich quick” scheme

You’ll never run out of noticing … .*
Verlyn Klinkenborg

In Blake‘s sense, a firm persuasion, was a form of self-knowledge; it was understood as a result, an outcome, bouncy that comes from pay close attention to an astonishing world and the way each of us is made differently and uniquely for that world.**
David Whyte

We may not have many pounds, dollars, euros or yen,
But we all get to be rich in noticing, affluent
in attention, wealthy
in observation, and
when mixed with our
peculiar abilities and energy, and our
distinctive values, we’re capable of
making something extraordinary.
William Blake’s firm persuasion feels
a lot like Theory U‘s crystallising intent,
The thing we must do, and the result of
opening the mind, heart, and will,
Slowly but surely noticing more.

*Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several short sentences about writing;
**David Whyte’s Crossing the Unknown Sea.

By implication

Without extraneous words or phrases or clauses, there will be room for implication.
The longer the sentence, the less its able to imply,
And writing by implication should be one of your goals.*

Verlyn Klinkenborg

Whatever story you choose for your past enormously impacts your present and future.**
Ben Hardy

Life on the far side of complexity comes
with implication.
You have faced and explored and identified
the contents of your life,
Both good and bad, past and future, and there has emerged
a richer story to give
full expression to.

*Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several short sentences about writing;
**Ben Hardy’s Be Your Future Self Now
.