Give it a try.

Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. - William Faulkner


Too often we become discontented with our lives, stuck in a mundane, day-in-day-out existence. While I have been determined not to plague myself with resolutions, I am finding that I have become determined to challenge myself, to become greater, more fulfilled. Recently, something occurred to me: what if the great thinkers, dreamers, athletes, poets, had never bothered to challenge themselves, never bothered to bring their visions for the world around them into reality? What would the world be like without the thoughts of Abraham Lincoln or Maya Angelou, the songs of Bob Dylan and Michael Jackson? Where would we be without the ambition of Henry Ford or Mary Pickford? They started by offering themselves the challenge of personal transcendence.

We have an opportunity everyday to be challenged, not by any outside means, but solely by ourselves. And with that opportunity comes not only the chance to become the person you imagine yourself being, but greater than you ever imagined. That's a challenge worth taking.

Let's play pretend!

Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

I have some very distinct memories of pretending as a kid. I remember being a princess, being the Wicked Witch of the West (possibly the most fun), being a pilot, being a damsel in distress (hanging off the cliff that was my bunkbed), and being a cashier at McDonald's (I'm not kidding). It's safe to play pretend when you're a child; you know that if you don't like what you're doing you can always become something else. There's no worry about changing careers, going back to school, finding the money to go back to school, worrying about success and failure. When you're a child, these things don't exist - they are merely the figments of adult imaginations.

Which makes me wonder: do we have this thing all wrong?

Maybe the starting of being the thing we really want to be is in the pretending. The confident stance, the image of that success, the feel of that accomplishment, even if not achieved already, can only push us towards that endeavor. If things don't work out exactly as we'd hoped, we can change our minds and do something else or start again. Life isn't a fixed state. So how can we be?

People debate what "time" really is - an illusion, a mental construct, a tangible measurement? Is it relative or constant? I really don't know. You could listen to a dozen different physicists and still have no real answer. But if time is an illusion (and it could be), then the person you might be lies within you already. I think.

Seeds sown.

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant. - Robert Louis Stevenson

The fact that we are given a chance to renew our efforts, in whatever direction, each and every morning is possibly one of the greatest blessings of being human. For some, this will mean starting over all the time, but is it really starting over? The intentions that you have, with each little effort, grow and grow. How lovely your garden will be with the right amount of time.

Great things are not accomplished overnight. Rather, they require the ability to keep moving in a certain direction, or sometimes are the result of trial and error. Either way, as long as you plant your seeds every single day, you will find in time that you are moving closer and closer to the rewards of your deeds.

As we edge ever closer to a new year, with new promises and goals, remember that this as much a way of making a new start as any, as well as a time to reflect on the year 2008, it's mistakes and rewards alike. How blessed we are for these new starts. And how blessed we are to be able to plant new seeds of which the abundant harvest will be reaped.

The symbol for crisis...

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger - but recognize the opportunity. - John F. Kennedy, Speech in Indianapolis, April 12, 1959

So I got a little preachy yesterday, I'll be the first to admit. I have some didactic tendencies.

The first quotation I thought of today coincides with a report on the news I heard about. Apparently, even though the jobs are being dropped like a boulder, and spending is down for the fifth month in a row, this is the first time in quite a while that people are paying off their debts.

This is good news.

People may be tightening their belts, but they are committing to the strange opportunity that this affords them. Namely, they are losing the debt that's been holding them down. The credit crunch has an upside? Who knew?

I've been recognizing some opportunities myself. So, I guess my thought today is this: Look around you. Things might be rough right now, but are there opportunities abounding?