"The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.”

This quote is by Barbara Kingsolver, one of my favorite authors, and frankly, probably one of my favorite people, if we were ever destined to meet. Something about Kingsolver strikes me as brilliantly honest, every time, whether it’s from an essay about taking care of our earth, from one of her many novels (this one from her early 90’s publication, Animal Dreams), or a speech that, in its quiet and ease, still holds an undeniable sense of determination.

Kingsolver has a way of speaking to us as if we are all meant to understand the same struggles, the same joys, the same experiences, whatever our variations may include. How fitting, then, that she should choose to address such a universal concept as hope, to the ways in which we fight to find it, to keep it, and remain in it.

Hope in this world, in its truest sense, can be hard to come by if we aren’t continuously and diligently looking. Even still, every so often we can find ourselves lucky enough to be swarmed by it, overwhelmed by those around us that we find to be pursuing the same goals, the same sense of community, the same quests for equality, for purpose, for things as simple (yet profoundly necessary!) as good food or true friends.

Even in our most difficult circumstances, we are presented with the opportunity to seek hope, to focus on not what-may-be but what WILL be, taking the leap from possibility to action.  Kingsolver seems to say, and I agree, that figuring out what we want for our lives is the first step. And the next, every day after that, is to go out and do just that. 

“Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.”

- John Gardner, “Personal Renewal” November 10, 1990

Posted by our friends at The Acumen Fund

Photo of Norway via Makr Blog

“...treasure what it means to do a day's work. It's our one and only chance to do something productive today, and it's certainly not available to someone merely because he is the high bidder. A day's work is your chance to do art, to create a gift, to do something that matters. As your work gets better and your art becomes more important, competition for your gifts will increase and you'll discover that you can be choosier about whom you give them to.”

 ― Seth Godin, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

"Make the client the focal point of your business again. Without clients you will not make money. In fact, you will not exist. Weed out the morally bankrupt people, no matter how much money they make for the firm. And get the culture right again, so people want to work here for the right reasons. People who care only about making money will not sustain this firm--or the trust of its clients--for very much longer."

-Greg Smith "Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs" via The New York Times

This past weekend I was able to reconnect with an old friend while I was home for the holidays. We got into a long conversation over coffee about the great reflective aspect of each year's end. As the year draws to a close, I love to look back and reflect on all that I've learned through all of the joys and lows of various experiences. My friend and I were discussing how much had changed for us this year, when she mentioned "you know, I guess it is always true though, that the grass is greener on the other side." 

The familiar phrase reminded me of a quote that I had read from Robert Fulghum a while back, and I think it is relevant to share in my reflection of 2011. Fulghum writes:

The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be.

I absolutely love Robert Fulghum for his ability to pack such profound notions into such simple statements, and this quote is a great example. It is a favorite for the two crucial truths it voices. One would be to stay present. So often we are living in the past or living in the future, saying "things will be great once such and such happens.." Time spent looking forward or looking back at the past ultimately means that we are missing out on soaking up the current moment. Basically, wherever you are, be there fully.The second truth would be that life is what you make of it. It is often tempting to want a different situation, surrounding, or experience than the one we currently find ourselves in. However, ultimately, we cannot control much of life but can control how we chose to react to it and what we will chose to do with it. Tend to the grass wherever you may be.

These are the two things that 2011 has taught me the most, and the goals that I want to continue to focus on as I look forward to 2012. What about you?

Really pumped on these! We were getting bored with the backgrounds on our phone and thought they could use a small refresh. Whatcha think? You can download the colorful and inspirational backgrounds below, just click on the background below that you want and email the link to your iPhone, open the email, save the image, then set it to your background!

If you need some tech support getting it set up, just leave a note in the comment :-) Click image to download:

(download)

Click here to download:

holstee-iphone-backgrounds-ByimzlklascEniDizzlf.zip (138 KB)

"Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality" Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.