“Your kids… They don’t remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.” –Jim Henson
via Austin Kleon
What you consistently do and how you act, that’s your message.
What you say is pointless if it’s not in sync with who you are.
Even kids—especially kids—can see through empty words.
It’s day one of summer.
And it’s day one of my commitment to seize the season and make the most of the warm weather and longer days.
Work less. Play more.
Make a list of adventures that you can only take on in summer.
Read in a hammock. Walk barefoot in the grass. Go jump in the lake.
Go places. Do things. Daydream.
Eat real food. Cook it over real fire. Have real, face-to-face conversations with people you love.
Embrace your primal nature and your connection to the natural world and to your senses.
Life is more radiant and more visceral in summer. Don’t sit it out as you tune out in your artificial escapes.
Make contact with your life right here, right now. In summer.
“‘Cause a little bit of summer’s what the whole year’s all about.” –John Mayer, Wildfire
There is nothing to stick to.
A conversation I heard yesterday reminded me that so many of us think there is some inner kernel inside that is the “true” version of ourselves. If only we keep digging and searching we will eventually, hopefully, uncover what or who we are somehow meant to be.
It’s my experience, though, that the search to find yourself is futile.
There’s no need to wait and ponder and hope that your ideal calling will be revealed to you somehow.
Instead, get busy doing something. Take action. Take a shot, even if you’re not completely sure it’s the best action to take. You only know by doing.
Pick a path you don’t hate, and give it a go. Follow what intrigues you until it doesn’t.
Craft the life you want. Become who you want to be.
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” –Stephen Hawking
He who thinks he knows, doesn’t know. He who knows he doesn’t know, knows.
The pursuit of truth and understanding, the neverending stretching of our boundaries of knowledge is THE human pursuit.
“Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow.” –Vincent Van Gogh
No one is truly normal. We often adopt an air of normalcy as a means of self preservation. At least that’s what we think.
But concealing our glorious oddness actually puts our true, weird self in jeopardy.
There is no one quite like you anywhere.
Don’t be deterred by the discomfort that comes with being the outlier you actually are.
Come to the weird side. That’s where the flowers grow.
“I wander about in unending perplexity.” –Socrates
Me, too.
I’ve spoken to several audiences of college students recently, and I’ve been telling them not to be distressed if they don’t have things figured out. No one has things figured out.
Everyone is totally winging it.
And the people who seem most certain that they have things figured out are the ones you should run away from as fast as you can.
This message is supposed to be comforting, but I’m afraid I’m just alarming some of these students who, as I’m sure I did when I was their age, are counting on more life experience bringing with it greater security and certainty.
The more you realize how much you don’t know, though, the more you know you’re headed in the right direction as a thinking human being.
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” –Haruki Murakami
Groupthink narrows possibilities.
Go your own way. Follow where your curiosity leads you, even if—especially if—it’s not the safe, well-worn path that everyone else seems to be on.
The comfort of the crowd is shallow.
The less travelled path may be riskier and lonelier, but that’s the way to possibilities and opportunities the crowd can’t even imagine.
Think different. And think differently.
“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.” –Soren Kierkegaard
via @SchoolOfLife
Most people, most of the time, are more afraid of the momentary risk of insecurity and social anxiety than they are of plodding into the abyss of the cautious and unexamined, unlived life.
Farnam Street shared this Elisabeth Kübler-Ross quote today:
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness and deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
“PDA”—public display of anger—seems to be all the rage at the moment.
But don’t rage against the rage.
Be curious. Be calm. Be courageous.
And most importantly, be kind.
“If we are unduly absorbed in improving our lives we may forget altogether to live them.” –Alan Watts
We are always getting ready.
We hope for a better future.
“What’s next?” is the question that occupies our thoughts almost constantly.
There is a lot I could improve about my life to make it better in the future.
But my life is here and now.
The future keeps receding into infinity. We are only ever living right now.
The only way to improve this very moment is to fully inhabit it.
“I wake up in the morning unsure of whether I want to savor the world or save the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” –E.B. White
This quotation introduced Ben Casnocha’s interesting account of his time as Reid Hoffman’s assistant.
The next moment is unwritten.
The next hour, the next day, the next year—all completely empty and totally full of potential and possibility.
I routinely forget that I get to author my own moments. They don’t have to be the same as the ones before.
I don’t have to be the same and do the same things I’ve always done.
I can choose my adventures. I can be who I want to be and attempt what I’ve never tried before.
The unwritten moments unfolding before you glow with all that could be.
Or you could keep trudging along, oblivious to the possibility machine you truly are.
This is a fitting day to reflect on a couple of profound thoughts from Dr. King.
The first is on Apple’s home page today:
And this one offers credible hope when the future appears dismal:
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
No matter how bleak or infuriating human progress may look in the moment, we have come a long way.
And in the long run, we will go even further.
We will get there faster, though, if more people more regularly pondered the question in the first quote above.
Excellent Journey 