This morning, I was riding the BART to San Francisco and stumbled across a few thoughts I felt were worth sharing. Every morning, I follow a nearly identical routine (including the same breakfast items) and intentionally open my mind to new thoughts/ideas which present themselves on the canvas of this ctrl-c+ctrl-v routine.
I started to do my usual ‘mental inventory’ of my life; usually comprising of taking inventory of what’s been accomplished/learned/grown in the 29 years of walking this plane. Several painful failures came to mind, as well as times where my life seemed to be in a state of downward chaos.
The pain stung. A lot. Familiar voices seemed to come into ear, prompting me that these past failures were impending in my future.
This mental waterboarding routine seems to be a common practice for a lot of people I’ve gotten to know. Failure and pain tends to leave a much darker spot in our memory than the freedom love and joy carry.
Steve has taught me that these ‘dark’ voices won’t go away in your life. Ever. You can’t survive very long on a cotton candy diet. The same thing applies for the hard truths in your life that you may not want to listen to, or hide.
It dawned on me that the solution isn’t to remove the colors from your easel, but to realize the picture of your life isn’t complete.
It would be silly to criticize Da Vinci for his work on David before he took a single blow to the marble with his chisel.
Your life is no different. My life is no different. Each of us is a slab of marble that is being chiseled and refined.
Eagles soar in the mountains – but fruit grows in the valleys – and weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.
For me, the missing dimension was time. All of those negative voices of failure simply alerted me of what I should do differently this round.
I believe each of us is a masterpiece, very similar to a painting on a canvas. Every moment of time is a stroke on the canvas. Sometimes we can’t see the finished picture. In fact, I don’t think we ever will. But, I found peace this morning on the BART train when I realized the painting of my life is far, far from complete.
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