💭 A great reminder from designer and community builder Eso Tolson: Our work isn’t just what we get paid for—it’s what we contribute to the world:

We think our “work" is the job we go to or the place we get a check from. No. Your work is the very special thing that you add to this world. Your vision. Your light. Your love. What you share. What you create. How you make people feel. Etc. That, my friends, is truly our WORK.

My friend, Dean Sharp, shares another remarkable ‘closing thought’ on his radio show The House Whisperer. We can’t always control what life throws at us, but we can control who we become through it all.

🔗 It doesn’t get better, you get better

Good advice, as ever, from Oliver Burkeman:

The 70% rule: If you’re roughly 70% happy with a piece of writing you’ve produced, you should publish it. If you’re 70% satisfied with a product you’ve created, launch it. If you’re 70% sure a decision is the right one, implement it. And if you’re 70% confident you’ve got what it takes to do something that might make a positive difference to the increasingly alarming era we seem to inhabit? Go ahead and do that thing.

🔗 Seventy per cent

I love this quote from Vincent Van Gogh:

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.

It’s a powerful reminder that starting small is still starting and that small beginnings can lead to significant endings.

Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.

—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, from his sermon titled “The Most Durable Power,” delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church on November 6, 1956.

A good reminder that hate—like unforgiveness and bitterness—is always a form of self-harm.

“11,520 moments today.” Great thoughts from my friend Dean Sharp (a home designer, builder, and host of the radio show “Home with Dean Sharp” on KFI AM 640) on regret, choices, and making the most of life’s moments.

“If you’re waiting for inspiration, you’ve already lost.”

The hard part isn’t knowing what to do; it’s doing it daily, whether you feel like it or not.

The challenge isn’t knowing you should work out; it’s putting on your shoes and running in the cold when you’d rather sit at home under a warm blanket. The challenge isn’t determining the most important project; it’s sitting down and doing it when you’d rather browse social media.

If you’re waiting for inspiration, you’ve already lost.

In other words, get off your backside already!

[fs.blog]

New London restaurant is staffed by the recently homeless.

Love this story.

In cities across Britain and the world, homelessness and joblessness feed upon each other. Most employers won’t hire someone who does not have a stable address, which means the homeless can’t earn the money to afford a place to live.

Home Kitchen aims to break that cycle by training people for a career in the restaurant industry. Before opening day, recruits took a three-week culinary crash course and then spent two weeks in a kitchen at the Megaro, the five-star hotel where Mr. Simmonds was recently appointed chef patron.

[nytimes.com]

“The nonviolence of courageous action”.

Jean Zaru, a Palestinian Quaker, reflects upon her lifelong commitment to peacemaking:

As Palestinian women, we have a special burden and service. We are constantly being told to be peaceful. But the inner peace of which I speak is not simply being nice, or being passive, or permitting oneself to be trampled upon without protest. It is not passive nonviolence, but the nonviolence of courageous action…

What is that inner force that drives us, that provides regeneration and perseverance to speak the truth that desperately needs to be spoken in this moment of history?… If I deserve credit for courage, it is not for anything I do here, but for continuing in my daily struggle under occupation on so many fronts, for remaining samideh (steadfast) and, all the while, remaining open to love, to the beauty of the earth, and contributing to its healing when it is violated.

[cac.org]

“People can be better than the worst thing they’ve done”.

Author and activist, Shane Claiborne:

…grace offers us another version of justice. Grace makes room … for justice that is restorative, and dedicated to healing the wounds of injustice. But the grace thing is hard work. It takes faith—because it dares us to believe that not only can victims be healed, but so can the victimizers. It is not always easy to believe that love is more powerful than hatred, life more powerful than death, and that people can be better than the worst thing they’ve done.

[cac.org]

Never admire quietly.

Chimamanda Nzozi Adichie, author of Half of a Yellow Sun, offers some simple yet important advice:

If I admire something about someone, I tell them. We humans are so fragile. It’s important we give people their flowers while they are still here. Never admire quietly.

[harpersbazaar.com]

Micro kindnesses.

Sometimes the simplest nudges towards a change in behaviour are the most powerful and effective.

This from Vanessa Van Edwards is one such nudge:

Whenever you see an opportunity to perform a small favor that would take 30 seconds or fewer – like holding the door for someone, offering directions, or even giving a compliment – take it.

The more we seek out opportunities for these kinds of micro-kindnesses, the more we will see them. And before we know it, these kind gestures will have simply become part of who we are.

[instagram.com]

Incredible cloud art!

Adore this cloud art that artist Chris Judge has been sharing on Instagram since summer 2020. Can’t believe I’ve only just stumbled across this account!

[instagram.com]

“Hopefulness is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism”

Beautiful and moving response by Australian musician Nick Cave to a letter from a fan feeling empty and cynical.

Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position either. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like, Valerio, such as reading to your little boy, or showing him a thing you love, or singing him a song, or putting on his shoes, keeps the devil down in the hole. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in. In time, we come to find that it is so.

Adam Peaty: Why silver is better than gold

As soon as you define your whole life by medals, you’ll have no one to share it with. I’d rather get silver and have someone to share it with than gold and be on my own.

Quite a remarkable transformation.

Graham Thorpe’s daughter: We’re not ashamed of talking about his suicide

I grew up watching Graham Thorpe play cricket for England. It’s devastating to read of his mental health illness that led to the taking of his own life.

I love what his daughter had to say about why they’re sharing more details about his illness and death though:

We are not ashamed of talking about it. There is nothing to hide and it is not a stigma.

“Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”

I love this quote from the Catholic saint, Augustine, quoted by Steve Chalke today in his ‘Pause for Thought’ on BBC Radio 2. And then what Steve went onto add was great too:

“…one of the ancient words the Bible uses for ‘hope’ is ‘tikvah’, which comes from the word for a ‘multi-stranded rope’.

That’s what Martin Luther King understood. Hope has to be tangible! When you’re down a deep hole, you need a strong woven rope to climb out with, rather than empty optimism. That’s what he and his friends gave their lives to weaving.”

Can’t help but enjoy this photo of Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles bowing down to Rebeca Andrade after the Brazilian beat them to Olympic gold in the floor final in Paris.