Category: Daily Compass

Jelly Beans

In the world of Harry Potter, there are Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans – jelly beans in every flavor, from buttered rum to vomit. It’s hard to imagine why anyone would want to risk eating jelly beans when you never know if you’re going to get mocha or mucus, but isn’t life pretty much like that? Any day might be the day you meet your one true love, or the day you get hit by a car, and there is no choice but to reach into the bag and see what you get.

How do you prepare yourself for reaching into the bag of a new day?

Swiss Alps

A snow-covered mountain is an image of pristine beauty, “white,” as they say, “as the driven snow.” But when you actually get up in that snow you will find the perfect cover is marred with the tracks of animals and people, with dust and twigs and droppings and all the imperfections that come with the presence of life. Other people’s lives often look smooth and glossy from a distance, but not one of us lives in a place of purity and perfection.

How do you embrace your imperfections?

Riding the Wave

Nothing feels quite as wonderful as the sensation of riding the wave of life, of feeling caught up in the flow and carried forward by a power greater than yourself. In that moment you can do no wrong, you simply balance, perfectly poised, in the great ocean of life. Until you crash beneath the wave or are left stagnant on a beach. Every wave has its crest and trough. And there will always be another wave.

Where in the cycle of crest and trough is your life at this moment?

Buddies

There’s nothing like the support of friends, knowing that there are people who will stand by your side, to get you through. But what happens when you see things differently than your friends, when you are pulled towards an idea, a belief, an interest that is foreign to those who are closest to you? Sometimes friendships are broken by this tug in a new direction, but the deepest connections contain enough elasticity to allow differences not to be divisions.

Who are you bound to with an elastic bond that keeps you connected through all the changes of your life?