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The Road Not Taken

    Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

    And sorry I could not travel both

    And be one traveler, long I stood

    And looked down one as far as I could

    To where it bent in the undergrowth;

     

    Then took the other, as just as fair,

    And having perhaps the better claim,

    Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

    Though as for that the passing there

    Had worn them really about the same,

     

    And both that morning equally lay

    In leaves no step had trodden black.

    Oh, I kept the first for another day!

    Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

    I doubted if I should ever come back.

     

    I shall be telling this with a sign

    Somewhere ages and ages hence:

    Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

    I took the one less traveled by,

    And that has made all the difference.

     

    ~ Robert Frost

      “One of the few things I know about writing is this:  Spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time.  Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.  The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now.  Something more will arise for later, something better.  These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water.  The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive.  Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you.” ~ Annie Dillard, American Writer

        “Don’t waste time calculating your chances of success and failure.  Just fix your aim and begin.” ~ Guan Yin Tzu, Chinese Master

          “Children are born awesome. Our job as the adults in their lives is to make sure they know this and to minimize the effect of anyone who might influence them to feel otherwise. When children feel stupid, slow, naughty, troublesome, untrustworthy, incapable or silenced in response to the comments of any adult in their lives, it’s time for us to be their voice.” ~ Hey Sigmund, Good Men Project

            “When we reach sixty-two, we are likely to interpret feelings of exhaustion and boredom as the signal to retire.  But couldn’t they just as easily be the call to reinvent ourselves?  As we age it seems harder and harder to let our authentic dharma reinvent us.  We imagine somehow that the risks are greater.  We tend to think that leaping off cliffs is for the young.  But no.  Actually – when better to leap off cliffs?”

            Stephen Cope, The Great Work Of Your Life

              “Our work can be motivated by obligation, by hunger for the external rewards of accomplishment, or by strongly reinforced ideas about who we should be in this lifetime.  But none of these motivations has the authentic energy required for mastery of a profession.”

              Stephen Cope, The Great Work Of Your Life

                “It is better to fail at your own dharma than to succeed at the dharma of someone else.” ~ Krisna, Bhagavad Gita

                  “I know people who have been stuck in doubt their entire lifetime.  Each of these unfortunate individuals – some of them my very own friends and family – came at some point to a crossroads.  They came to this crossroads and found themselves rooted there, with one foot firmly planted on each side of the intersection.  Alas, they never moved off the dime.  They procrastinated.  Dithered.  Finally, they put a folding chair smack in the center of that crossroads and lived there for the rest of their lives.  After a while, they forgot entirely that there even was a crossroads – forgot that there was a choice.”

                  Stephen Cope, The Great Work Of Your Life

                    “People actually feel happiest and most fulfilled when meeting the challenge of their dharma in the world, when bringing highly concentrated effort to some compelling activity for which they have a true calling.  For most of us this means our work in the world.  And by work, of course, I do not mean only ‘job.'”

                    Stephen Cope, The Great Work Of Your Life