Stretch Marks

“A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions.”

– Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., U.S. supreme court justice

The trouble with trying to change

“Everyone wants to change, or evolve, but either the people around us aren’t ready for it, or the machinations of the world conspire to trip us up.”

– Matt Debenham

Love all seasons of life

“To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.”

– George Santayana

Bloom…Just Bloom

“And the day came when the risk to remain in a tight bud was more painful than the risk it took to bloom.”

– Anais Nin

 

The Journey

The Journey

by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
through their melancholy
was terrible.

It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.

But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Living with the choices we make

“But what’s right at one time in our lives isn’t neccesarily appropriate later on.”

– Alexandra Stoddard

p. 190, Making Choices

 

The future belongs to creative people

“The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind – creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers.  These people…will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys.”

– Daniel H. Pink, A Whole New Mind

quoted p. 140 in Why We Want You to be Rich

 

True Makeovers

“No matter who or what made you what you have become, that doesn’t release you from the responsibility of making yourself over into what you ought to be.”

– Ashley Mantagu

Your True Self

“True self is the part of us that does not change when circumstances do.”

– Mason Cooley

Speak Up

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.