It is the task of the architect to give life a gentler structure.
Do you light up when your kids are coming in the room or do you become the instant critic?
Wholehearted living is not like trying to reach a destination. It's like walking toward a star in the sky. We never really 'arrive,' but we certainly know that we're heading in the right direction.
When I look at narcissism through the vulnerability lens, I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary. I see the fear of never feeling extraordinary enough to be noticed, to be lovable, to belong, or to cultivate a sense of purpose.
Joy, collected over time, fuels resilience - ensuring we'll have reservoirs of emotional strength when hard things do happen.
Effort + the courage to show up = enough.
If you put shame in a petri dish, it needs three ingredients to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in the petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can't survive.
I love cities, and I love city governments in particular. But in politics it would have taken me 8 years from implementing a policy before I would get to see the feedback. With programming I could model the same policies and see the impact immediately. Technology is a far more efficient way to test.
Life's mysterious, strange, and full of wonders - and only a fool withdraws from it willingly and lets it pass him by.
Luck is a goddess not to be coerced and forcibly wooed by those who seek her favours. From such masterful spirits she turns away. But it happens sometimes that, if we put our hand in hers with the humble trust of a little child, she will have pity on us, and not fail us in our hour of need.
We need to have the mind of a conservative and the heart of a liberal.