Live Life’s Questions

“I want to beg you as much as I can . . . to be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek answers which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything.

“Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

“Take whatever comes with great trust, and if only it comes out of your own will, out of some need of your innermost being, take it upon yourself and hate nothing.

— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

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  • Choose your rut carefully…

    Choose your rut carefully, you’ll be in it for the next 50 miles.

    — Highway sign

    According to folklore, the above sign was spotted on the Alaskan highway. Or perhaps it was posted along the highways in the 20’s and 30’s, before blacktop became prevalent. Regardless of the source, it has served as an apt metaphor many times in my life.

    Each day we are faced with thousands of decisions: what to have for breakfast, what to wear, when to work out, how much time to spend surfing my RSS feeds. Most decisions have very short-term implications and can be corrected if errant.

    Occasionally decisions arise that have much longer-term implications: whether or not to take that new job, move to that new city, attend a certain college or purchase a particular car. In these cases, deliberation pays dividends. When I find myself facing such decisions I classify them with the “Choose your rut carefully” label. It may not be the most glamorous metaphor but it helps me take the time I need to make solid decisions.

  • Don’t make them think

    If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you; But if you really make them think, they’ll hate you.

    — Don Marquis

    I lived in Denver in the late ’80s. At one point I met an acquaintance who invited me to attend his monthly book club. I was in a heavy reading phase and was excited about the prospect of connecting with fellow book lovers. I was encouraged to bring a book and plan on sharing a favorite passage.

    The book I happened to be reading at the time was The Death of Ivan Ilyich, and the passage I picked to read turned out to be pretty heavy.

  • Gadget Distraction

    What’s happening here, now, isn’t as important to me as what could be happening anywhere else.

    — Renny Gleeson

    I watched Renny Gleeson in a brilliant, short Ted Talk this morning talk about the sneaky, anti-social behaviors we demonstrate with our smartphones. When I am sitting in a meeting, or at an event, and I can’t resist the urge to pull out my iPhone and check my email or peruse my Twitter updates, I am actually telling those around me that what is happening in the here and now is not as important as literally anything that could come across that tiny screen.

  • Don’t say you don’t have enough time

    Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.

    — H. Jackson Brown

    Despite my obsession for productivity, I often find myself struggling to stay focused. I find this quote inspirational, especially on days when I have frittered away have of a morning on mundane tasks. Think bigger. Think beyond the moment. Follow your passions.

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