If you want a breakthrough, or something at the top of the rankings, or a skill that few have, or a chance to build something you’re proud of … it doesn’t pay to also require it to be convenient.*
Seth Godin

In the so-called Hero’s Journey, the “call to adventure” is followed in almost all cases by the refusal of the call … There’s almost no accomplishment that is possible without courage. The courage …to take a risk … to be uniquely you … to challenge the status quo … to do what looks strange to others … to run toward while others run away … to do what people say is impossible.**
Ryan Holiday

It will require effort
to be repeated,
Probably each day;
There will be other
things to be done, but
we will have to decide
if they are really
more important –
The life story you’re writing
will help you decide:
It can be the convenient that
gets in the way of life.

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not whither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.^

*Seth Godin’s blog: And also inconvenient (source lost);
**gapingvoid’s blog: Courage is calling;
^J. R. R. Tolkien‘s All That is Gold Does Not Whither, from William Sieghart’s The Poetry Pharmacy.

Don’t aim at success – the more you make it your target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue … as the intended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.*
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

As you reflect on how your actions flow outward, creating a cascade of goodness around you, you may experience a feeling of awe.**
Jonah Paquette

The very readable Dan Ariely shares how,
human motivation is actually based on
a timescale that is long, sometimes
even longer than
our lifetime^ –
With such a destination, it is likely that
we are creating quite a journey, one that is
concerning itself with content and form –
What we have and how we shape this for
others:
Story is about originality,
not duplication. True originality is
the meeting of content and form^^ –
These are elements our triple focus of
humility and gratitude and faithfulness allow us
to play with,
Leading to some surprise results.

I don’t remember where I picked up
the following four tests for the kind of cause
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes of,
But they remind us of its bitter and sweet:
Success is not guaranteed;
There will be those who hate it;
It is more important than life itself;
It will be personally transformative:
Time to play.

*Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow;
**Jonah Paquette’s Awestruck;
^Dan Ariely’s Payoff;
^^Robert McKee‘s newsletter: Why We Must Strive For Originality.

Somewhere, something amazing is waiting to be known.*
Carl Sagan

Technology is miraculous but so too is nature – and this aspect of the world’s wonder seems under threat of erasure in children’s narratives, dreams and plots.**
Robert Macfarlane

Towards saving our world,
A good place to begin could be
to include more
natural awe in our day –
Gazing at a tree and attempting to draw it may hive
one place to begin,
Spotting and listing the birds or bugs,
Or bugs and birds around our homes is another;
I’ve just picked up
Jacqueline Freeman’s Song of Increase to help me discover
the wisdom of honeybees.^

Natural awe is our fuel for what
we must do.

*Jonah Paquette’s Awestruck;
**Robert Macfarlane’s Landmarks;
^And anything from Robert Macfarlane makes for awe-filled reading.

You step into the portal to discover what you didn’t know you were looking for.*
Austin Kleon

Nothing changes until someone cares enough to build an alternative.**
Seth Godin

A portal isn’t only a door,
It’s an opening into a previously unimagined or
unvisited world:
Austin Kleon is describing the place of writing
in just such a way, something Henri Nouwen further emphasises
when he writes:
Writing is a process in which we discover
what lives in us.
The writing itself reveals to us
what is alive in us.
The deepest satisfaction of writing is
precisely that it opens new spaces within us
of which we were not aware before
we started to write.
To write is to embark on a journey of which
we do not know the final destination.^

A conversation is another kind of portal,
And dreamwhispering is a conversation that is
an alternative to coaching and mentoring –
Not better, just
different, and I created it
for you.

*Austin Kleon’s blog: Stepping into the portal;
**Seth Godin’s blog: Build a new one;
^Henri Nouwen’s Spiritual Direction.

Whether a life is fulfilled does not depend on how great one’s radius of action is, but rather whether the circle is fully filled out.*
Viktor Frankl

Perhaps most awe-inspiring of all, our brain allows us to imagine.**
Jonah Paquette

Imagination makes it possible for us to
full-fill the circle, and
imagination is something we can all develop as
we become noticers of
more.

*Viktor Frankl’s Yes to Life;
**Jonah Paquette’s Awestruck.

Genius arises with touch. Touch is a characteristically paradoxical phenomenon of infinite play. I am not touched by an other when the distance between us is reduced to zero. I am touched only as I respond from my own centre – that is, spontaneously, originally. But you do not touch me except from your own centre, out of your own genius. Touching is always reciprocal. You cannot touch me unless I touch you in response. The opposite of touching is moving. You move me by pressing me from without toward a place you have already foreseen and perhaps prepared. It is a staged action that succeeds only if in moving me you remain unmoved yourself … This means that we can be moved only by persons who are not what they are; we can be moved only when we are not who we are, but are what we cannot be.*
James Carse

Please excuse today’s long quote, but
I have long been fascinated by this passage, and
have found myself pondering what I think James Carse is describing.

I find myself imagining the U of Theory U,
At the bottom of which is found the rarely discovered world of
generative dialogue,
Where the true self of one person meets the
true self of the other –
The alternative being ego meeting self, or
ego meeting ego;
Only when self meets self can we be surprised by
the new.

Otherwise, when there is no surprise,
No new,
We are acting from our scripts,
Not our deeper creativity;
And though, sometimes it does not matter too much
that we are acting out of our role or job description
rather than our genius,
We may find ourselves with solutions that
have to be revisited again and again, whilst
the longer road of true self meeting true self –
Giving birth to surprise and a new possibility –
We identify not only a way forward, but also
experience transcendence and transformation.

*James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games.

We are the ones who must answer, must give answers to the constant ‘life questions.’ Living itself means nothing other than being questioned; our whole act of being is nothing more than responding to – being responsible towards – life.*
Viktor Frankl

Now all that is needed is more. More time. More cycles, more bravery. Much more of you. More idiosyncrisity, more genre, more seeing, more generosity. More learning. It’s not working. (Yet.)**
Seth Godin

Life asks,
Who are you?,
What will you bring? –
Every day a new opportunity
to respond deeper
than the day before.

*Viktor Frankl’s Yes to Life;
**Seth Godin’s The Practice.

Two things: everything depends on the individual human being, regardless of how small a number of like-minded people there are, and everything depends on each person, through action and not mere words, creatively making the meaning of life a reality in his or her own being.*
Viktor Frankl

Longing is momentum is disguise: it’s active, not passive; touched with the creative, the tender, and the divine.**
Susan Cain

Do not wait for others,
Look within;
That which has been stirring within you
is already breathing, it only wants to
play.

*Viktor Frankl’s Yes to Life;
**Maria Popova’s The Marginalian blog: The Power of the Bittersweet.

Powerful moments of awe, can help reconnect us to our values, remind is of what truly matters, and out our lives into a great cosmic perspective.*
Jonah Paquette

It doesn’t sound all that attractive, to be encumbered, and yet these things that constrain us (nature, family, convictions) are not things we can easily dispose of, either, and in fact, accepting the limitations they bring can lay the foundation for freedoms unavailable without them.**
Lewis Hyde

Yes, you and I,
We are limited beings,
But that’s the wonder of
this life of clay –
We can add some awe and
see what happens.

*Jonah Paquette’s Awestruck;
**Lewis Hyde’s Common As Air.

Curation is the ultimate way of transforming noise into meaning.*
Rohit Bhargava

I grow in these moments like corn in the night: this is not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance. I realise what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsaking of words … if the birds and flowers should try me by their standard, I would not be found wanting. A man must find his occasions in himself.**
Henry David Thoreau

I cannot include everything,
You will involve things I do not –
Together, a larger picture of all things –
Then, for this single life,
I must select what is most
precious and meaningful to me –
Even as you choose what is
invaluable to you –
Arranging these into a story
I might enhance daily, whilst you
increase yours.

Towards this,
Time to reflect and ponder –
Perhaps in silence, perhaps in
journal –
Is never wasted time.

*Rohit Bhargava’s Non Obvious 2019;
**Nicholas Bone’s adaptation of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.