Might be a good idea to make a list. And if you need to give it a second glance over, go for it. But remember, making the list isn’t the work. Even though it kinda feels like it.*
Gabe Anderson

Meaning is only experienced in motion.**
Donald Miller

It’s also worthwhile making sure the
right things are on the list,
That we’re not completing a whole raft of tasks that
are all about avoiding what matters most;
The more important the actions, the more
time and space and silence we need In order to
reflect on what are the right things for us to do –
What we have to say “yes” to, and, maybe more importantly,
What we have to say “no” to.

The list can also hide the unwelcome truth that
we do not know what to do with our lives, so
more lists, more busyness, more noise,
Fearful of silence, fearful of being;
What we find is that the silence is
not silent at all – rather it is replete with
better hopes and ideas and possibilities that come
to us in the form of questions:
They’re how we know we are alive.

Life never ceases to put new questions to us, never permits us to come to rest … every day, every hour makes new deeds necessary and new experiences possible.^

*Gabe Anderson’s blog: He’s Making a List …;
**Donald Miller’s Hero On a Mission;
^Viktor Frankl’s The Doctor and the Soul.

The word ‘Yoga’ is derived from the Sanskrit root ‘Yuj’, meaning ‘to join’ or ‘to yoke’ or ‘to unite’.

Life as an art and art as a game – as action for its own sake, without thought of gain or of loss, praise or blame – is the key, then, to the turning of living itself into a yoga, and art into the means to such a life.*
Joseph Campbell

The finite player competes against,
The infinite player plays with;
One serves division, the other
oneness –
Life-in-all-its-fullness is
a journey from the finite to the infinite.

*Joseph Campbell’s Myths to Live By.

I’ve found that the growth mindset and grit go together.*
Sandra Duckworth

*Sandra Duckworth’s Grit.

Push to your edges and discover what you can do to rescue the little gods who are caught in lives that will render them impotent to their own enormous gifts.*
Jean Houston

The value of an effective rite is that it leaves everyone to his own thoughts, which dogma and definitions only confuse.**
Joseph Campbell

In every child there exists an amazing story that
may never be lived;
Perhaps, if we push against our perceived boundaries,
If we wonder every day where our limits are whilst
we hone our gifts through imaginative action,
We might yet help unlock these tales.

*Jean Houston’s A Mythic Life;
**Joseph Campbell’s Myths To Live By.

Work at its best is the arrival in an outer form of something intensely inner and personal, and the art of working itself – a bridge between the public and private, a bridge of experience which can be an agony and ecstasy to cross.*
David Whyte

Everybody said you should serve a cause larger than yourself, but nobody tells you how.**
David Brooks

We all want to spend our days usefully, for our work
to be meaningful and to make a difference, but
even in the 21st century, when you would think this would be
more possible than ever before in history, the number of life-numbing jobs
proliferate, and,
The lines between work and life have to be sharply drawn.

The job we want may be evading us, but,
If we were to spin this around, inside each of us
there lies the work we want to do, wrapped
in a unique mix of talents and abilities and passion and more;
Once we discover and begin to find ways to experiment with and
express these, then boundaries begin to
dissolve, and we enter the ecstasy
and the agony of the difference we can make, which cannot
be held within an either/or or this/that, but
within a rhythm – as in poetry or
song.

*David Whyte’s Crossing the Unknown Sea;
**David Brooks’ The Second Mountain.

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.