There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people; first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy.

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other [people], living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.

A human being is part of a whole, called by us the “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. [We] experience [ourselves], [our] thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of [our] consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us.

Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Only a life lived for others is worth living.

~ Albert Einstein

Something I needed to remind myself of the other day and thought you may need reminding, too.

I’ve often given something up before finding out if I was even good at it, simply because I didn’t pick it up immediately. For example, I gave up guitar because I found it too hard the first time around. I also gave up bass guitar when I was younger because I couldn’t get the hang of it. For a while, I gave up drawing because I wasn’t as good as the other artists I saw.

There are so many things that I have quit simply because I wasn’t able to adapt to them quick enough for my liking. Just think – if I’d stuck at those things diligently, I’d probably be a pretty good guitar player right now!

Talent is a gift…but even those with great talent know that you must keep practicing. To get better at something, you must keep showing up and giving it your best. One day, you might find that you’ve actually gotten pretty good, after all. Those who are most successful in life did just that – kept showing up, kept giving it their all, and believed that they could.

There is never a point where you’ve ‘made it’ and, if you think that you have, that is the moment you’ve already lost it.

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Keep going and, by the end of 2021, you’ll be able to see how far you’ve come.