Don’t believe everything you think.

Our minds are loosely controlled message boards. Thoughts are entering and leaving all the time.

Just because a thought is there doesn’t mean it’s necessarily useful, healthy, or even true.

These are tough times. But the world has never been free of tough times.

New challenges for us, perhaps, but just another blink of the world’s eye.

* * *

History tells grim tales which begin, “We have resorted to …”

If we ourselves are “resorting”, it may be time for us to begin re-framing.

When we resort, we fall back on well-known, undesirable measures.

When we re-frame, we expand the map. We draw new boundaries. We play a new game. We embrace possibility. We discover better ways.

“You can’t just let nature run wild.” — Former Alaska Governor Walter J. Hickel

* * *

What does it mean for you to run wild? Not to be reckless and out of control. Rather, what does it mean for you to be free? Unconstrained?

We can give that gift to ourselves. In our daily practices. In the work we do. In moments we create.

Nature wants to run wild, and for nature, it’s what’s best.

At times, and in certain ways, it can be good for us too.

If you say, “I’m not creative,” it’s time to stop.

“I’m not creative” is something someone taught you to say.

They were wrong.

If you have ideas, you’re creative. (You do have ideas.)

Creativity doesn’t have to do with your ability to draw, compose music, design logos, or make the furniture look nice. Those are all skills and they can be learned. Yes, there are some people who seem to have creative intuition, but most of us have been taught along the way.

Your creative tools might not be paint or clay. They might be data. They might be spreadsheets. They might be ideas. They might be questions.

All this is to say: you are creative. Invite that knowledge into your heart as the truth that it is.

You. Are. Creative.

We don’t get a second draft.

We can’t go back and edit.

Moment to moment, life is happening now.

This isn’t the practice run. This is it. The real deal.

Stop clearing your throat. Stop stalling. We need you to make your mark now, and you’re the only one who can make it.

Leftovers eventually spoil. At that point, they can only be discarded.

But at the start — when the leftovers go into the refrigerator — they have a lot of promise. A delicious dish is somewhere in the future.

Sometimes that comes to pass. And sometimes we forget about the stored food, missing our window of opportunity.

In life, we have leftovers, too. Abandoned projects. Shelved endeavors. Hobbies that — if we’re honest with ourselves — we will never revisit.

Some of those things have a beautifully long shelf life. But others … they’re just taking up space. Physical space. Mental space. Emotional space.

It’s OK to move on. They’re not failures. They’re not things to regret. They’re just leftovers that we never got back to eating.

When it makes sense, give yourself a little grace and let go of what needs to be let go.

Our culture is filled with quick fixes. Easy steps. Simple tricks.

What if we chose another path?

What if we chose the long way? The hard steps? The journey that is immensely challenging but absolutely worthwhile?

It could be the difference between leading an ordinary life and one that is remarkable.

Every once in a while, we need to slow down.

Sometimes we’re lucky enough to get a sign.

Mine came this morning as I hurriedly poured a second cup of coffee. Except that I wasn’t holding the carafe; I was holding a box of cereal.

Sometimes little slip-ups give us a clue that we need to stop rushing and to pay closer attention.

For me, cereal mixed with a sip of coffee prompted me to pause, to check in with myself, and to say, “Slow down.”

I said it aloud for good measure.

We give thanks for the applause. We give a bow. And another. And yet another.

But at some point, we recognize: the people we seek to serve don’t want more bows — they want an encore.

Give them one.

We are grateful.

Even though we have suffered loss.

Even though we are apart.

Even though things are not as we had planned.

Even though some dreams are yet to be.

We are still grateful.

Amidst all the struggle and disappointment, we remain filled with gratitude.

There are always “even though” conditions; we are imperfect people living in an imperfect world.

But our reasons for thanksgiving are too many to number.

What are you leaving behind? Is it a gift? Is it generous?

I can hear the previous homeowner’s thoughts, “We’ll just leave these here, stacked in the cellar. Maybe someone could use them one day.”

My response — ten years too late — is, “Please don’t.”

Disposing of thirty cans of leftover paint has given me time to think about this. A few full. Most not. Some covered with rust. Some holding dried cakes of latex. Many with liquidy goo.

None of them useful.

So back to the original question: Could someone actually use what I’m leaving behind? Is it generous? Or am I just being a little lazy?

* * *

Practically speaking: when selling a home, the thoughtful thing to do is to leave a list of paint manufacturers and colors, along with a note saying, “If you like any of these colors, here’s where you can get more.”

That’s a gift I’d take. I might not use it, but I’d appreciate the gesture.

(This is a tenth of the gift I received instead. Beautiful in its own way, actually.)

What feels important isn’t always important.

And what is important doesn’t always feel that way.

Substitute “urgent” for important, and the same is true.

And of course, urgent and important are not the same. The greatest challenges of our time — those which are most important — are rarely seen as urgent, but they’re in desperate need of our attention.

Maybe the problem isn’t with our ability, or our circumstances, or our resources, or our influence.

Maybe the problem is that we just don’t begin.

We delay. We self-sabotage. We talk ourselves out of it before we even start.

But if we’re clever enough to poke holes in our biggest plans — before we let them breathe their first breath — then aren’t we also clever enough to begin, and to solve problems as they arise?

Sometimes we work for change, to no avail.

It’s useful to remember, though, that without the proper conditions, seeds will not grow.

Even with persistence, seeds scattered on a concrete pad will not produce a single plant. Despite years of trying.

We might be discouraged because of this.

But then we’d be forgetting about the generations of birds that we’ve fed.

Some of the best moments in life come when generous people show up and remind us of the fullness of who we are called to be.

Those moments come … but not every day. Maybe not even every year.

But they’re memorable.

And they endure.

I’ve learned of a new way to think about saying yes and no.

Saying “no” is saying “no” to one thing.

Saying “yes” is saying “no” to a thousand things.

This doesn’t necessarily make turning someone down any easier, but it somehow helps to have an awareness that we’re saying “no” to things all the time.

H/T Vince

It sounds cute. Useful even. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

That makes sense. Why spend time and resources trying to change something that’s working?

And yet the phrase is a dangerous adherence to the status quo. It says nothing of how to make things better. It assumes that we all know, and we can all agree upon what “broken” means (and for whom).

When we think of all the complexities of our culture, our systems, our businesses, and our daily lives … the broken-fixed duality is a poor way to determine what we should do.

Let’s abandon “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Let’s embrace, “If we can make it better, let’s make it better.”

At a drive-through window, I noticed the outward-facing back of a computer monitor. Three cables connected it to a port in the wall.

The cables were coiled and wrapped perfectly. Noticeably. Beautifully.

This didn’t happen accidentally. Someone took care to do this. Someone took care to do this at a drive-through window.

The moment made me smile — seeing how much attention someone brought to a small detail that might have otherwise been overlooked.

There’s beauty so many places if we only have eyes to see it.

I recently attended an hour-long webinar. During part of the presentation, the microphone cut out. About twenty seconds of speaking were unintelligible.

Of the many participants on the call (I’m guilty too) no one asked the speaker to back up and repeat what was missed. We were fine letting it go.

Conversely, I’ve attended events where the audience was captivated. A microphone glitch would have resulted in quickly raised hands. We had hung on every word.

* * *

Not every presentation will be a viral TED Talk. However, we can strive to be compelling. We can endeavor to offer what’s meaningful to our audience. And we can seek the audience that needs to hear what we have to say.

But no matter what, we can learn from our missteps. If our microphone is dead and no one tells us, we’ve just learned that there’s a mismatch between what we’re saying and who we’re seeking to serve.

We don’t always feel grateful. We’re not always in a good mood.

We might be having a bad moment within a worse day.

But let civility rise above it. Set courtesy and politeness to “always on”.

This is not to say that we should bury our emotions. Not at all. But words like “hello,” “goodbye,” “please,” and “thank you,” should be unconditional — proffered whether we are in love with life or having a moment of struggle.

From embattled leader to angsty teen, civility is a choice — one that signals a connection to our shared humanity, no matter the prevailing weather conditions.