What We Need

This Mail Pouch advertising piece can be found in the historic downtown district of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. I was there yesterday and happily took a quick stroll through the neighborhood with my phone in one hand and camera in the other.

It wasn’t much of an adventure but the good it did for my soul was like the first soaking rain shower after a drought.

I have been there but not with my camera which means I looked at it through completely different eyes. It was also nice to just move about and see some things I haven’t looked at in a while.

After I got home and kicked up my feet, I found this quote while scrolling through Facebook and found it quite true.

“No, we don’t need more sleep. It’s our souls that are tired, not our bodies. We need nature. We need magic. We need adventure. We need freedom. We need truth. We need stillness. We don’t need more sleep, we need to wake up and live.”

Brooke Hampton

After losing an hour overnight, we really might need more sleep but I hope you will wake up and find some magic or adventure today.

Do You Believe In Resolutions?

What’s your stance on New Year’s Resolutions?

Studies show that about sixty percent of us make resolutions but only about eight percent of us follow through on them.

I’m a planner and a goal setter so I usually have two or three of varying size.

One of my 2020 resolutions was to read 100 books. Check!

Another was to travel as much as possible with a couple of big trips in mind along with some weekend getaways. That clearly didn’t work out.

And there were some smaller ones that fell to the wayside but others came to light as the year progressed. For example, I log the miles that I hike and intentionally walk every day and am very close to reaching 500 miles.

Planning is in my nature and one of my stronger skills. I’m good at breaking down a large project into small pieces that can be completed in phases. Sadly, 2020 sort of beat the desire to plan right out of me.

And yet, here I am, contemplating goals for the new year. It isn’t productive to wait for the flip of a calendar page to start but a new year feels like a fresh start and an irresistible opportunity to take a run at planning again.

The picture above is from a Denver sidewalk. Most of us will never make it to the moon. But what’s the phrase? Shoot for the moon and even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.

Reading, walking and traveling may not get me to the moon or the stars but these things will give me opportunity to improve myself and that’s pretty good too.

A little inspiration

Just in case you need  a little inspiration in your life today, I encourage you to read this post from Flintland. As you read, consider how these words of inspiration might fit into other areas of your life and how Flintland’s thoughts can be more personal for you. This was just the encouragement I needed today, not for running but for other things in my life.