Category: Monday Morning

~ with thanks to Ed Zschau ~

“In order to cultivate the courage and skill required to perform in the most critical instances of life, we need to apply the same discipline and rigorous intensity to the selective focus we bring into each day. This doesn’t mean pushing ourselves beyond what is healthy, but it does mean working to our limits and spurring incremental improvement through each day.”

“It’s in times of isolation where we most come to realize this, but it’s in times of abundance where we should seek to most improve our appreciation of even the most simple connection.”

“The point is not that there are certain activities than are better or worse and that we should encourage a homogenous society, but rather that people should seek out activities that allow them to lose themselves in creative expression, in whatever form that might take. These moments and activities are inherently life-giving, and might just might even redirect one’s life onto a new and different path. Don’t stop seeking out these pursuits, for they contain the very essence of what it means to be alive.”

“The most surprising – and I would argue, compelling – reason to give our conscious attention to the smallest moments of each day is that we never know where our big breaks will come from—which event will tip the lead domino into a transformational cascade of good fortune.”

“At nearly every other juncture of life – graduation, marriage, promotion, etc. – we celebrate life before as the culmination of perseverance and effort, happily reflecting on how time was spent to allow for the next marvelous transition to take place. We don’t hold remorse towards the exchange, mainly because we position the next step as more positive than the next.”

“Quite simply, pain and sorrow cannot pass without an intentional acknowledgement of our innermost feelings. We can run from the feelings, sure, but doing so will only leave us more fragile than before—more vulnerable to breaking in the event that we ever choose to let down our emotional guard.”

“Everything begins to fall into place when we acknowledge our arrival at this time and place—our arrival at where we are meant to be. We have returned home after wandering without a final destination; we have arrived at our resting place.”

“The truth is, happiness consists in awareness—in choosing to slow down, be present to whatever task is at hand, and doing it for the sake of doing it. Increasing our task efficiency is a waste of life if not undertaken with an awareness of this exact formula for happiness.”

“For each place taken up by a moving body, a dancer lost in space, there remains a bystander. Despite the efforts of some to persuade the non-participative members to join, no amount of external influence will convince them to become involved. The decision to embark on a weird, wonderful journey of expression begins within oneself, often coming about when the trick is out of the bag and the joke holds no weight any longer.”