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Self-Trust Shall Set You Free
You’re probably not special. Yet if you can accept that, you can (possibly) become extraordinary.
I’m turning 40 in a couple of weeks. (I know; I keep mentioning this.) It’s surreal to think I’m about to turn that old — it’s also insane to know I’m only going to be that old.
For most of 2022, I’ve tightly held those two perspectives — time flies and drags at once — drawn from the same well of truth, and both make absolutely perfect sense. I can’t believe how quick years fly, or how long those years have felt. No matter your next milestone mile-marker on life’s journey — 40, 30, 20, 80— I’ve got to believe that some of you will relate.
If you felt that, then you might feel this: Staring down the barrel at this birthday, in particular, has triggered profound, even meditative, bouts of self-reflection. Importantly, these aren’t the usual ruminative black holes I steer into—only to reemerge and fire off 15,000 words that were every bit as painstaking for me to write as they were for you to read (except for that one I just wrote)— in the past.
No, these thought clouds aren’t dark or foreboding, they’re fluffy, bright cumulus beasts hovering low overhead, unignorable. And so I lay gingerly on the grass and allow them to pass. As I do, I ponder. Boy howdy…