Regardless of how the day begins, it will alter the course of the rest of your life. There’s wonder and beauty everywhere. What does your mind want to see, right now, in this very moment?

Rain, a rainy day. You want it to rain so that you feel less guilty about watching a movie in the middle of the day. 

What memories haunt you? What experiences have smudged and scratched the lens of your reality?

Are people born with a defined (i.e., limited) emotional palette? That is, short of chemical interventions (of which there are, of course, many), are we born with a specific biopsychosocially-induced palette of emotions, a repertoire of feelings that don’t really change, but that only appear to change in light of evolving circumstances? That’s not meant to imply a pessimistic conclusion; after all, different combinations of the primary colors beget millions of variations. 

The sting of lost friendships, the toxin of deceit. Regret is a slow-burning lethal injection. Create something honest, something real, something playful, something new. 

A father loses most of his money gambling. He uses the remaining dollars to buy his son an expensive toy. The boy loses the toy, and avoids telling his father. Consider how you feel right now, and why your experience is meaningful, and consider what you can do to translate that experience for someone else. 

Childhood memories. Explore something hidden, something buried. Something simple, something true, something uniquely you. 

When you experience difficult emotions, enact “productive resignation.” Resignation is not to be confused with defeat. Resignation can sometimes be a sign of defeat, but it can also say, “I will rise to this hard time. I will not dismiss it. I will acknowledge that it is here, and I will rise to it.”

You are a record of the human experience. What emotional memories prompt- and are prompted by- your insights?

Celebrate whatever moment you’re in. 

Blinding light. The corners edge with darkness and shapes materialize as the bright white dissipates. There’s a universe in there, swirling within another universe, among infinite universes, among an endless sea of white specs on black, and you are in there somewhere, too, for less than a sliver of a blink of an eye. How can you take anything seriously? How can one live grounded firmly in earthly matters, yet still fixed on that eternal sensation? The universe doesn’t expect anything from you. It simply wants you to be, just as it wants to be. So be, and don’t think much else of it.