Whatever pain you can’t get rid of, whatever joy you can’t contain, make it your creative offering.*
Susan Cain

Can we see that this voyage is not what we need to be cured of, but that it is itself a natural way of healing our own appalling state of alienation called normality.**
R. D. Laing

Susan Cain adds an insightful addition to
Frederick Buechner’s guiding thought that
we find our purpose where our deepest joy meets
the world’s greatest need.

Cain’s added complexity is that this joy
may emerge from our own pain –
Our kintsugi-like gift;
Another good reason for turning towards, and
not away, from our
painful thoughts and feelings.

*Susan Cain’s Bittersweet;
**Joseph Campbell’s Myths to Live By.

Simplicity is complexity resolved.*
Constantin Brancusi

All that thinking about things,
All the feeling of it deeply,
It all becomes clearer
when you do it.

*Gapingvoid’s blog: Why Nobody Understands You.

Live as if your were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.*
Viktor Frankl

Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.**
Steve Jobs

We have a wonderful opportunity to live
a marvellous life –
Perhaps not happy or wealthy or
easy or famous –
But meaningful.

Available
for a limited period
only –
Maybe eighty or so years.

If you’re around to read this,
The opportunity hasn’t passed, and
the best news a day brings
is we can have another play –
Resistance lies within.

Here is one way of starting over,
From Austin Kleon:
Worry less about making a mark.
Worry more about leaving things
better than you found them.^

Another is to begin
The dreamwhispering journey –
It’s the reason I shaped it.

*Donald Miller’s Hero On a Mission;
**Ben Hardy’s Be Your Future Self Now;
^Austin Kleon’s Keep Going.

What if life is like a story and you and I are in the theatre of our own minds, looking out the cameras of our eyes, and the story unfolding feels either meaningful or meaningless based on what we decide to make happen in it?*
Donald Miller

Only the person who has faith in herself is able to be faithful to others, because only she can be sure that she will be the same at a future time as she is today, and, therefore, that she will feel and act as she now expects to.**
Erich Fromm

Faith has to be turned into faithfulness for
meaning to be uncovered,
That is,
Ideas turning into action;
Faithfulness to ourselves, yes,
But most especially turned towards others
in service:
The ultimate aim of the quest,
if one is to return,
must be neither release nor
ecstasy for oneself,
but the wisdom and power to
serve others.^

The myth carries our meaning, and
the myth’s quest becomes the device to
explore those things we might otherwise consider
unimportant, frivolous, or even
absurd.

*Donald Miller’s Hero On a Mission;
**Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving; gender altered by me;
^Joseph Campbell’s Myths To Live By.

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow men.*
Joseph Campbell

For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is a problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.**
Thomas Merton

Not a hero?,
Not a saint? –
That’s fine,
Just be you
doing the things you
must do.

*Joseph Campbell’s Myths To Live By;
**Ian Morgan Cron’s The Road Back To You.

I don’t know exactly what you need to do to be your full self. Only you know that. What I can tell you is that to be who you are, you’ll have to stop being who you are not.*
Katherine Morgan Schafler

What draws you out of yourself?**
Donald Miller

What’s your plan for waking up to your story
each morning –
To be able to connect to and tell
your story every day?

One thing for sure is that no plan
opens the door for
others to write our stories for us.

Here’s one thing to try:
Notice what stirs your heart today, and
write about it tomorrow morning.

*Katherine Morgan Schafler’s The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control;
**Donald Miller’s Hero On a Mission.

A good story isn’t just about the hero. It’s about people the hero loves, the people dependent on the hero, the victim the hero is going to rescue. Stories may be told through the lens of the hero, but they are always about what is happening to a community of people.*
Donald Miller

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

The notion of making a difference goes up a notch
when our service and enabling of another
makes it possible for them to make their difference
in the lives of those around them.

What this might be is not up to us –
And therein lies the fun and wonder of it all –
But it is why dreamwhispering exists:
It’s about you and your dream …
And the people you will work your magic for,
Through your talents, energies, and values –
Three places to begin.

For people seeking to make a difference,
it begins wit helping other people
make a difference though.^

*Donald Miller’s Hero On a Mission;
**David Brooks’ The Second Mountain;
^Seth Godin’s blog: Just looking.

The aim of individuation requires that one should find and learn to live out of one’s own centre, in control of one’s for and against.*
Joseph Campbell

Meaning is centred in love: love for your projects, our world, our communities, and our families. We’ve got to find something that pulls us out of ourselves.**
Donald Miller

The first part of the necessary journey can be
exhilarating:
Growing to know our own mind and heart,
Making decisions for ourselves,
Becoming a separate person.

Then, on discovering this not to be the
destination, but a part of the journey,
We are not sustained
and we must begin to find each other, to
help and serve each other –
Thus the hero becomes the guide, and:
The main characteristic of a guide is that
they help the hero win.**

So begins our day.

*Joseph Campbell’s Myths To Live By;
**Donald Miller’s Hero On a Mission.

Look within. The secret is within you.*
Dajian Huineng

The best stories and novels lead the reader not to an explanation, but to a place of wonder.**
Peter Turchi

How important it is to see this person for who they are,
Beyond labels or explanations;
How critical for this person to see themselves
beyond the stories they’ve been self-telling.

I may be talking about you,
I am definitely talking about me;
I think I want to be proven wrong
when it comes to my story:
I’ve been doing it wrong all along.
This is one of the great benefits of learning.
It’s also a common challenge. …
If you need to be proven right,
learning is a challenge.
If you’re eager to be proven wrong,
Learning is delightful.^

Even when our story cum explanation of life so far
contains pain – even here, there is hope;
See this from Susan Cain:
Have you realised that you’re part of a
long and storied tradition that can help you
transform yor pain into
beauty,
your longing into
belonging? …
And have you asked what is the ache
you can’t get rid of –
and could you make it
your creative offering?^^

And this from Donald Miller:
Pain, then, is often the teacher that
transforms the hero into a guide.
That is, if their attitude toward pain
is accepting and redemptive.*^

There is more to everyone than meets the eye,
Including you and me:
Life is to find
the secret within.

*Joseph Campbell’s Myths To Live By;
**Peter Turchi’s A Muse and A Maze;
^Seth Godin’s blog: I’ve been doing it wrong all along;
^^Susan Cain’s Bittersweet;
*^Donal Miller’s Hero On a Mission.

The more something is shared, the greater its value becomes.
Robin Wall Kimmerer

I have married a lot of people,
That is, married this person to
this person,
And I would sometimes share how
we need to grow from being in love to being loving,
Perhaps the journey from being an abstract noun to
a verb;
It means that even if we cannot
think or feel loving, we can act loving.

One of the most popular readings for
those who wanted something from scripture on their wedding day
goes like this:
Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy,
it does not boast,
it is not proud. 
It does not dishonour others,
it is not self-seeking, 
it is not easily angered, 
it keeps no record of wrongs. 
Love does not delight in evil 
but rejoices with the truth. 
It always protects,
always trusts,
always hopes,
always perseveres.
Love never fails.**

And, if a verb,
It means that we can develop and grow love
as a skill,
And then we can add love to
anything we do.

*Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass;
^1 Corinthians 13:4-8