“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius
It’s been one of those weeks where everything feels complicated and hard, the running through wet cement hip deep kind. As I wandered through photos and quotes, it hit me. There’s nothing that symbolizes simplicity more than summer. And the promise of summer lifted the weight, shifted my perspective. So ponder your own summer memories and those you will soon create.
"In summer, the song sings itself." - William Carlos Williams
"There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart." - Celia Thaxter
"Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language." - Henry James
“Softly the evening came.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Coming off of a very intense three weeks, someone asked me “what keeps you up at night?” Years ago, my mind would have lept immediately to work – the drama, the politics, the what happens if someone does this or says that. This time it didn’t.
What keeps me up at night? My parents health, my nieces’ and nephew’s future, friends struggling with challenges. Am I enjoying each day surrounded by people who make my life more complete? These are the thoughts and questions that keep me up at night. And once a in a while, work jumps in there.
Perhaps the more important question is, “What keeps you moving through your day?” I don’t need anymore sleepless nights – I’ve already contributed many through the years. I need days where I am very awake to what is right in front of me with gratitude. And as the evening comes softly to rest easy, content with my contribution to the day.
“Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.” – Albert Einstein
“If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.” - G.K. Chesterton
“Everything can be taken from a man or woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor E. Frankl
“Cast Light” is an invitation to release your inner light, your authentic self every day. Choose light and cast it to the world.
Featured Quotes
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”― Mary Oliver
“I do not understand the mystery of grace — only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.” — Anne Lamott