Counting Stars No. 2, paper collage, 2024

It is a frosty December morning, and I sit with a cup of coffee in front of the fireplace. There is soft piano playing in the background. Wrapped in a blanket, I watch the songbirds flock to my bird feeders, as they tend to do in large numbers when it’s cold outside. “What hardy little creatures they are,” I think. They were made to survive in the cold, in the rain, and in the ice and snow. “They are,” I think, “made for what they do.” So, too, are we. 

If you want to know who you are, then find out what you were made to do. That may be the single most important life lesson I’ve learned thus far. Our eyes were made to see, our ears to hear, our muscles to move, our feet to feel the dirt beneath them, our intelligence, our creativity, and our special talents to find the proper outlets for expression and development. Be who you were made to be, and living becomes its own reward. 

Strength comes from knowing who you are and what you love.

Wisdom comes, first and foremost, from experience. 

Wisdom and intelligence are not the same thing. Sometimes, I think, when it comes to acquiring wisdom, intelligence gets in the way.

Be content with the mystery. I often think that when I’m reading about topics like creativity, intelligence, perception, and related subjects. For as much as I desire to know, there is a part of me that doesn’t want to know too much. That wants there always to be unanswerable questions. And that has reverence for the mysteries of life.

What is is enough. Indeed, gratitude for what is is the foundation of healthy striving, of the pursuit of goals that are positive and life-enhancing. 

Never cease to be curious.

Do not be someone whose attitudes, speech, and behavior are determined by external events. Cultivate an unshakable center.

Every adult should know how to play freely and with abandon, like a child.

Our capacity for complicating the stuff of daily life appears endless.

In your own heart, be simple.