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Happy Tuesday. Each week I share some thought-provoking insights of my own, along with wisdom from the great thinkers I’ve encountered through books, other media, and my network.
Top of Mind: Predicting the Future
One of my mentors used to say: “if you want to predict the future, pay very close attention to what you are attached to.”
I like this as a reminder to help identify where in life I am too attached to an individual outcome, and have an opportunity to hold things a little looser.
Big Idea: Souls Between Lives and Uncertainty
A picture that comes into my head periodically is a scene of two souls, both between lives, speaking to one another.
I am not sure what form they would take, or what a soul would look like, but I think about a conversation they might have about making the decision to enter the world as a human, with all the uncertainty that comes with it.
It’s remarkable that of all the lives we could live, we end up with the one we have. It’s an idea I’ve found sparks a lot of gratitude and wonder for this experience.
Borrowed Wisdom: Right Place, Right Time
In the prologue of Scott Anderson’s Lawrence in Arabia, he includes this quote: “History is often the tale of small moments—chance encounters or casual decisions or sheer coincidence—that seem of little consequence at the time, but somehow fuse with other small moments to produce something momentous, the proverbial flapping of a butterfly’s wings that triggers a hurricane.”
It’s amazing what role chance can play in a life experience. For T.E. Lawrence, of Lawrence of Arabia, it was an example of a British guy who had a particular depth of knowledge of the Middle East, at a time when there was a war in the region and a need for someone with such knowledge, which otherwise would have been largely useless. With a background as a scholar, Lawrence became a great military leader and was instrumental in shaping the modern Middle East.
It reminds me of the key formula from Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers as I understand it: success = hard work (i.e. 10,000 hours) x opportunity.
Reading, Watching, Listening:
Kiss Me Like A Stranger: My Search for Love and Art by Gene Wilder - This is one of the most honest books capturing one man reflecting on his own life, and a lot of fun to read given Wilder's sense of humor and personality. Most know about Wilder's on-screen success. But few, particularly younger people, know about his personal journey, including being married four times. While by conventional standards this seems like a failure in relationships, what I find so refreshing about Gene's experience is how he writes that it wasn't until later in life, and on his fourth marriage, that he really understood love. That's moving to me as a counter to our society that wants to figure out life by 20, 25, 30, 40 and certainly by 50. Gene is a reminder that perhaps life is long because it takes a long time to learn the lessons that we're here to learn, and maybe it will be later in life when the big ideas really click.
Let me know if anything stands out. Hope you have a great week.
Adam
"It’s remarkable that of all the lives we could live, we end up with the one we have. It’s an idea I’ve found sparks a lot of gratitude and wonder for this experience."
SAME