For somehow all our lives are ultimately unsuccessful, to the extent that we understand success: no external success, no effect, that is to say, no biological or sociological influence out there in the world, is guaranteed to outlive us or even to last forever. However, inner success, the inner fulfilment of life’s meaning, is something that, if at all, has been achieved once and for always.*
Viktor Frankl

Thinking that working eighteen hours a day, six days a week, when I first started out would help me become successful. Instead, I destroyed my marriage and almost my health.
Male, 68, Virginia

Happy the person who is able to
become the Self that brings them joy, to use
themselves, their talents, in ways that are fulfilling
and meaningful, which are making a
difference for others –
Achieving that does not end in retirement,
Each day being one for honing, stretching, adding, and
growing;
Not so we can ever say “Look at me,”
But only to breathe more deeply a
purer air.

*Viktor Frankl’s Yes to Life;
**Participant in American Regret Project, from Daniel Pink’s The Power of Regret.

By heart I mean the place where the emotions meet reason, mobilise the will, and shape identity.*
Alex McManus

*Alex McManus’ Makers of Fire.

A clear sense of self-directed meaning provides us with an essentially inexhaustible supply of motivation.*
Steven Hayes

What he is, he is not yet, but ought to be and should become. Being human is being responsible because it is being free.**
Viktor Frankl

To find our enthusiasm is to
find our responsibility, and
to find our responsibility is to
find our freedom, becoming
what only we can be.

Our enthusiasm is found within,
Our deepest and most joyful response to
what exists around us, and a life
without enthusiasm is a life of
regrets.

Enthusiasm: ‘inspiration, frenzy’
from Greek enthousiasmos,
from enthousiazein ‘be inspired or possessed by a god.’

What is deepest in us is of God.^

*Steven Hayes’ A Liberated Mind;
**Viktor Frankl’s The Doctor and the Soul;
^Philip Newell’s Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul.

Perfectionists love to begin new endeavours, because the moment of starting belongs to the world of limitlessness: for as long as you haven’t done any work on a project, it’s still possible to believe that the end result might match the ideal in your mind.*
Oliver Burkeman

Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.**
Steven Pressfield

I think most of all first of all imagine something we want to
make or do or be to be without problem, and doable –
It’s how our minds get us to begin, otherwise
we’d never start anything;
Yes, there are some who will say No! before any picture forms,
Whilst others find their early enthusiasm wilting before increasing imagined difficulties,
Yet for those who anticipate resistance within the normal course of possibility,^
They will find a way of adapting and tacking that produces something
superior to what they first imagined.

What must you begin today?

According to the Stoics, the circle of control contains just one thing: YOUR MIND.^^

*Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals;
**Steven Pressfield’s Do the Work;
^Though not all resistances are equal: we must be sure to take on the right ones for us and ignore the wrong ones;
^^Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic.

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.*
Carl Sagan

*Seth Godin’s This Is Strategy.

That’s what our art requires of us. We show up and we do it anyway, not because someone asked us to but because our persistent heart tells us we must.*
Bernadette Jiwa

That path you’re about to step on,
Is it a path with a heart?

*Bernadette Jiwa’s The Story of Telling blog: Doing the Work Anyway.

For the one who believes in it, a blessing can signal the start of a journey of transformation.*
John O’Donohue

Mythology begins where madness starts. A person who is truly gripped by a calling, by a dedication, by a zeal, will sacrifice his security, will sacrifice even his life … he will give himself entirely to his myth.**
Joseph Campbell

A blessing doesn’t change things, doesn’t change you –
Believing and living it does,
A blessing is a whisper, a signpost from someone or somewhere that awakens you to
a different reality, one that encourages and enables
the truest you to emerge,
To live without reserve something that matters to you and
benefits others.

May you discover and live your myth.^

*John O’Donohue’s Benedictus;
**Joseph Campbell’s Pathways to Bliss;
^A myth is a story that resonates with us at the deepest level of our being, so they become one and the same.

What am I really? What is my work here?*
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

We are small creatures.
Our lives are not long,
but long enough to learn.**
Stephen Lawhead

In the middle of the night, I came upon a question –
I had found myself playing the comparison game (a game we always lose),
Reflecting on what others have and are able to do.

The question?:
What brings meaning and joy to me?

To imagine another’s future with them,
To figure out ways of getting there,
To gather ideas as means of travel to this future,
To never stop learning,
To see each person as incomparable,
To receive this as the meaningful place where my
deepest joy meets another’s need.

I am grateful for all those who have, and still,
Help me: guides, writers, whisperers, god.

What brings meaning and joy to you?

Your answers will be different to mine,
They are your richness, and you still have enough time:
When our future rearranges us, then
our past becomes the fuel for our art.

*Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves:
**The Northumbria Community‘s Morning Prayer

When people rediscover the thread that runs through their story, it is often a revelation. They are no longer directionless; suddenly, their narrative has the potential for a fitting ending – or for continuation down a previously unseen path.*
William Seighart

You can see how mastery over a few things makes it possible to live an abundant and devout life – for, if you keep watch over these things, the gods won’t ask for more.**
Marcus Aurelius

Have you lost your thread –
O perhaps you hadn’t found to lose it, and
there’s likely been a confusing number of threads –
You need the thread that will take you to places you haven’t imagined
yet.

Find your curiosity and it will lead you (back) to your thread:
Make time to explore and observe,
Don’t go for the first thread, or even the forty second,
Consider your options and how they resonate with your
talents and energies and values,
Then follow the thread with a heart and produce your
art.^

*William Seighart’s The Poetry Pharmacy;
**Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic.

The greatest possible success we teach our children … is not popularity or power or profit or pleasure, but service, connection, community and love. So we will challenge them to set … the goal of becoming the most loving version of themselves.**
Brian McLaren

If you don’t realise that you have power, you might not be able to exercise it. The power to speak up, to participate, to invent, to lead, to encourage, to vote, to connect, to organise, to march, to write, to say ‘no’ or to say ‘yes’. It’s tempting to imagine we have less power than we do. It lets us off the hook. For now.^
Seth Godin

There is the power that comes with status, title, or role,
That is, from the outside,
Though better the power that comes with abilities and talents –
From the inside, and
the right things being done by the right people at the right time for the right reasons –
Yet this still needs help from the power that flows from deep character:
Service and sacrifice, connection and community, hope and invention, risk and activeness,
And most of all, understanding and love;
We may have to wait forever to be afforded the first kind of power, but
the other powers are waiting for us to use them today.

*A little music to listen to while you’re reading.
**Brian McLaren’s Faith After Doubt;
^Seth Godin’s blog: Unaware.