March 24A Great Poem
Re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.
Walt Whitman—Preface to Leaves of Grass (1855)
We have an obligation to live the one life we've been allowed as a great poem.
In an interview that appears in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Creativity, former poet laureate Mark Strand states: “We're only here for a short while. And I think it's such a lucky accident, having been born, that we're almost obliged to pay attention.”
Letting go of, or at least reexamining, everything we've been told in school, or church, or in any book takes a full set of guts, but questioning is at the heart of self-reliance.
Trust that your best advice will always come from within.
Challenge Question
- What do you need to dismiss in your life right now?
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