I’m glad my old confidence is gone because it thought I was right, and maybe even great, but not anymore. Now I am to make my work – my little contribution to the world – just unique and useful.*
Derek Sivers

I’ve never thought myself great, but
perhaps I too often thought I was right –
Yet, when I manage to clear that out of the way,
I get to see a contribution I can bring, a
little difference I can make –
But please tell me if it’s a load of rubbish.

*Derek Sivers’ Hell Yeah or No.

Gratitude serves as a bridge to the transcendent, connecting us to something beyond ourselves. At the heart of the human impulse to seek meaning lies gratitude. And at the heart of gratitude lies the sense of meaning … do you want to change how you see yourself and the world? Cultivate the practice of expressing gratitude.*
Alex McManus

It doesn’t matter that there are many who
are more talented than us, who possess
more than we do –
If we are grateful for
who we are and what we have, and
find ways to give expression to these, then
an incomparable path** will appear
step by step before us.

*AleXander McManus’ FutureU.

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

Much of nature we consider beautiful because we are part of nature. We grew up in nature, evolutionary speaking.**
Alan Lightman

I don’t know about you, but
I need wonder to be bigger in me than it is;
Earth just keeps on giving, and a worthy
quest for the rest of my days is to
notice more – I am nature, as you are, and
I must unlearn to
be able to relearn.

*Bruce Handy’s Wild Things;
Alan Lightman’s The Transcendent Brain.

As you savour the taste of honey, remember that the production of one pound of honey needs 2,000,000 flowers and on average, a bee visits 50-100 flowers on each flight. The average bee makes just one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime … Bee populations are becoming increasingly at risk due to habitat loss, temperature changes due to climate change, pollution and agricultural practices … What can we do to help protect the bees?*

After many weeks of warm, dry, sunny
weather, this morning was cold, and I noticed
a bee lying on the drive, motionless – a worker bee
that had died hard at work, as its pollen baskets, or corbiculae,
Were still intact, so I
thanked my fellow Earth citizen for its service.

*The Carbon Almanac: The Buzz About Bees.

The diary is the heart of my practice, the place where most of my work is made or at least first conceived.*
Austin Kleon

Work nourishes noble minds.**
Seneca

For some, their special world is a diary or journal,
For others, more disciplined in their thoughts than me,
It may be a corner for meditation,
Or a walk for reflection, but in these places
we gain a different perspective on what
we are doing for our work,^ why
we are doing it, who
we are doing this with or for, and when
we do our best work –
Above all, we reconnect to our greatest work:
What is your vocation?
To be a good person.^^

Austin Kleon’s blog: A walkthrough of my diary;
**Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic;
^This is work in its widest sense; it may for may not be something we are paid for, but it definitely is something we must do that requires talent and effort.
^^Marcus Aurelius, from Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic.

None of us are authorised to solve interesting problems. And there are no guarantees. Do it anyway. Generous creativity is the only way things can get better.*
Seth Godin

The earliest artists worked within the outlines of their imaginations, the later reworked their imaginations.**
James Carse

Who knows where the thought or notion
comes from: maybe the universe, the BFG,^ or
your god – who trusts you to use your own imagination
rather than being told what to do, therefore
that thing that’s always on your
mind and heart, and brings
your best talents into play
somehow,
Somewhere, for
someone,
Maybe, just
maybe that’s your workship,
Your most sacred work,
The reason you are here^^ –
Praise be.

There is only one age: alive.*^

*Seth Godin’s blog: The hubris of creativity;
**James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games;
^‘I is a dream-blowing giant,’ from Roald Dahl’s The BFG;
^^And there is no retirement; indeed, this may be when our workship begins;
*^Agnes Varda; Austin Kleon’s blog: My year in 101 quotes.

Gratitude simply opens up a
bigger, more
colourful
relational
thoughtful
inspiring
interconnected
giving
peaceful
joyful
loving
potential
hopeful
creative
(please add more)
world and
life.

For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn’t give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Complexity is beautiful and beauty is simple.*
Gabe Anderson

I was playing with these two thoughts, and this appeared:
I wouldn’t give you a fig for the beauty on this side of difficulty,
But for the beauty on the far side of difficulty,
I would give you everything I have –
Think about the most beautiful people you know,
What have they gone through to become that person?, and
that object or idea that captures your attention and captivates and
inspires, how painful and costly was that to create?

*Gabe Anderson’s blog: Organising the Beats.

Wandering is an essential counterbalance to efficiency … The outsized discoveries – the ‘non-linear’ ones – are highly likely to require wandering.*
Jeff Bezos

I have noticed that doing the sensible thing is only a good idea when the decision is quite small. For the life-changing things, you must risk it.**
Jeanette Winterson

It worked last time,
It’s all we have,
It’s what’s expected of us,
It worked in these other places,
What will others think if we don’t do it this way?
We haven’t got time to come up with anything else,
That’s not how we do things here,
We can’t be seen to fail,
Leave it to those in charge,
It’s not in the textbook,
It’s not in the instruction manual,
Someone else will know what to do,
We have to sit down and focus … really focus,
It’s still not working.

Time to bring the power of imagination to the
pressure of reality,^
The kind of imagination fuelled by wandering,
And the more involved, the better –
And, yes, there’s risk^

We use our imagination not to escape from reality but to join it, and this exhilarates us because of the distance between and an appreciation of the real.^^

*Matthew Syed’s Rebel Ideas;
**James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter: The simple path to wealth, how time works, and things that hold talented people back;
^Wallace Stevens’ The Necessary Angel;
^^Iris Murdoch’s The Sovereignty of Good.

Jimmy Baldwin used to talk about us “achieving ourselves,” finding who we are, what we’re here for and making that possible for each other.*
Vincent Harding

The soul of an individual is the longing inside each person for a greater sense of belonging, for a new country. We go through most workdays forgetting that this great migratory force exists within us.**
David Whyte

Even in this modern world of ultra-individual-ism,^ we
are not alone – the original meaning of
“individual” means “indivisible,” and perhaps the end of
all our solo journeyings will be to find ourselves
with others, and, certainly,
To “achieve ourselves” will mean that we have had some help –
Yesterday afternoon I was in conversation with some of the people
who helped me in this way – my friend Alex sharing how he will not
speak of individuals but only of persons because of our
connectedness, and, in the evening, I was with a
small group of people exploring dreamwhispering for the first time
in a conversation that flowed this way and that as
everyone shared from their lives – experiencing something of how
we are indivisibles.

*Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise;
**David Whyte’s Crossing the Unknown Sea;
^”Isms” are always the problem.