Welcome to Sunday Journal, a chance to start your week out with short, quiet reflections and advice for life.
This effort started with a handwritten journal I keep for each of my children, designed to give them a sense of how to become the best version of themselves. If you find this valuable, please share it with others.
Each edition contains three sections: reflections to put into practice, an inspirational quote, and an image to contemplate.
Sometimes, all it takes for success and ambition to bloom is to witness and understand the magic in the humdrum, daily occurrences, objects, and actions that are largely ignored.
We ignite the extraordinary by making the ordinary come alive.
Reflection
This week’s reflection is the poem “Do Not Ask Your Children to Strive,” and it applies to anyone in our lives for whom we have the responsibility of leading:
Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is the way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.
From The Parent’s Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents by William Martin
Quote
“‘I would to God there were more ambition in the country,’ by which he meant, “ambition of the laudable kind. To excel.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, quoting John Adams, 1835
Image
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There’s so much to learn,
