noun: hello; plural noun: hellos; noun: hallo; plural noun: hallos; noun: hullo; plural noun: hullos
used as a greeting or to express surprise

To meet with someone – whether
we know them or not – is
an occasion for surprise,
They are, as my friend Alex reminds me,
A mystery wrapped in a question,
Always,
So enjoy.

A daemon is a calling, obsession, a source of lasting and sometimes manic energy … when you are looking for a vocation, you are looking for a daemon … You are trying to find that tension or problem that arouses greatness of moral, spiritual and relational energy.*
David Brooks

The fairy godmother replied that true magic is to help each thing become its best and most free self.**
Rebecca Solnit

Herminia Ibarra suggests that when it
comes to who we want to become, we ought to:
Test and learn,
not plan and implement.^

Don’t rush into deciding
“This is it!” nor believe that you are
stuck in who you are where you are,
It’s okay, cut yourself some slack.

Then you may begin to notice
your truest energy, wrapped around
the gloriously inscrutable
problem inviting your attention and focus.

We may want it to be swish, but
the most real and meaningful things are more likely
full of lostness, incompetence, failure, and messiness
before the imperfect beautiful emerges.

We may think to put this off, but as
Oliver Burkeman suggests, there is a difference
between working towards sanity and “working from sanity”^^ –
The place and time is here and now.

*David Brooks’ The Second Mountain;
**Rebecca Solnit’s Cinderella Liberator;
^David Epstein’s Range;
^^Oliver Burkeman’s Meditation for Mortals.

Free and alone in the maze of the city, the flâneur craves a revelation that might change his life and destiny.*
Federico Castigliano

Spray lifts from the coast
Who loves truly lives
Who lives loves most
And most of all, forgives**
Lemn Sissay

The flâneur and flâneuse practice their seeing
towards change;
We do not require their city nor
Lemn Sissay’s coastline to begin,
It is not our geography, but our
noticing that leads more deeply into
something more, to love what we see,
A love able to forgive where necessary –
Whom and where and what –
Especially ourselves,
That love
will
lead
us
into
an
unfathomable
life.

You pick something you genuinely care about, and then, for at least a few minutes – a quarter of an hour, say – you do some of it. Today. It really is that simple.^

*Federico Castigliano’s Flâneur;
**Lemn SIssay’s let the light pour in;
^Oliver Burkeman’s Meditation For Mortals.

Mastery is the best goal because the rich can’t buy it, the impatient can’t rush it, the privileged can’t inherit it, and nobody can steal it. You can only earn it through hard work. Mastery is the ultimate status.*
Derek Sivers

Central to the act of writing is a process of growth, of slowly gaining control of their narrative … The act of writing speeds up the act of meaning-making.**
Bruce Feiler

Mastery is what you make from your talents –
And everyone has talents –
And mastery needs a narrative, a story to live in:
Writing things down helps us develop it, be it list, poem, or journal.^

*James Clear’s newsletter: 3-2-1: On growing fast vs. growing slow, the value of mastery, and climbing the right mountain;
**Bruce Feiler’s Life Is in the Transitions;
^Free or reflective writing is a great place to start, writing out whatever you are thinking about, going with the thoughts and ideas, without a concern for quality; set a timer for 5-10 minutes to begin with.

The sense of wonder can also help you to recognise and appreciate the mystery of your life.*
John O’Donohue

With only slight exaggeration I would say that we are not; we constantly constitute ourselves anew and differently at the intersection of all those influences that teach into the sphere of our building.**
Rainer Maria Rilke

When we only allow ourselves to connect with
what we know about another,
It is likely that we want to control what we are doing, or,
Who they are, resulting in
a series of movements around one another;
Yet, if we dare be open to the unknown in each other –
And within ourselves –
There is the possibly of entering a
perichoretical dance of movement
through rather than around, enabling all participants
to further plumb the depths of who they are becoming and’/
what they are bringing.

*John O’Donohue’s Eternal Echoes;
**Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters on Life;
(The doodle is a play with Lawrence Kushner’s God Was In This Place and I, I Did Not Know.

Human beings at best are givers of gifts.*
David Brooks

I took an involuntary situation and turned it into a voluntary one.**
Bruce Feiler

This may not be where
you want to be right now,
But you are who you are with
all that you have, and
giving is the key.

That which seems like a false step is just the next step.^

*David Brooks’ The Second Mountain;
**Bruce Feiler’s Life Is In the Transitions;
^Agnes Martin, from Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations For Mortals.

We have no choice but to condense a story when we want to film it. Our real story, on the other hand, cannot be condensed, it can only be lived. Day by day.**
Seth Godin

The person going through the experience has to choose to convert the change and upheaval into transition and renewal.^
Bruce Feiler

We may wish for the concentrated life made up
of all and only the good bits, but
life is diluted by problems,
One after another, large and small, filling
our days, which also means we have plenty of space to be
curious, attentive, deep-diving, discovering, playing, imagining,
Messing up, learning, starting over, producing, giving, receiving,
And then another day comes along;
We want to control, but it’s more likely that the way forward is
through transitioning and renewal, something we are capable of as
imagineers and alchemists, Wallace Stevens encouraging us to bring
the power of imagination to the pressure of reality.^^

*Dinah Washington’s What a Difference a Day Makes to enjoy while pondering what these 24 hours may hold;
**Seth Godin’s blog: The problem with the movie version;
^Bruce Feiler’s Life Is In the Transitions;
^^Your particular kind of alchemy will depends on your talents, energies, and values. You’re welcome to drop me a line to find out more.

The essence of chaos is self organising … Chaos is nature’s creativity in the face of constant change. The human equivalent of this, is the process of psychic adaptation. Just as the body has the ability to correct imbalances, so does the mind.*
Bruce Feiler

What does life want from me? What are the circumstances calling me to do? In this scheme of things we don’t create our lives; we are summoned by life.**
David Brooks

This randomness we are born into has
some purpose for us, something that will
use our talents and provide us with meaning;
Existence isn’t a finely choreographed life plan but
our dramatic story response to the need
that is already here with
the best of ourselves.

*Bruce Feiler’s Life Is In the Transitions;
**David Brooks’ The Road to Character.

If it were not imagined
It could not be made
Therefore imagination
Must not be afraid*
Lemn Sissay

I’m good for something, so what is it?**
Vincent van Gogh

If we’re involved in doing something, we’ve
already imagined it –
Going to the shops, cutting the grass, what
we’ll be eating later –
For most of us, a little picture will have appeared;
Beyond the everyday, imagination enables us to
determine our True Self and what our
contribution will be –
Sometimes others push our imaginations, or perhaps
we notice something that we feel compelled
to act upon –
By definition,
a life task is something
your life is asking of you …^ –
Everyone has a different imagination to bring
into play, something you can do and that
you enjoy:
You have to like your work.^^

Of course,
It is possible to imagine unhelpful, negative, and
destructive things, or become distracted by the everyday,
By the status quo and normality, so we need to intentionally
grow and develop our imaginations –
A good, wholesome diet,*^
Then to playfully practise, to fail and learn,^*
Before giving full expression to what we have envisaged.

*Lemn Sissay’s let the light pour in;
**Davie Epstein’s Range;
^Oliver Burkeman’s Meditation For Mortals;
^^Gabe Anderson‘s You Have to Like Your Work;
*^What and who are we reading, watching, listening to?;
^*Remembering that we imagine something perfect, but in reality this can never be reproduced.