Let it go

Mark Rothko

In January, I’m inspired by articles about focus:  tidy closets, priorities, writing routines, a week of simple meals for $10 or less, whether can one attend all those committee meetings this year. 

Richard Smith says, Let it go:

“The rules of success change. In fact, they make a u-turn. Succeeding in the second phase of life becomes about giving up. Doing less. It is about focusing on what you were meant to be doing, leveraging your greatest strengths and passions, and letting everything else fall to the side.   …

At some point, you need to be true to your strengths and passions. The acquisition of knowledge and experience is an extraordinary gift, because only through this path can you find your calling. But once you find it, you must summon the confidence to let other things go. You must delegate to others more talented than you. You must focus on the challenges that most excite you. This is what authentic leadership is all about.

Success to a point requires gaining as much knowledge and experience as you can get your hands on. But ironically, breaking out to achieve the life you are capable of living eventually requires the strength to let it go.”  

 –Richard A. Smith, The Huffington Post, 1/13/2009

The air should suffice

Palais des Congres, Montreal, by Doug Bull

“Emerson said: ‘The poet’s habit of living should be set on a key so low and plain that the common influences should  delight him.  His cheerfulness should be the gift of sunlight; the air should suffice for his inspiration and he should be tipsy with water.’

“Have we packed our lives with such a frantic pace in search of elusive happiness that God cannot get a word in edgewise?”

 –Gertrud Mueller Nelson, To Dance with God