What is an intention when compared to a plan? —Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow
What you intend to do is meaningless.
What you actually do is everything.
What requires a why for fuel in its darkest hours.
What flounders without a plan.
Habits carry plans to their completion.
Plan your habits wisely, then follow through as if your life depended on it.
Doesn’t it?
There’s a feeling that lingers in you when you finish a magnificent book, a glow that feels a lot like the feeling you have when you’ve had a wonderful conversation with an old friend, returned from a beautiful vacation, or still feel the magic stay in the air well after a stunning sunset slips beneath the horizon. For all the bickering and sickness and change in the world, we know delight and wonder when we feel them. For it makes us forget everything else in the world and celebrate that one brief moment for all it brings to us.
“Alexander Rostov was neither scientist nor sage; but at the age of sixty-four he was wise enough to know that life does not proceed by leaps and bounds. It unfolds. At any given moment, it is the manifestation of a thousand transitions. Our faculties wax and wane, our experiences accumulate, and our opinions evolve—if not glacially, then at least gradually. Such that the events of an average day are as likely to transform who we are as a pinch of pepper is to transform a stew. And yet…” — Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow
It would be a disservice to you to offer more than this. Like life itself, this book unfolds before you, revealing wonder and delight and frustration and finally that lingering affection for a novel that has no right to grab you by the shoulders, spins you around and firmly shouts, “Look! Do you see it now? This is how it’s done!”
When you finish a book that completely captures your imagination, that becomes an old friend in the span of a few days, you want to raise your own game. You feel the stirring warmth and the catch in your throat from the magic you’ve been breathlessly consuming. You see once again just what is possible should you commit yourself to it. If you’re wise, you surf that swell of emotion to places beyond the pages of the very book you’ve finished. The very best storytelling lingers, and it inspires greatness within us.
“Long had he believed that a gentleman should turn to a mirror with a sense of distrust. For rather than being tools for self-discovery, mirrors tended to be tools of self-deceit. How many times had he watched as a young beauty turned thirty degrees before her mirror to ensure that she saw herself to the best advantage? … When the celestial chime sounds, perhaps a mirror will suddenly serve its truer purpose—not revealing to a man who he imagines himself to be, but who he has become.” — Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow
I was looking for a quote online, recalling a bit of it but not enough to find it easily. In my search I stumbled on a few sites lingering near the very top of Google’s results with titles along the lines of “inspirational quote for your Instagram post” or some such nonsense. And I thought about how fragile the collective ego of this online world really is.
Want to improve your reflection? Put yourself out in the world more. Read more. Join the conversation. Stumble a bit more. Write badly and steadily find your voice. Live a bigger life. But do it on your terms or you’ll never be satisfied with yourself.
Life is about becoming the person we want to be, and learning to live with our shortcomings. Whether your reality check is a mirror or a bank account, number of followers or the stamps in your passport, we all have our reckoning with self-deceit. If we’re honest with ourselves that reckoning might just lead to self-discovery and a new path on our journey. Venture out to meet your future self one step at a time. We never quite reach that perfect image of ourselves, but we reach a point where we’re satisfied with the person looking back at us.
