What is important is the moment of opening a life and feeling it touch--with an electric hiss and cry--this speckled mineral sphere, our present world.
Annie DillardRead
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and with that one, is what we are doing.
Interpretation
Our daily choices define the overall quality of our lives.
Annie Dillard's quote emphasizes the importance of being mindful of how we allocate our time each day. It suggests that the way we choose to fill our hours reflects our priorities and ultimately shapes our entire existence; therefore, each moment should be cherished and used purposefully.
In practice
During a motivational speech about time management.
What is important is the moment of opening a life and feeling it touch--with an electric hiss and cry--this speckled mineral sphere, our present world.
Geography is the key, the crucial accident of birth. A piece of protein could be a snail, a sea lion, or a systems analyst, but it had to start somewhere. This is not science; it is merely metaphor. And the landscape in which the protein "starts" shapes its end as surely as bowls shape water.
Buddhism notes that it is always a mistake to think your soul can go it alone.
Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.
It is difficult to undo our own damage, and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave. It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind. The very holy mountains are keeping mum. We doused the burning bush and cannot rekindle it; we are lighting matches in vain under every green tree.
To crank myself up I stood on a jack and ran myself up. I tightened myself like a bolt. I inserted myself in a vise-clamp and wound the handle till the pressure built. I drank coffee in titrated doses. It was a tricky business, requiring the finely tuned judgment of a skilled anesthesiologist. There was a tiny range within which coffee was effective, short of which it was useless, and beyond which, fatal.
A life lived without forgiveness is a prison.
Life isn't all fricasseed frogs and eel pie.
Never delay kissing a pretty girl or opening a bottle of whiskey
My life isn't focused on results. My life is really focused on the process of doing all the things I'm doing, from work to relationships to friendships to charitable work.
You're not really ready to live unless you know what you're willing to die for.
A life without problems or limitations or challenges--life without "opposition in all things," as Lehi phrased it (2 Nephi 2:11)--would paradoxically but in very fact be less rewarding and less ennobling than one which confronts--even frequently confronts--difficulty and disappointment and sorrow.
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