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Shining
“Never dull your shine for somebody else.” ~Tyra Banks “I don’t want to look as if I’m trying too hard,” a friend would say every time she chose an outfit for a special event. I believe she meant that she wanted her appearance to seem natural, not over the top. But she took the idea a little too seriously, and wouldn’t even wear a full costume to a Halloween party. I’ve always cringed at the thought of calculated nonchalance, or pretending that you didn’t “try too hard” — for anything. Where’s the shame in shining your brightest light and giving others permission to do the same? Furthermore, what message are…
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When things get crazy
“The world is a puzzle. There’s no need to make sense out of it.” ~Socrates Sometimes it feels as if the whole world is falling apart. If old Socrates thought his life was a puzzle, I wonder what he’d think of our lives today? The best we can do, at times, is throw our hands in the air and surrender to the chaos — without adding any more to it. Sometimes we can’t save the world or even clean out the whole garage. As any good philosopher will tell you, there are situations beyond our immediate control. But we can always take care of our own little corner of the…
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Point of view
“If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view — until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” ~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird The word “empathy” gets tossed around a lot these days, usually in reference to insensitive people who seem to lack it. Simply put, people without empathy view everything solely from their own perspective, putting their own needs and desires first. They hear only what they want to hear. They believe their personal opinions and biases are the universal…
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What if …?
“You’ll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that.” ~Roald Dahl In a yoga class earlier this month, our instructor began the morning practice with a short talk about dealing with anxiety. Many of us focus on negative outcomes when we’re worried, she explained, which only makes us twice as anxious. And then she posed the question, “What if we focus instead on what it will be like when everything turns out OK?” In so doing, we could change the tone of our day. It was such a simple idea — yet it stayed with me ever since and has been a useful tool for quieting the waves of…
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Nature’s magic show
“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.” ~Mary Oliver I rarely carry or use my cell phone when I’m walking a nature trail. So I’m continually baffled by all the people I see (and hear) who are focused on their phones instead of the beauty all around them. Some are gabbing so loudly that their voices drown out the music of the birds. American poet Mary Oliver is known for her sense of wonder and reverence for the natural world. Her reflective poems illuminate the everyday miracles we might overlook when we’re jogging through the woods or our suburban neighborhoods. As Oliver reminds us, there’s magic in nature…
