Daily Inspiration 1-20-16

You're not given your resume 

with your birth certificate. 

You create your life 

and you can recreate it." 

-- Ken Robinson 

This last weekend, I reread via audiobook, The Element by Ken Robinson. I love his voice and first met him on his 2006 YouTube viral TED video. Then yesterday, I read the sequel to The Element, titled, Finding Your Element. Both books were read by Ken Robinson, and I have to say that they are both fascinating about how people find what they do best by finding that personal something that causes them to be in their 'element.' There are such great stories of how people found that special thing that they were meant to do, so to speak. Some found it early in life, and others nearer the end, and yet each was like an epiphany when found.

Early in the book, Finding Your Element, Ken talks about there being Three Elemental Principles. One is that each of our lives is unique. Number two is that we create our own lives. This is where the above quote came from, and he added this: "As the psychologist George Kelly says, "No one needs to be a victim of their own biography." Or, as Carl Jung puts it, "I am not what has happened to me, I am what I choose to become."

Principle #3 is that life is not linear, it is organic. He says, "My life, like yours is a constant process of improvisation between my interests and personality on the one hand and the circumstances and opportunities on the other. The one affects the other. Many of the opportunities you have in your life are generated by the energy you create around you." (Had to bold that line. It is fascinating!)

I love how he goes on to say, "Of course, the whole process can seem very different when you come to write your resume. You then impose a linear narrative on your life, to make it look as if it was all planned and deliberate. You organize your story around key dates and achievements with headings in bold and italic, to give the impression that your life has been unfolding according to a sensible, premeditated scheme. You do this to encourage yourself and to avoid giving the prospective employers the impression that your life has been the uncertain process of tacking and weaving that most lives really are."


It's All Good. How Would You Know Until You Tried?

Spread Some Joy Today--by releasing the seriousness of it all.