Life lessons

  1. Actions define a person. An ideology that never appears in daily conduct is only decoration.
  2. God is in the details. A finished work is the accumulation of meaningful strokes, including the ones nobody else notices.
  3. Contentment is not anticipation. At twenty-two, I once walked outside in the sun with nothing on my mind and nothing I was waiting for. Everything was beautiful. I thought that if life ended at that instant, I would already be satisfied.
  4. Intensity is both a strength and a trap. I tend either to commit completely or lose interest. The task is not to remove that intensity, but to stop requiring every worthwhile action to begin with inspiration.
  5. Memory follows emotion. Events associated with grief, fear, or joy can remain vivid even when they are neither recent nor frequently revisited.