Each life is a mystery that is never finally available to the mind’s light or questions. That we are here is a huge affirmation; somehow life needed us and wanted us to be. To sense and trust this primeval acceptance can open a vast spring of trust within the heart. It can free us into a natural courage which casts out fear and opens up our lives to become voyages of discovery, creativity and compassion.*
John O’Donohue

Harmony has been described as a second naïveté, a second simplicity or innocence, where instead of seeing through everything, we see into everything, and at the core, we find not meaninglessness and banality but profound, inexpressible belatedness and beauty.**
Brian McLaren

In this infinite game of life there are no imposters –
Life wanted each unrepeatable one of us here.

Of course, we are beholden not to choose
some way or manufacture a role that cuts across the direction of our lives.

I’m not thinking about fate or destiny, but about
knowing ourselves and choosing to make our contribution.

What matters most isn’t the title. It isn’t the power. It isn’t the wealth. It isn’t the control. It’s who you choose to become. Or who you choose to remain.^

When we are prepared to look inside, we find
more than we had thought or hoped we would.

Yes, there’s the ugly stuff, the failures, the weakness, but
there’s also the love and beauty expressed in discovery, creativity and compassion.

Most of all, I am reminded how this is the possibility of
looking with astonishment in to the lives of one another.

*John O’Donohue’s Benedictus;
**Brian McLaren’s Faith After Doubt;
^Ryan Holiday’s Discipline is Destiny.

The secret cause of all suffering is, of course, mortality itself, which is the prime precondition of life, so is indeed “grave and constant.” It cannot be denied if life is to be affirmed.*
Joseph Campbell

What does matter is that you give everything, because anything less is to cheat the gift.
The gift of your potential.
The gift of the opportunity.
The gift of the craft you’ve been introduced to.
The gift of the responsibility entrusted to you.
The gift of the instruction and time of others.
The gift of life itself.**
Ryan Holiday

We all have our limitations –
Even those who think they have none have plenty –
And the inescapable greatest of these is our mortality,
Yet these restraints shape our lives profoundly and even
wonderfully:
I don’t have many years, so I will use them as best I can,
I am not as talented as so many others, but I will continually develop what I can do,
I am not the best person I can be and yet I remain capable of transcendence,
I can’t do everything, though I can do some things;
I sometimes wonder whether,
If I had more years, would I waste them?
If I was more talented, maybe I’d cruise rather than practise?
If I was a better person, perhaps I’d cease my struggles and doubts?
If I could do more things, would I miss the right thing? –
Limitations are our whetstone for sharpening all the gifts we have,
Together they provide a playground of possibilities.

Look around you, and perhaps make
a list of fifty of the gifts in your life –
Just for starters.

*Joseph Campbell’s Myths to Live By, quoting Stephen Dedalus;
**Ryan Holiday’s Discipline is Destiny.

That’s how you’re going to save the world – with your own gifts and talents.*
Ken Sleight

Everything in life is a team sport.**
Ryan Holiday

As far as we know, the multiplicity of species that live together on this planet
are the only complex forms of life in our galaxy, and
maybe even the universe,
And yet we live at a point in which our world may
become inhabitable, wiping life from the face of the universe.

Humanity must find a way to change the narrative that currently leads to the edge of a precipice. Your art and mine is to author our own lives.^

You have your day job, but, if you will,
You are a superhero who has found your way to Earth with
powers and abilities that can help save the planet –
It is unlikely that any of us have one all-encompassing plan for
how this will be accomplished, but we do have our little plans that mean,
Together, we can make a not insignificant difference, and
yours is …

Without perception of the unique meaning of their singular existence a person would be numbed in difficult situations.^^

*Terry Tempest Williams’ The Hour of Land;
**Ryan Holiday’s Discipline is Destiny,
^Deepak Chopra, from Jean Houston’s The Wizard of Us;
^^Viktor Frankl’s The Doctor and the Soul; italics mine, indicating where I have altered the gender.

The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything, but they make the most of everything.*
Sam Cawthorn

very happy people know a secret: a human being has a ridiculous amount of personal agency**
Donald Miller

It seems that happiness is a choice as much
as it is an emotion –
In the movie Marvellous, a true story, the hero Neil Baldwin announces
“I always wanted to be happy so I decided to be.”

This is a challenge to me,
But if it means I choose to make the most of everything and
to explore the fullness of human agency for the benefit of others then
count me in.

The fire within us can burn bright enough to warm others. The light within us can illuminate the paths for others.^

*Ryder Carroll’s The Bullet Journal Method;
**Donald Miller’s Hero On a Mission;
^Ryan Holiday’s Discipline is Destiny.

Hard work can be done without consequence. Contribution, however, is hard work with others in mind.*
Gabe Anderson

*Gabe Anderson’s blog: Hand Work and Contribution.

Maybe your life will work. Most likely it won’t at first, but that will give you poetry.*
Yrsa Daley-Ward

Occasionally, even today, you come across certain people who seem to possess an important inner cohesion. They are not leading fragmented, scattershot lives. They have achieved inner integration. They are calm, settled and rooted. They are not blown off course by storms. They don’t crumble in adversity. Their minds are consistent and their hearts are dependable. Their virtues are not the blooming virtues you see in smart college students; they are the ripening virtues you see in people who have lived life a little and have learned from joy and pain.**
David Brooks

Thank you that this life is not
nature-only, but also
nurture;
Thank you that we have
a becoming, as well as a being,
For endlessness, the infinite
found in the present;
Thank you for our capacity to befriend
our pain and grow.

Katherine Morgan Schafler’s The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control;
David Brooks’ The Road to Character.

The true master, when his or her prestige is threatened by age or circumstances, can say, “Don’t you see that I am a person who could be utterly forgotten without batting an eye?”*
Arthur Brooks

If we look at God … we do not see another being out there existing independently of us, we see ourselves being seen.**
James Carse

What a wondrous thing it will be,
If you are seen making the contribution that you must^ –
Beyond your role or definition:
To be the person you can be,
Doing the thing that only you can,
For those who need to receive your gift most of all –
You will never be an imposter.

And if you see people for who they are,
Delighting in the gift only they can bring,
For those they believe their gift is for –
This is part of your oblation.

Who will you see today?

*Arthur Brooks’ From Strength to Strength;
**James Carse’s Breakfast at the Victory;
^See Elle Luna’s The Crossroads of Should and Must.

I think there is something we intuitively understand – that as we mature we should seek spiritual growth in anticipation of an old age filled with enlightenment.*
Arthur Brooks

Our lives are lived in seasons of more, seasons of less, seasons of triumph, seasons of loss. Each season sees our needs change. We live, learn, and adapt. So, too, must our definition of meaning.**
Ryder Carroll

To intentionally live towards an old age
filled with wisdom,
To respectfully and attentively live within
the seasons of life, and in these to
find our meaning for life,
To so live not for ourselves but for others,
To learn from the wasted years, so that
we might enter the present moment more
energised and useful,
To find our meaning and joy
within the struggle –
All of this is doable.

*Arthur Brooks’ From Strength to Strength;
**Ryder Carroll’s The Bullet Journal Method.

What exists in the universe outside you also exists in the universe within you. The universe literally flows through you … The universe has one intention: to create life.*
Erwin McManus

May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the
heart of wonder.**
John O’Donohue

Here we are! –
What a marvellousl thing this is;
I open my eyes to a new day –
The wonder floods in again,
Or at least it sometimes does if
I can get my head and heart around it,
Rather than the dull day, the aching body, and
the return of yesterday’s issues.

Here is a cosmological yet mystical understanding
of human life, an expression of the universe that makes stars and
humans out of the same materials –
We have our scientific understanding, and yet wonder,
“How do we happen?”

And what shall we do with this life?

If you think you have room to grow, you do and you will. If you think you’re as good as you can be … you’re right. You won’t get any better.^

We find ourselves in an infinite game^^
in which we have more choice than we know,
The universe offering us the possibility of increase –
I’m not thinking about what we possess, but who we are and
what we can make (and give);
Firstly, the universe gifts us life, and then
it throws all kinds of problems at us,*^ and yet this is exactly where
humans have shown themselves to be imaginative and alchemistic.

The creative process is not a part of one’s life but life itself and all that it throws at you. ^*

Here we are: the gift;
Then come the problems: our purpose.

*Erwin McManus’ The Way of the Warrior;
**John O’Donohue’s Benedictus: For Presence;
^Ryan Holiday’s Discipline is Destiny;
^^See James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games;
*^We understand the universe is indifferent to us;
^*Nick Cave, from Nick Cave and Séan O’Hagan’s Faith, Hope and Carnage.

Being of a reasonable sort appears to require limitation. Perhaps that is because Being requires Becoming, as well as mere static existence – and to become is to become something more, or at least something different.*
Jordan Peterson

Life is not anything; it is only the opportunity for something.**
Christian Friedrich Hebbel

I am not only what I am, but
also what I will be –
At least this is the possibility open to us all;
I am open and I learn, but
more importantly –
I do, which moves me from anything to
something – which I recognise is
not an easy place to be, because we are returned to
the beginning.

We need to rehearse some different skills. We don’t to be good at them at first but we’ll get better.^

You and me,
We recognise our limitations as an invitation
to becoming, so we keep doing, keep changing, keep becoming:
We will be what we will be.

*Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules For Life;
**Viktor Frankl’s The Doctor and the Soul;
^Gabe Anderson’s blog: Rehearsing New Skills.