One secret to a contented life: daily strive to gain perspective, go to the mountain top frequently, stand outside yourself, grow in self-awareness. Are you living the life that aligns with who you are? Or are you living the life given to you by chance, culture, unspoken norms and collective expectations? Are you operating in default mode? On autopilot to a fuzzy, vague destination? On a path you are not quite sure of how you got on or where it leads?
As the poet and three-time Nobel Prize winner Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) admonished us: “Ask who am I, where have I been, and where am I going?”
The winds of fate and the currents of life can cause even the most diligent to drift off course, to lose sight of true north. We are what we repeatedly do; our future can be found buried in our daily routine. Regularly reviewing and reflecting about how we spend our days and the path that puts us on is a powerful way to direct our energies toward creating our best lives.
Closing Quotes:
“Self-reflection is the school of wisdom.” – Baltasar Gracian, 1601-1658, Jesuit priest
“Without reflection, we go blindly on our way.” – Margaret J. Wheatley, b. 1944, Who Do We Choose to Be?: Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity
“Reflection is one of the most under used yet powerful tools for success.” – Richard Carlson, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff… and It’s All Small Stuff, 1961-2006 (passed on San Francisco to NYC flight, pulmonary embolism)
As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier
Note: Every effort has been made to properly source any 3rd person material. I am, however, a voracious reader. If anyone finds any unattributed material, pls let me know asap and I will be delighted to give credit where credit is due.
“All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832