Number one in your life’s blueprint, should be a deep belief in your own somebodiness. Don’t allow anybody to make you feel like you are a nobody. Always feel that you count. Always feel that you have worth, and always feel that your life has ultimate significance …*
Martin Luther King

Character, the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life – is the source from which all self-respect springs.**
Joan Didion

Through ancient ways
and means, and
with impartiality,
The universe has declared
you to be somebody (Ta dah!)–
Now to embrace this,
To be specific
and unrepeatable,
To declare your talents and
energies and values,
To begin what will prove to be
your unfolding adventure:

You start with your 1, and then you suspend judgement on what you’re doing, because you don’t know what you have when you start. No one does.^

*Quoted in Seth Godin’s This Is Strategy;
**Quoted in Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic;
^Rob Bell’s How To Be Here.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

I saw how Jesus answered every question he’s asked with a question: What do you think? How do you read it? How do you interpret it? What do you say about it? This is the opposite of brainwashing. This is the opposite of Just believe and don’t ask questions. He keeps inviting people to think critically, to examine, question, doubt, test, struggle. To own it for themselves.*
Rob Bell

I read every question as a matter of duty. It’s beautiful, actually, a beautiful thing to do.**
Nick Cave

Without the question
my journey is over,
I am over–

To be curious
takes effort, but it is
the effort of breathing–

*Rob Bell’s Everything Is Spiritual;
**Nick Cave’s The Red Hand Files: #371.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN\SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

Coaches and teachers are usually able to provide the knowledge and skills to perform, but the great coaches and teachers help to find the right why in their protégés.*
Victor Strecher

Before you step out
into the day
it is a good thing to recall
your talents and the
enriching environments
you make happen
and especially
the values you live for–
your path to tread.

*Victor Stretcher’s Life On Purpose.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

I fill my senses with reality: wind blowing, waves crashing, plants and animals doing their thing. This place was about the same a million years ago, and a million years from now, when people are gone. Humans are just another chattering species, making noise like birds and dogs.**
Derek Sivers

We are not separate from the cosmos; we are its unfolding logic. Our atoms, expelled from volcanic eruptions of distant dying stars, have assembled into thought, love, and longing, What we call life is matter waking up. And just to be clear, life does not emerge from matter. Life manifests through it.**
AleXander McManus

Whilst we are here
we get to be something
beautiful–
Perhaps giving ourselves
in helping one another
live within our significant imperfections,
Each making some glorious chatter.

If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.^

*Derek Sivers’ Useful Not True;
**AleXander McManus’ Blue Moments;
^Mother Teresa, quoted in Ryan Holiday’s Right Thing, Right Now.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

Better to have a stomach full of butterflies than to feel like your life is passing by.*
Rob Bell

It requires deep contemplation and commitment to living a real life, full of unsolvable secrets, puzzling riddles, unexplainable bliss, and terrible suffering.**
Arthur Brooks

At the Indian restaurant
we thought that we had to
choose from the dishes on the menu–
But it was a ten-course meal–
And it was wonderful.

-OR-

I sometimes wish
I didn’t get so nervous,
Double-guessing my decisions,
Thoughts taking over if I wake at night–
But I know I am alive.

*Rob Bell’s How To Be Here;
**Arthur Brooks’ The Meaning of Your Life.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

The unintelligent jump to conclusions.
The wise just observe.*
Derek Sivers

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery…
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.**
Constantin Cavafy

Wisdom comes
to us as we journey–

Each of us
will inevitably reach our conclusion–

Before this–
Vastness through noticing–

*Derek Siver’s How To Live;
**Constantin Cavafy’s Ithaka.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

“I want to find my passion.”
That my is killing us.*
Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

Every day we expend time, and we expend effort. Do you end up with more valuable tools at the end of the day, or have you simply performed tasks for someone else?**
Seth Godin

Passion–
Something out there
we search for–

Passionate–
Something in here
brought to all we do–

Talents–
Filled with passion
and honed when we play–

*Bill Burnett and Dave Evans’ How To Live A Meaningful Life;
**Seth Godin’s This Is Strategy.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

Remember, for most challenges, there’s a solution and a mentor to guide you.*
AleXander McManus

You can bind up my leg, but not even Zeus has the power to break my freedom of choice.**
Epictetus

In the beginning,
Identify if this is your challenge–
And if it is, welcome
those who come your way to help–
And if it is your challenge,
Nothing will stop you, though
one caution–
be open to the possibility
that you may be
your first problem.

*AleXander McManus’ FutureU;
**Quoted in Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

The system has called our bluff. If you want to learn, learn. But we pay for it with effort.*
Seth Godin

I am ignorant
but open,
I am incompetent
but passionate.

*Seth Godin’s blog: Education is free, learning is expensive.

SOME RANSOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

We do it because being kind is the more courageous thing in a cynical world. We do it because it is right – because people deserve kindness and because kindness makes us better.*
Ryan Holiday

No time to waste. Of course there isn’t. Time is all we’ve got. Time is all there is.**
Seth Godin

How adaptable
kindness is–
In reacting and responding
to needs,
Growing into seeking
opportunities,
Not only for solving
problems, but,
Given air to breathe,
Becoming ever-present–
In thinking
in words spoken
and in actions,
And sometimes
in simply being there
in this moment–
I don’t need it
courier-delivered
and can begin
to use it right now,
In some way
for this person
in this task–
Everyone
and everything
becoming better
with kindness–
Even me.

*Ryan Holiday’s Right Thing, Right Now;
**Seth Godin’s This Is Strategy.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO