The ego is the dualist in us. It is the habit we have of seeing ourselves over and against someone else … As ego, my wealth, intelligence, moral goodness, social class are what they are in contrast to the person next to me.*
James Carse

In the pursuit of knowledge, every day something is added. In the practice of the Tao, every day something is dropped.*
Lao Tsu

In the gag, the celebrity asks,
“Don’t you know who I am?”,
The person out of whom they are trying to gain some favour replies,
“Why, don’t you remember?”

To remember who we are,
We must forget;
We let go in order to let come –
An ability requiring a lifetime.

*James Carse’s Breakfast at the Victory.

We are being rescaled to planetary proportions, as we become fractally resonant and intimate with our own depths.*
Jean Houston

Dare to go a little bit deeper. Life is too short not to.**
Gabe Anderson

Under-explored and
wild with possibility,
Everyone has deeper within them.

*Jean Houston’s A Mythic Life;
**Gabe Anderson’s blog: A Little Bit Deeper.

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.