One of the accidental joys of my writing life has been that I've had some lovely, surprisingly good fortune with readers, and I've brought readers to my dad's work. I can't tell you the joy that gives me. Because my father's work was masterful.
What we know matters but who we are matters more.
Wholehearted living is not like trying to reach a destination. It's like walking toward a star in the sky. We never really 'arrive,' but we certainly know that we're heading in the right direction.
When I look at narcissism through the vulnerability lens, I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary. I see the fear of never feeling extraordinary enough to be noticed, to be lovable, to belong, or to cultivate a sense of purpose.
Joy, collected over time, fuels resilience - ensuring we'll have reservoirs of emotional strength when hard things do happen.
Effort + the courage to show up = enough.
If you put shame in a petri dish, it needs three ingredients to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in the petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can't survive.
A lifetime is not too long to spend in learning about the world.
Think enough and you won't know anything.
Running with the wrong crowd will never help you.
It's better to be an octopus than a fish. If an octopus loses a tentacle to a predator, the octopus will survive with seven tentacles left for itself.