1). Remove the headphones.
2). Pause.
3). Look at what’s in-between your starting and finishing lines.
4). Do more with less.
5). Ask more and better questions.
6). Close your inbox.
7). Put your phone in a drawer.
8). Fast from non essentials.
9). Pray for awareness.
10).
(Whatever you gather from #’s 1-9 will allow you to fill in #10)
Something worked yesterday, something different works today, and something else will work tomorrow.
Today, we rejoice in commas.
In the end the worthy goal isn’t to one day blow out your candle in some form of case closed, definite conclusion.
Rather, our hope lies in these little lights that we all have to let shine and in their capability to light the way for another or reignite one’s wick that has gone dim.
Collectively, we can all help each other to see a little bit better and get us on the other side of another comma.
Flames are contagious.
Few things hurt like we thought they would.
The speech you were dreading to give. The infamous flu shot. The 15 year mortgage. Pausing for breakfast. And maybe the most avoided of all, vulnerability.
It’s those things we didn’t see coming in our peripheral that bear the most pain.
Awareness, we need you.
…and by free, I mean earned.
It’s your humanity that gets shared, gets talked about, sticks with the recipient, and is what you want to see in your rear view mirror.
You’d be surprised what a Super Bowl ad can’t do.
…the momentum begins.
When you know ‘why’ you are here, you immediately make movements to find the instruments that will lend themselves to your music.
You’re not here to build a facade and you’re not meant to be a carbon copy of another.
Be the hands, the feet, the eyes, the words, and the soul that only you can be.
Today, may you waltz through these ‘why’s’.
Ashton.Gustafson 