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How many times have we been told to go to sleep early and awake early in the morning? Centuries ago, the American statesman and scientist Benjamin Franklin famously said, “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”1 And he was just echoing the even-older advice of Aristotle: “It is well to be up before day-break, for such a habit contributes to health, wealth and wisdom.”2
We each have a backstory—the experiences, events, and choices that helped shape us into the people we’ve become. One of the best ways to understand a person, even someone we might disagree with, is to learn his or her story. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow put it this way: “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”1 Though most of us don’t see each other as enemies, the sentiment is clear. It’s much harder to dislike a person whose story you understand.
At a recent high school graduation, the class valedictorian spoke of the most important thing he had learned in 13 years of public education. Among his many classes and extracurricular activities, one moment in particular stood out. His teacher had just divided the class into groups for a project that they would work on—and be graded on—as teams rather than individually. Sensing the students’ distaste for this approach, the teacher preempted their complaints by explaining, “Get used to working in groups because, in the end, life is a group project.”
Moonlight, with its soft, silver tones and the enchanting mood it casts, has captured our fancy for centuries. It has been the subject of countless poems, songs, serenades, and evening walks. We marvel at how bright a full moon can seem sometimes, even though we know it is merely reflecting the light it receives from the sun. In fact, our full moon, at its very brightest, only reflects about 12 percent of the light that reaches it.
It has been said that when you compare yourself to others, two things can happen—and both are harmful: you may decide you are better than other people, or you may conclude that other people are better than you, which will leave you feeling unsettled, dissatisfied, and discouraged. As one commentator observed: “For some people, the pleasure of having something good is drained as soon as they see someone else with something better.
In 1897, the Washington Post boldly announced, “It is a fact that man can’t fly.” Apparently, someone forgot to tell that to Wilbur and Orville Wright.
In 1900, Wilbur glided 300 feet over the dunes of Kitty Hawk on North Carolina’s Outer Banks in a glider he and his brother had designed. Three years and many attempts later, Orville flew in a powered plane for 12 seconds. It wasn’t long before they were in the air flying for miles, and the Wright brothers had become the unlikely inventors of the world’s first successful aircraft.
To many, the word pioneer conjures up images of covered wagons, dusty oxen, and hearty men and women seeking a new home in the American West. Or it may remind us of someone who makes important scientific discoveries. In reality, a pioneer can be anyone who moves bravely forward into the unknown—and doesn’t that pretty well describe all of us on the journey of life?
Some call it journaling. Others call it expressive writing or creating a personal mission statement. Whatever it’s called, something happens when we take time to seriously ponder our life and then write about who we are, what direction we want our life to take—what our goals and aspirations are for the future. Studies have shown that writing about our personal experiences can improve our mood and even our physical health.
Irving Berlin, America’s most successful songwriter, was born in a small Russian village near the Siberian border. Threats of violence forced his family to flee Russia when he was only five years old, and they eventually found a home in the United States.
As inevitable aging began to take its toll, one good man questioned whether he had been the kind of father he had hoped to be. Mustering his courage, he called his three children together and, with his wife at his side, made this poignant request: “Tell me how you feel about me as your father. What did I do right, and what did I do wrong?” One by one, the children shared their very personal thoughts and feelings.
It’s human nature to want to improve, to progress—to overcome our weaknesses and build upon our strengths. Unfortunately, it’s also part of human nature to get distracted and give in to temptation. How many times, for example, have we set goals to exercise or improve our diet, only to find ourselves eating junk food again before long?
Successful New York Times columnist David Brooks once visited a group of 30 tutors, many of them elderly women, who taught English to immigrants. He was surprised by what he saw in these volunteers’ faces. “They just radiated a generosity of spirit,” he said. “They radiated a patience and most of all they radiated gratitude for life.” He thought to himself: “I’ve achieved career success in life, but I haven’t achieved that. What they have is that inner light that I do not have.”
When asked who has made a real difference in our lives, we often think of a teacher. No matter how many years pass, we never forget the person who first opened our eyes to the wonders of science, art, or good books. In fact, we learn very few—if any—of life’s valuable lessons on our own. We all need caring, experienced mentors to guide us through our learning experiences.
A family with teenage children has a cherished tradition that has served them for generations. Each time one of the children leaves home for a date or an activity with friends, the father always says, “Remember who you are and what you represent.” The teenagers have grown to expect this gentle reminder. It’s the same reminder their father heard his parents say to him a generation earlier.
Nobody seeks out suffering. And yet it is one of life’s great ironies that the moments that make us feel weakest often reveal our hidden strengths. We don’t really know what we can endure until we are forced to endure it. Yale University professor Steven Southwick believes that “most of us are a lot more resilient than we think.”1 He compares us to a green tree branch—it may not seem as strong as a more mature, rigid limb. But in a strong wind it’s the green branch that survives, bending but never breaking.
The year was 1918, the close of World War I. An American Red Cross nurse wrote a letter to the mother of a soldier who had died shortly after the armistice was signed. He had made it through the terrors of war without injury and then, sadly, succumbed in the hospital to pneumonia. Wanting the mother to have more than a brief message from the military about her son’s death, the nurse wrote of what she called the “little things that mean so much to a mother far away from her boy.”
If there is one common thread that runs through most of the world’s problems, it’s anger. Violence, abuse, and hatred all grow when fueled by anger’s empty fumes. We’ve all seen how anger damages relationships and destroys love and trust. What’s more, medical researchers have recently found that anger can lead to sleeping problems, excess eating, and long-term heart damage.1 No, nothing good comes from anger.
Even though most of us realize that true happiness does not come from the things we accumulate, for some reason we still end up accumulating a lot of things. Sometimes our homes and closets and lives are filled with so much clutter, so much stuff, that we feel overwhelmed, even burdened by it all. There’s so much to take care of, to worry about, to dust and clean, that the clutter seems to smother the joy out of life.
Pottery is among mankind’s oldest and most enduring crafts. The process itself feels like a work of art, as the expert potter carefully, patiently shapes a lump of clay into a beautiful, useful vessel. While finishing the work takes time and patient effort, the result is clearly worth it. It’s no wonder that pottery making is often used as a metaphor for how our lives are gently molded by the patient hand of God.
At the end of a long day of school and work, a busy college student was asked about his exhausting day. Instead of mentioning his difficult chemistry class or his burdensome homework assignment, he talked about the beautiful sunset he saw on his way home. The highlight of his day was a moment of awe.
It’s been said that God rewrites the book of Genesis every spring.1 “In the beginning” takes on special meaning each year as we witness the renewed life, the rebirth, and the new beginnings that seem to be built in to earth’s cycle of seasons. It’s as if nature itself is trying to tell us that whatever we are going through, things can change—things can get better.
A woman who loved soufflé decided to make some for her family for a special occasion. But she became nervous when she read the recipe for the light, fluffy cake. Soufflé is not easy to make, and it has to be served quickly to keep it from falling. So as the years, holidays, and birthdays went by, she continued to save the recipe, not quite ready to attempt it.
Only those who are willing to risk heartbreak and disappointment will ever know what it means to truly love.
As C. S. Lewis put it: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping [your heart] intact, you must give [it] to no one, not even to an animal.
One of Mark Twain’s stories tells of an artist, George Sterling, who finds most of humanity—other than himself—rather uninteresting. Self-absorbed in his own career and interests, he takes little notice of the people around him.
At the start of a new semester, the president of a large university advised his students: “We will all fail. More than once. Every day.” Not exactly the inspiring pep talk they may have expected. But then he added: “My plea for you today is to learn how to fail successfully.”1
Few things release the feelings of the heart like singing does. It brings deep emotions to the surface that we might otherwise struggle to express. When we sing, we reveal what’s in our soul, and this honesty of heart connects us with others despite barriers of time, place, and culture.
In 1753 the British government, with its heavy hand on the American colonies, put Benjamin Franklin in charge of the colonial postal system north of Maryland. Postage prices were assessed by the mile in those days, and Franklin’s fellow colonists were suspicious that the British were overcharging.
We live in a time of great division. Advances in technology have, in many ways, made our world smaller, but instead of coming together, we seem at times to be growing farther apart. Many of us wish for a way to bridge the cultural divides around us. We see people of other faiths or other nationalities, and we wonder how we might befriend those who seem so different from us.
If you knew that this was your last day on earth—that tomorrow your life would end—what would you do today? Most people would probably not try to squeeze in one more day at the office or one last television program. More than likely, you would spend most of the day trying to reach the people who are dear to you, simply to say, one last time, “I love you.”
No one ever does everything perfectly right all the time. Each of us makes mistakes and falls short of perfection. That’s life, and that’s OK.
Broadway musical star Idina Menzel shared how she came to this realization. Recently, she wrote: “There are about 3 million notes in a two-and-a-half-hour musical; being a perfectionist, it took me a long time to realize that if I’m hitting 75 percent of them, I’m succeeding. . . . I am more than the notes I hit, and that’s how I try to approach my life. You can’t get it all right all the time, but you can try your best. If you’ve done that, all that’s left is to accept your shortcomings and have the courage to try to overcome them.”1