let the alchemical tinkering begin

The secret to life, I have found, is acknowledging once and for all that what is inside you colors everything around you.

If your heart is feeling murky and dull, that brush will tarnish the brightest day.

If, however, you are bursting with gold, everything and everyone around you will glisten, regardless of whether there is any sunshine about.

It is an alchemical process - and the magical alchemical engine, which works every second of your life is right here, right now, inside your own self.

That is also the reason why we almost never inhabit quite the same reality as anyone else: that force that informs our existence is vastly different for everyone. We may see the same things, but we interpret them very differently. If life is a coloring book, we color in the same shapes, but the shades of color are so very varied. 

Today I received some disappointing news... and yet, the strange bubble of joy that has been growing inside me in the recent days, refuses to evaporate. In fact, it works as a shield of sorts - and what would normally deflate me, has merely been accepted by my inner self as yet another twist of the Road. 

And here is this:

 

From Bruce Mau's "Incomplete Manifesto for Growth" :

1. Allow events to change you. 
   You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.
   
   
2. Forget about good. 
   Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you’ll never have real growth.
   
   
3. Process is more important than outcome. 
   When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.
   
   
4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). 
   Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.
   
   
5. Go deep. 
   The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.
   
   
6. Capture accidents. 
   The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions. 

Comments

[Jessie]

What a lovely post! It is so true how where your heart is shapes your reaction to both happy and disappointing events. I too recently received disappointing news, but I have been in such a joyous state lately, I was able to embrace the news and accept it for the growth that it is giving me.

Thanks for sharing!