“The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks.

See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, my great, great great (+) soul-uncle

from Self-Reliance

I love Emerson.

And, I love the idea of the best ship zigzagging from one port to its destination. The perfect metaphor for our lives.

We’re so quick to beat ourselves up the moment we feel “off-track.” Rather than spend all that energy persecuting ourselves, why not simply “re-commit” and see the big picture?!?

The key (for me)?

Spend time every day getting clear on where you’re headed. We have to know what we want and where we want to go to be able to get there.

And, in the words of Marcus Aurelius, we need to remember to never confuse ourselves with visions of a lifetime at once. Just get whatever clarity you can get now and take the next baby step.

Where are you headed?

What’s the best thing you can do this moment to get yourself on track to that destiny?

Ahhh…

Good work. :)

I love this quote from Emerson. I’ve heard the ‘airline pilot navigation’ versions from various personal development speakers. I like knowing that Emerson the wise, had already spoke of it a century ago.

Seeing the line from a sufficient distance seems to be key. How to get that perspective? So much easier to see the life line of other people than of your own.

I like your Marcus Aurelius suggestion… to get what clarity you can get now and take the next step.

Yep, WW. I, too, always love it when the modern wisdom is tied to the classic!

—>Seeing the line from a sufficient distance seems to be key. How to get that perspective? So much easier to see the life line of other people than of your own.

I think you just hit on a way to do it. When we’re feeling stressed/uncertain that we’re on the “right” path, we can look at our own life as if it were a friend’s. From THAT perspective, what support would we give? Pretty powerful.

Or, I like to think that I have a spiritual advisory committee with guys like Emerson, Aurelius, Buddha, and all my other favorites. I imagine what THEY would tell me/how they’d advise me. :)

And, ultimately, the only way to hold the tension between our ideal lives and our current reality is to take the next baby step!