At a terrifying height, in the midst of breathtaking beauty, the glider hangs calmly suspended, as if the fragile perch could as easily be a porch swing or a desk chair. In moments of true balance, both life’s terror and its beauty are simply facts, like feeling the rush of wind or the warmth of the sun.
How will you find balance in the terror and the beauty of your day?
“Nothing is more imminent than the impossible . . . what we must always foresee is the unforeseen.”
― Victor Hugo
What impossible thing feels imminent in your life?
“Ashes, ashes, we all fall down!” Remember when falling down was fun? Of course, literal falling gets more dangerous as our bodies age, but as we get older we also seem to get more cautious about metaphorical kinds of falling. We don’t want to be seen as messing up; we worry that we will be perceived as failures. But some of the world’s great discoveries have come from the creative handling of mistakes—graceful ways of getting up after falling down.
How can you turn a mistake or failure into something that is simply part of the game?
Every now and again you meet a person who just stands out, who just seems to rise above the crowd of the ordinary. Perhaps these people are gifted with a special kind of charisma. Or perhaps they have simply refused to let the world erode away their uniqueness.
How do you cherish, defend and display the things that make you unique?
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
― Albert Einstein
Where do you find your most powerful experiences of the mysterious?
