Graphic by Mohamed_hassan at PixabayGreetings, readers! Happy 2025—and welcome back to Wednesday Words. Thank you for subscribing to my blog; some of you have been subscribers since 2015 when I started it! Today, January 1, 2025, we celebrate the 10th year of your writer on the wing offering FREE posts to carry on the conversation.
To kick off this new year, here’s some food for thought about being better human beings, more emotionally mature. This topic captured my interest long ago after I escaped a fundamentalist cult in 1987 and opened my mind to other sources of advice for being a more humane human. I’m still working on it. Join me today in exploring this aspect of our being …
Emotional education
My current favorite book on this topic is: The School of Life: An Emotional Education by Alain de Botton, founder of an institute called The School of Life. You can sign up for free newsletters at that site.
In the book, one thing we’re nudged towards is growing up a little bit more no matter our age: becoming more aware of our patterns, our behaviors, our feelings and their consequences in real time, and how all that affects our future. I especially like this excerpt. It comforted me:
“There can wisely be no ‘solutions,’ no self-help, of a kind that removes problems altogether. What we can aim for, at best, is consolation—a word tellingly lacking in glamour. To believe in consolation means giving up on cures; it means accepting that life is a hospice rather than a hospital, but one we’d like to render as comfortable, as interesting, and as kind as possible.”
Related resources I love
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg. ~ “Sharp, provocative, and useful.”—Jim Collins, author of Good to Great
Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words by David Whyte. ~ “Consolations remains one of the most luminous books I’ve ever encountered.” —Maria Popova, The Marginalian, a.k.a. Brain Pickings
The Book of Qualities by J. Ruth Gendler. ~ “A wry and whimsical mirror in which we catch an unexpected look at ourselves.”—Whole Life Times
Thanks for reading!
Best wishes for peace and joy in 2025 from your writer on the wing,
Charlene
John Arnett
Walden remains one of my most cherished books of consolation. “Perhaps if one doesn’t keep up with his neighbor… it’s because he hears a different drummer…,let him step to the music he hears….” Or something like that. Happy New Year
Charlene Edge
Oh, I love that, John. Thanks so much. And happy new year to you and your family.
Candy Dawson
Thank you for these recommendations. The other word used in the quote about * consolations * is a good one ~Acceptance~ Not only of our personal situations but most importantly of others. There’s that word “others” which in this political climate too often is stigmatizing and unacceptable. I hope for a year when we not only accept “others” but that we embrace them and apply The Golden Rule.
Charlene
Sure appreciate your thoughts here, Candy. So needful!
Nylda Dieppa
From your mouth to God’s ears, Candy!
Steve Muratore
Emotional maturity is always a salient topic for me. Thanks Charlene. 🦉🎯