“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
Mary Oliver, The Summer Day, Pulitzer Prize winning poet.
with your one wild and precious life?”
Life is a series of awakenings and revivals. Sometimes awakenings happen inactively without our input. The loss of innocence for example. The multidisciplinary, Neri Oxman, describes the feeling as ‘discovering innocence at the moment you lose it’. Born in Haifa Israel, for her, it was her experiences in served in the Israeli Armed Forces as a teenager that opened her eye’s to the harsher sides of life.
Awakenings can also happen actively from our own curiosity and discovery too. The moment you think you have things figured out, an idea, a quote, a change, a friend or an influence rocks your foundation of who you are and what you think about the world. For me, health was a big one.
Growing up, I didn’t know a thing about health and wellness. (Neither did my parents.) Being a 90’s baby, I practically lived off fast-food, soda, refined bread and lucky charms. I was constantly catching colds and having sinus problems, but I didn’t know that was not normal. I had no frame of reference to compare my health to. It honestly never occurred to me until much later that food changed how you look and feel. I had no idea how impactful food, exercise and sleep could be on the quality of your life. It was until much later after high school when I read a few books on health and exercise and discovered the impact of health. The crazy thing is I know I’m not the only one who was asleep to the ideas of health. Perhaps this blog post is the first time you are waking up to the importance of health yourself.
A more common word for awakenings we experience is change. Life is continuously changing.
The historical Renaissance (14th – 16th century) was a time of innovation in art and human potential based on the revitalization of Roman and Greek thinking. To put simply: It was an age of discovery, creativity and pursuit. Today, life and technology moves at breakneck speeds. So must we if we are going to take advantage of our brief and precious life. Because life is moving so fast and becoming more connected, things can easily feel overwhelming at times. It’s easy to default to living a life of someone else’s dreams, instead of one you decide on yourself.
Today we face a new renaissance — A personal renaissance. And a renaissance of like-minded individuals like us all seeking a different and more meaningful way to live. We must become more resilient, adaptable and creative to be who we want to be and to do what we want to do. Dreams of a lifetime don’t happen with wishes. We must create them happen.
‘Renaissance’ comes from the combination of the French verb ‘renaitre’ — ‘to revive’ and the noun ‘naissance’.
Your renaissance life is your own, but it begins the moment you decide you want to seek out change and recreate yourself into the best you possible. The more we can learn about ourselves — who we are, what we like, what we stand for — the better we will get at reaching for the ideal. The renaissance life isn’t about perfection, it’s about pursuit. It’s about pursuing intentional changing and being lifelong learner in the skills and characteristics we want to master.
STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #733
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