100 issues of my “7 for Sunday” email

As some of you know, I write a weekly email that isn’t related to my podcasting efforts. On Sunday, Sept 1, issue 100 of 7 for Sunday will go out. (See https://7forsunday.com to sign up or to simply read any issue.)

From the first issue of 7 for Sunday, I’ve always wondered if I’d make it to 100, and I’m glad I stuck with it. Some weeks it was a right struggle to get it done. In a very real sense, knowing there were readers out there gave me a goal to get through some dark days. Yes, external validation is not a great idea. But also, the life preserver that saves you is necessarily thrown by another.

Thanks to a suggestion from 7 for Sunday reader Wayne, the centennial issue is about books. 7 books, of course. Each book is presented with bibliofervor (the urge to leap out of one’s chair, race to find a friend, and press a book into their hands, see Issue № 60.)

Sometimes people express amazement at all that I get done—

Please realize that I struggle just as much as everyone does to create. And, boy howdy!, do I hope that any part of anything I ever do somehow helps you, in even the slightest way, to move forward!

I appreciate your time and attention, and I don’t take it for granted.

ɕ


Ingenuity

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

~ George S. Patton

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Try

Don’t say you can’t until you prove you can’t.

~ Les Paul

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Have it over

Don’t stand shivering upon the bank; Plunge in at once and have it over.

~ Haliburton

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Possibility

Hope is not happiness or confidence or inner peace; It’s a commitment to search for possibilities.

~ Rebecca Solnit

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There is a tide

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea as we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

~ Shakespeare‘s Julius Caesar

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Seeds

They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.

~ Mexican proverb

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Mortality

The essential power that confronting your mortality will give you—I call it the Sublime. Because it also opens up this idea of how amazing the world is that we live in, and how much we take for granted because we think that we’re going to live forever. It’s an incredibly important concept to me and it’s also very personal in the sense that I came this close to dying myself. I compare it to standing at the shore of some vast ocean. The fear of that dark ocean makes you turn away and retreat. I want you to get into your little boat and I want you to go into that ocean and explore it.

~ Robert Greene

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Daring

To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.

~ Søren Kierkegaard

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Dreams

Dreams come true. You just have to be willing to work for them.

~ Annie Mist Þórisdóttir

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