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

Everything worth doing is difficult.**

You know that
I am capable of more, and I know that
you are, too;
There are so many ways in which
we can double ourselves in today’s world
(I am thinking of things like selflessness, generosity, and wisdom) –
Mary Wells’ list is only a start, and there’s a list of
many things natural and peculiar to you that you could pursue –
The only thing stopping you
Is that they are hard –
It’s the same with my list –
But we also know, the opposite of a double life
is not a single life,
It is a half life:
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.^

*gapingvoid’s blog: Always Open Self;
**gapingvoid’s blog: Follow the Yellowbrick Road to Greatness;
^Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves.