“I once read that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I fundamentally disagree with this idea. I think that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of hope. We might keep making mistakes but the struggle gives us a sense of empathy and connectivity that we would not experience otherwise. I believe this empathy improves our ability to see the unseen and better know the unknown.
Lives are shaped by chance encounters and by discovering things that we don’t know that we don’t know. The arc of a life is a circuitous one. … In the grand scheme of things, everything we do is an experiment, the outcome of which is unknown.
– Debbie Millman
I like this. I try to picture time passing as a series of ever widening circles rather than a straight line heading toward something. When I find myself hitting up against a wall as I attempt something over again, I try to take the wide view and see how much I’ve experienced since the last time. Sometime I see that it’s not really what I want to be doing and let it go, but usually I find I gained something unexpected through the whole process. Perspective is everything.