I was recently reading My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George, a 1959 novel about a boy named Sam who escapes the big city to live in the wilderness for a year.
His first day is harrowing. His first night, even worse.
Luckily, he survives and things start to look differently:
“The sun has a wonderfully glorious habit of rising every morning.
When the sky lightened, when the birds awoke, I knew I would never again see anything so splendid as the round red sun coming up over the earth.”
Later in the book, Sam survives an ice storm and emerges from his dwelling to see the devastation:
The mountain was a mess. Broken trees, fallen limbs were everywhere. I felt badly about the ruins until I thought that this had been happening to the mountain for thousands of years and the trees were still there, as were the animals and birds.
Just a good reminder in the grand scheme of things on this planet…we’re not very important. We can take things a bit less seriously, we can have more forgiveness, and we can slow down a bit.
Good or bad, whatever we are facing in our lives, “this too shall pass.”
The sun will rise, the trees will grow, the birds will sing.
The Nerd Out: Marco PM
For the past 15 years, I’ve listened to music from one musician more than any other, and I guarantee you’ve never heard of him.
The man’s name is Marco PM:
- Marco’s mixcloud link
- Marco’s website
The dude has been putting out mixes since 2004 that will put you in a better mood, guaranteed.
These mixes are free, 80-minute vocal trance mixes that Marco has curated based on the best stuff from the past year. They all come with amazingly uplifting names like:
I have no idea if this is Marco’s full time job, where he lives, or who he is. But I’ve listened to these mixes on repeat since 2008. The majority of the articles at Nerd Fitness and SteveKamb.com are all written to this music.
My next project will be created with the help of Marco too.
If you need some tunes to get you through the day, this is the fastest way I’ve found that gets me into a positive flow state.
Thanks Marco!
Today’s Question: Where do you care too much?
What’s one thing you’re doing with your life that is taking an unnecessarily inflated amount of importance?
Let’s remember: we’re not that important, the sun always rises, and this too shall pass…
How can that inform your decision making and attitude today?
-Steve
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