Inspirational can be found in the work of great masters⏤or in the small talk overheard at the convenience store.

If events, and meetings, and even living rooms can have a theme, then so can individual days of your life. Just like picking out a unifying color for your outfit, you can select a unifying thought to guide your actions (and reactions) throughout the day. Think of this as selecting a lens or filter through which you view the people, places, and situations of your day. While there are many ways to select a theme⏤ranging from drawing one out of a hat, to assigning one in advance⏤an adventurous approach is to search for the theme as your day unfolds. If you train yourself to look for a guiding theme each day, you may find that it comes to you quite clearly, like a gift. 

As you go about your day, try to listen to people in a whole new way⏤a deeper way⏤keeping your ears open and your mind alert for a golden nugget that points to a potential theme for your day. Like a message in a bottle floating to shore to find you, think of this as a Divine message delivered to you through another person’s words. Sometimes you hear a single sentence and the day’s theme is immediately clear to you. Other times, a theme emerges slowly as the words of several different people all seem to point in a unified direction. However you find your theme for the day, once you find it, use it to inform and animate your actions and decisions for that day. If the theme that emerges is courage, for example, then your task for the day is to push past your comfort zone. If the theme that emerges is action, then your task for the day is to take concrete steps on a project or issue that has stalled.

You can find the nuggets that point to your theme of the day using the same logic you would use to find buried treasure. Any treasure hunter will tell you to dig near unusual geographical features, by big rocks, and at the base of large trees. Likewise, when you find yourself in the middle of unusually-unique situations or in the company of unusually-interesting people, keep an ear specially tuned for some day-changing zingers. Trapped on a full elevator at work? At a restaurant during a power outage? Present when a mime decides to speak (lol, jk)? Being a careful listener in scenarios like these almost always yields guiding insight. 

Change, act, decide, invest, create, wait, prosper, ask, serve, listen, play, build, trust, remove, work, confront, share⏤whatever your theme for the day is, enjoy making the most of it. It’s a small and simple way to make each day something of an adventure.

Copyright 2023 Kesel Wilson (entirely, 100% human-created)

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