A while ago I encouraged my daughter Zara not to listen to a friend who wanted her to do something that she didn’t feel good about.
“Trust yourself and listen to yourself,” I said to her.
It made perfect sense.
Then recently Zara didn’t want to take part in a ski camp that I knew she’d love and would be great for her skiing.
“I don’t want to do it, you told me to listen to myself,” she said to me.
She’s a sharp thinker!
The reality is that we need to listen to ourselves, but we also at times need to listen to others.
I guess the filter then is trust; listen to those you trust have both your best interests at heart AND have the knowledge to know what’s best.
They need to have both.
It’s a good lesson for kids, and for us older kids too.
(Zara’s loved the ski camp BTW as I knew she would!)
In arguments, we often want to be right. But being right is not the same as being wise.
One of the greatest lies we tell ourselves is that we’re falling behind. That someone else is ahead.
As a young man I associated strength with force; louder voices, sharper opinions, firm lines in the sand.
There’s a strange kind of pride we’ve developed in being exhausted. But even lions, the king of the jungle, rest.
I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't have ambition.
We sometimes believe strength means self-sufficiency — that being independent means being isolated.
We often try to outrun the storm, emotionally, physically, spiritually.
We’re entering an age where machines do our thinking before we’ve even had a chance to try.