“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” ~William Bruce Cameron I noticed it halfway through the conversation. We were outside a café on a warm Saturday, close enough to the next table that I could hear someone laughing behind me. The person across from me was telling a story about getting…
“In an age of constant movement, nothing is so urgent as sitting still.” ~Pico Iyer, from his TED talk “The Art of Stillness” It was a Tuesday in late September, the kind of afternoon that feels borrowed from summer. I had a work deadline at 5:00. I went to the park anyway. I spread a blanket on the grass,…
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” ~Carl Rogers For most of my life, the story looked like a straight line going up. I never hit bottom. This isn’t that kind of story. And for a long time, that was exactly the problem. From the outside, my life looked…
“Whatever you’re feeling, it will eventually pass. You won’t feel sad forever. At some point, you will feel happy again. You won’t feel anxious forever. In time, you will feel calm again. You don’t have to fight your feelings or feel guilty for having them. You just have to accept them and be good to yourself while you ride…
“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” ~Maya Angelou There’s a strange season in life when the old ambitions no longer fit, but the new ones haven’t fully formed yet. A year ago, I asked myself a simple question. Not a vague one. A very…
“Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it.” ~Anonymous My sister called four times before I picked up. Not four times in one day—four times over three weeks. Each time, I watched her name light up my phone, felt something tighten in my chest, and set my phone face-down on the counter. I…
“What we have once enjoyed deeply we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.” ~Helen Keller Growing up, I thought my father was a pack rat. He never seemed to throw anything away. Bent nails. Odd screws. Washers without matching bolts. Short pieces of lumber that looked too small to be useful. If…
“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” ~John Muir I used to think life was like an obstacle course, a series of hurdles you either cleared or stumbled over. For a long time, I stumbled a lot. What I didn’t realize then was how easily repeated setbacks can turn into a habit of expecting…
“When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.” ~Alexander Den Heijer He was intelligent, well-read, and kind. A good father, careful about protecting his kids from meeting partners too soon. A man with a life philosophy, who kept his word, who told the truth with an honesty that didn’t flinch—and it wasn’t…
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.” ~Viktor Frankl A few weeks ago, I moved to a new city for a new job, leaving behind a quiet hill town where I had built five years of friendships, routines, and a version of myself I understood well. I told…
