Author: We can Paint the Sunrise

Dear Me,

“When he [the woodcutter] splits wood, he must place the log on the block and raise his axe. But he must strike the wood with the grain, and he must let the axe fall with its own weight. If he tries to chop across the grain, his effort would be wasted. If he tries to add strength to the swing of the axe, there would be no gain.

Like the woodcutter, we can all benefit from working according to seasonal circumstances. Whether it is the time or the method, true labor is half initiative and half knowing how to let things proceed on their own.”

-Deng Ming Dao

Dear Me,

Dear Me,

Dear Me,

I once read a quote that said “replacing I with We, Illness becomes Wellness.” To me, this was a striking quote about the power of family, of friends, of community. It spoke to connection and the significance of a social network and of relationships. It emphasized the importance of partners in healing and health.

Individually, each of us has within ourselves capabilities of extraordinary proportions. When individuals come together in partnership, in groups, to solve problems, reach for solutions, to try and make ideas happen, that power to create is compounded, intensified. It is catalyzed.

– Original Dear Me Thought

Dear Me,

We often have these grand visions on how we are going to start our new year off: on good footing, our best foot forward from the gate. But here I am, stumbling out of the starting gate. Now, complications happen, and sometimes at inopportune times. Such has been the case, as my New Year has been sideswiped by an unexpected derailing. But such a thing is so often part of life. And it is for these reasons, the unexpected, that we should always prepare. As heard by Les Brown, ” better to prepared for an opportunity and not have one, than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.” We should never assumed time will be afforded to us; to plan, to organize, to live. And so we should make use of the time that is actually afforded to us, in the moment. So to end, a quote by Benjamin Franklin:

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

-Dear Me Original Thought

“You will come to know, what appears today to be a sacrifice will prove instead to be the greatest investment that you will ever make.”

– Quote by Gordon B. Hinkley

Dear Me,

Life doesn’t just move forward. It’s not a straight and consistent line. As life moves forward, it curves, it swerves, it jerks at the oddest of angles; It slows down – sometimes to the point of feeling like it’s standing still. It speeds up – sometimes wildly sudden and frighteningly fast; It rises high, and dips low; It’s never the same for long, its constantly changing, often in many dimensions – in directions, heights, and at speeds that you can’t predict.

And I have experienced some of that unpredictability during this transition from one year into the next. It’s been one of those endings to a year that changes the mood abruptly, from one extreme to the other. In this case, anticipated celebrations and optimistic forethought all brought to a screeching halt. A change from a cruising speed of comfort and ease to a very real moment of desperate scrambling, and yet of treading water in place. I have been left entering a new year with a very palpable idea of what vulnerability tastes like. My passage from night to day spent chewing on thoughts filled with uncertainty. its been a wild ride in this short time. In an effort to hang on during this turbulent time, and not get disoriented and lost, I turn to inspirational quotes to lift me out of the dragging fog. This quote below by J.M Darhower is one I particularly keep coming back to:

“Things change. Sometimes it’s abrupt. Knocking you off your feet as life throws you a curveball nobody expected, turning worlds upside down…You find yourself somewhere you’ve never been, doing things you’ve never done, being a person you never imagined you would ever be.”

In these last couple days, this is exactly what I have noticed of myself, for good or bad: I’ve changed. I feel the person I was before this moment won’t do. That form of myself would never make it. That version of me would perish under pressure, would never make it out of this. Not really. So I need to change, I need to adapt for the sake of survival; I need to grow fast for the sake of resilience. And for this reason, I’m doing things I’ve never imagined myself doing. I’m being this person a never saw myself being. I have no clue what I’m doing, and no idea how to be this person. There are definitely mistakes. But the point is that this person might make it. This version has a chance. And isn’t that the key to success though? As Eric Thomas said it, “to be able, at any moment, to sacrifice what you are, for what you will become.”

-Dear Me Original Thought