You have to find wisdom where you are.
To read moving quotes from authors and think of the circumstances in which these authors wrote and lived and, realizing how different your own are, conclude that they don’t apply to you, that you are somehow beneath these things, is misguided.
You have to find wisdom where you are,
you have to be wise in your own way,
you have to think and judge and decide
right there where you are,
not knowing what will come
but hoping for the best,
trusting the instinct, the feeling,
and going on.
To know too
that it’s process,
that what you do and say
is imperfect and naturally so,
humanly so,
that what’s more important
is our tendency,
the direction we tend to,
the habits we aim and strive for,
how we risk and dare,
and not the result,
because naturally small,
single steps on the way,
disappointing if stuck at,
looked at with the hope of expectation,
a great answer or big reveal,
that we in our choices every day
create our life
and determine our fate,
and the smallest and most private of these
carry the most weight,
belong to us most,
because unseen
and closest to the heart,
because small,
because even to us not clear,
a hint, a nudge, a brief light
that,
remembered and served,
cultivated
and responded to,
tend to grow
and, through the hours
and through the years,
through the silent work and pain
alone on the way,
tend to become much more our own,
a part felt and seen and
instinctively understood,
the soul we found
and saved.
Gray Haskins 