“Leap, and the net will appear.”
{John Burroughs}
If you are feeling “ready” to step out, to risk, to greet an uncertain future, you’ve probably waited too long. There is no such thing as “ready.” There is only now.
Feel the fear and do it anyway.
It’s time to act.
Photo by Lennart Wittstock on Pexels.com
Sometimes it is small and just barely there. Sometimes it grows out of nothing into something. Sometimes it’s in the middle of the path. Sometimes we notice it and sometimes we don’t.
Life is always there, it is always happening. It is among the greatest disciplines we can practice, that of expecting to encounter life at every turn and to be fully available to it when we do.
This is the life that is always emerging in and from yourself. This is the life that is emerging in and from everyone you meet. This is the life that is actually teeming, breathing, vibrating around you right now.
To be there for it is to honor it. To notice can mean everything.
Photo credit: Davis Berry – Cammasia Preserve, Oregon
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
– Teddy Roosevelt
Greta Thunberg outside of the Swedish parliament (Sveriges Riksdag), August 2018. Photography: Adam Johansson
The way I’d like to go on living in this world wouldn’t hurt anything, I’d just go on walking uphill and downhill, looking around, and so what if half the time I don’t know what for —
{Mary Oliver, excerpt from “1945-1985: Poem for the Anniversary” from Dream Work}
Maybe today a little more wandering, a little less doing. A little more imagining, a little less producing. A little more “just because” and a little less “have to.”
Maybe today you will stop watching your scoreboard, just for a few moments, and instead watch the way the sunlight fragments through the window or the birds search the grass for something hidden.
Maybe today you will stretch your legs, and notice how your feet and legs work together to keep you in motion. Maybe today you will remove the headphones and listen instead to the buzz of life around you.
Maybe today a little more daydreaming, the slightest space for the birth of a new thought, a reconsideration of something once settled.
Maybe today a quiet invitation to the divine to enter in and have its way with you.
DAVID BERRY is the author of “A More Daring Life: Finding Voice at the Crossroads of Change” and the founder of RULE13 Learning. He speaks and writes about the complexity of leading in a changing world.
There’s always a day after the big event or celebration.
That day usually includes a heavy dose of afterglow; what we did, how we did it, what it meant, what we think.
That day can also be thought of as “today,” with a heavy dose of right now; what we will do, how and why.
I understand and appreciate a romantic view of the past, even the immediate past, but I am less patient with it now.
I am interested in today. What will we do with who we’ve become, what we’ve gathered, what we’ve learned?
What will we do with all of that today?
DAVID BERRY is the author of “A More Daring Life: Finding Voice at the Crossroads of Change” and the founder of RULE13 Learning. He speaks and writes about the complexity of leading in a changing world. Connect with him on Twitter at @berrydavid.
