May you….

• Be unafraid, unafraid to dream great dreams for your life and to work every day at making it exceptional. World changing and exceptional people do not wake up one day and discover they are key figures in the betterment of the world. They work at it every day. They work at it for many years before it becomes a reality. They design blueprints that stretch years ahead.

• Be adventurous and embark on some new area of discovery, be it some area of personal research or on some literal journey to a new place. May you go somewhere you have heretofore been reticent to venture. In so doing, may you find some degree of fulfillment or even of healing, healing you may have not known you needed.

• Love in ways you have not loved before. May you reach out in fresh ways to those whom you have loved for years in ways that surprise you and others. May you also find love for the stranger, the men or women whom you have previously excluded from your social circles, the “them” and “those people” – may they hear from you (and from me) in ways none of us expect.

The Mercury

Written and published with permission – I learned a long time ago NOT to write about immediate family (or even distant family) without permission. 
On a personal note…

Almost every night I before I go to bed I reduce a handful of greens and fresh fruit into a delicious drink using a powerful liquidizer. I wash the jugs, clean the blades, and get it all ready for a similar ritual in the morning. I know I leave the liquidizer plugged in the wall-socket. Every morning when I come downstairs it’s unplugged.

This very slight annoyance grew mostly because it made no sense and because both my sons were asleep when I faced this minor irritation and I’d forget to ask after the day got rolling and my attentions were focused elsewhere.

This week we have all been home in the mornings and so I asked.
Thulani (19) said that of course he unplugged the liquidizer every night as a “safety issue.”

He enlarged:

Well dad, what if you walked in your sleep, came downstairs, put your hand into the liquidizer, turned it on and you lost your fingers? You won’t be able to play the piano anymore.

I pointed out that none of us sleepwalks and that I never put my hands into the liquidizer even when awake. He agreed.

I asked if he’d be unplugging the dishwasher and washing machine in case I drowned and I think he said I was being ridiculous.

The Mercury – Thusday

Building blocks that will bring powerful shifts to your life:

• Deliberately become the most generous person you know. This is not about already possessing wealth before you can be generous. If you’re not generous when you have little you probably won’t be if you become rich. 

• Hold everything you own with an open hand. Share, just as you learned (or as adults tried to teach you) as a five-year-old. 

• Empower others. You lose nothing when you help others to gain. 

• Say “yes” more than “no” to the adventures that come your way (Ed Friedman) although it’s necessary to learn how and when to say a firm “no.”

• Develop the capacity to “see beyond” the limitations set by your family history, your nationality, and your faith story. (Also Friedman) 

• Learn to live within your means. In other words, make more money than you spend. 

• Determine to embody forgiveness, freedom, and grace for all who will repeatedly and naturally attempt to sabotage you. You will meet more and more resistance as you become more and more intentional about your choices.  

• Acknowledge and embrace your inevitable dark side. Try to understand it and accept it so that it will not try to take you by surprise in response to your denial of its presence.

• Be gentle on yourself as you would with a treasured loved-one. After all, you are all you’ve got.