In medieval monasteries, the art of copying and illuminating libraries of manuscripts, of putting wisdom and prayer to paper, was seen as a spiritual process in itself.*
Kassia St Clair

It’s not that your personality itself becomes stable but rather that your routine environments and social roles lock you into habitual patterns.**
Ben Hardy

Many a working day hold the sort of elements that can be reimagined as spiritual practices;
You continue to do the work, but are also connecting with what is deeply important to you –
Win/win.

The way you speak to someone,
The composition of emails,
How you use the walk between departments,
Reading information,
Making decisions …
Whatever you identify,
It’s worth contemplating how you might use it
to connect to the deepest you.

*Kassia St Clair’s The Secret Lives of Colour;
**Ben Hardy’s Personality Isn’t Permanent.

Look Look Look Look Look Look Look!  I’m running away with my imagination.*
Ruth Krauss

*Ruth Krauss’ Open House for Butterflies;
**The doodle is a one liner – doodled with only one line without lifting the pen from the paper, made with the small group at the University of Central Lancashire recently. I have included a vectorised image for you to print off and add your own colours to, or, the best is to create your own one-liner.

Biological destiny is the material which must be shaped by the free human spirit. This, from the point of view of man, is what it exists for.*
Viktor Frankl

Imperfect and proud of it.**
Seth Godin

You are irreplaceably imperfect –
Viktor Frankl’s words,
Out of which your creativity and beauty emerges;
There are perhaps two requirements:
A determination to overcome the disablements and
obstacles of your destiny, and
an endeavour worthy of endless pursuit^ –
Which may emerge from the struggle to
shape your destiny.

*Viktor Frankl’s The Doctor and the Soul;
**Seth Godin’s blog: Craft and imperfection;
^Katherine Morgan Schafler’s The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control.

The first great wonder at the world is big in me.*
Margaret Wise Brown

*Bruce Handy’s Wild Things.

We learn to befriend our complexity and see the dance of opposition in our lives not as a negative or destructive thing but as an invitation to a creative adventure.*
John O’Donohue

Complexity is beautiful, and beauty is simple.**
Gabe Anderson

*John O’Donohue’s Divine Beauty;
Gabe Anderson’s blog: Organising the Beats.

The person who has overcome greed does not cling to any idol or anything and hence has nothing to lose: he is rich because he is empty, he is strong because he is not the slave of his desires.  He can let go of idols, irrational desires, and fantasies, because he is in full touch with reality, inside and outside himself.*
Erich Fromm

*Erich Fromm’s The Revolution of Hope.

To stay eager, to connect, to find interest in the everyday, to notice what everybody else overlooks – these are vital skills and noble goals.*
Rob Walker

*Rob Walker’s The Art of Noticing.

Never be limited by the small dreams others have for you.*
Bernadette Jiwa

It’s easy to gather the options.
It’s hard to choose one and commit.**
Gabe Anderson

The dreams others have for us
will always be smaller than those we have for ourselves
because these designs lack our talents, our attention to energy, our values.

Having said that, our dreams, once identified, need to become smaller, packaged in detail –
They must fit into today in a multiplicity of iterations of those same abilities, energies and life-goals –
Because a dream is not for the future or for hanging on the wall.

*Bernadette Jiwa’s What Great Storytellers Know;
**Gabe Anderson’s blog: Gathering and Choosing;
^I doodled today’s image in a small Mindful Doodling group I was leading in the past week at the University of Central Lancashire; I’ve included a good quality (vectorised) copy for you to print off if you want to add your own colours. Of course, the best thing would be to create your own doodle. Have fun.

In my experience, there are two uncomfortable pedagogical methods that lead to better learning outcomes:
Doing it poorly on the way to doing it better
Engaging with others in mutual support and exploration*
Seth Godin

The human mind has evolved to quickly navigate the complexity of our world; create and sustain tribal bonds; establish beliefs; make rapid decisions; and do this in an imperfect way that also comes with a range of biases, shortcuts, blind spots, and other quirks.**
Dan Ariely

This morning, I awoke from my dreams remembering some
painful and mortifying moments from my teenage years;
As I later read Seth Godin’s words, I realised these two methods have helped me
to change over the years, to rewrite my story –
Learning from mistakes and determining to be a better person,
And finding communitas with others where this experience has been intensified,
Helping me to tackle inaccuracies and falsehoods in my thoughts
and behaviours, as well as gaining new insights and see new possibilities.

There’s a lot to be sorted out in me –
It could take a lifetime,
But I’m glad to always have these two means readily to hand.

*Seth Godin’s blog: “I don’t learn that way”;
**Dan Ariely’s Misbelief.

What if our life skills had more value than our worldly possessions. The most content human by far is one who creates a world out of nothing.*
Keri Smith

We are the obscene and joyous embodiment of a fool’s errand.**
Nick Cave

It may sometimes appear to others that we have created something
from nothing, but really,
We imagine and we make out of what others have not
taken the time, or been willing,
To notice – in ourselves, in others, in the world around us, in the past and
in the future.

*Keri Smith’s The Wander Society;
**Nick Cave’s The Red Hand Files blog: #210.