You can make a wrong right.
You can’t go back and pre-perfect the wrong that has passed.
We are works in progress, not works in perfection.
Perfection is about punctuation that marks an ending of something. Right is about a progression and continuation of that which is true and noble.
Perfection touts the finish line. Right boasts in the journey.
Doing, building, and pursuing what’s right inches us ever so closer to living a life that can one day look back with the hope and sense of perfection.
Leonardo da Vinci was a relentless note taker. He literally left behind thousands and thousands of pages with his thoughts, interpretations, suspicions, and beliefs about anything and everything.
If one is to thumb through his notes, they will consistently find the words “Dimmi” written over and over.
Dimmi is translated as ‘tell me’ in Italian.
This has rattled me.
It appears that there were very few thoughts, moments, and wonders where da Vinci didn’t ask to be taught or offer himself as a student of what could be illuminated in the scene transpiring before him.
There’s so much this place wants to tell us.
Ask and you shall receive.
We talk about changing the world often and, typically, our thinking defaults to imagining ourselves moving across state lines, across oceans, across the bottom line of CNBC, and across the planet with our dreams, ideas, thoughts, goods, and services.
Yes. Moving your ‘thing’ across the ocean is one way to change the world.
But…
What about the cubicle across from your office?
What about your neighbor across the street?
What about those souls across from you at your dinner table?
What about the customer sitting across from you, on your site, via the Internet?
Point: More often than not, changing the world looks more like your front porch than it does a passport.
Look across.
I crossed paths with a wonderful thought this weekend on a wall at a children’s clothing store. The words came from Henry Ward Beecher and read, “There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One is roots, and the other wings.”
These words were spoken nearly 200 years ago.
They were true then. They’re true today. And they will be true tomorrow.
This week, may the Muse fasten our music in ‘why’ and, in doing so, let it soar with purpose.
Ashton.Gustafson 