While [wasting my life away] on Instagram this morning, I took sincere interest in a lovely photo of a beautiful thing:

“WHAT YOU ARE AFRAID TO DO IS A CLEAR INDICATION OF THE NEXT THING YOU NEED TO DO.” -ralph waldo emerson

A former co-worker, and beautiful soul, posted said pic of a book page with the above printed text.  It struck me.  The timing of this discovery is perfect.  The implications of the text, divine.  Though I’ve never seen this passage before [because I’m not at all versed in Emerson], I’m so happy to have found it now.

I’ve been needing a change.  But I fear change.  I’ve been needing more.  But I’m afraid to leave behind what I know.  I know I’m capable of incredible things.  But what if, by pursuing dreams, I find out that I’m only mediocre?  There is but one life to live.  And there is no way of knowing what amazing things could happen, if you are too fearful to take that next step [or in my case, big leap].

And as I sat at a beautifully handcrafted, perfectly varnished, raw wood high top table, in an adorable Lake Orion, Michigan, coffee shop [A BEAN TO GO] …I realized the table decor on which my dSLR sat was an old-timey book.  I’ve been sitting next to this 1943 edition of “Walt Whitman. An American” for well over an hour without taking any more notice of it, except to set things on top of it.

I always wanted to be that person who could grab a book, and have it randomly fall open to a page containing something perfectly insightful for me.  I’m not that lucky.  Or maybe I don’t believe hard enough in that type of serendipity, so it never happens for me.

Sure enough.  I grab the book and flop it open to… Chapter XVIII “Children of Adam.”  Nothing on either the left, or right, pages made much sense to me.  So I tried again, and there it was.  Page 218.

“…THERE IS SOMETHING IN PERSONAL LOVE, CARESSES, AND THE MAGNETIC FLOOD OF SYMPATHY AND FRIENDSHIP, THAT DOES, IN ITS WAY, MORE GOOD THAN ALL THE MEDICINE IN THE WORLD.”

It didn’t quite “strike home” with me the way seeing the Emerson quote on IG did.  But this sentence sure is beautiful.  The paragraph appears to be an excerpt from “Hospital Visits” March and April 1864.  Isn’t it wonderful to think that, even 150+ years ago, humanity was fully aware of the power of LOVE?  I appreciate that.  It’s romantic, and reassuring.  I want to soak up that knowledge, believing that… even in times of political debate, and fighting among the people of different countries in our world… there are those who still recognize the power of loving each other thoughtfully, and without discretion.  And someday soon this will be the rule, not the exception.