The Line

It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

We're Lost Our Mirrors

Societies have rites of passage to help members deal with change. When these cues are missing and we have nothing in our lives to affirm that change is appropriate and timely, we’ve lost our mirrors. This is when a dependable support system can step up to make the difference. Just like the recovering alcoholic needs reminders about what a healthy identity looks like, we need a trusted circle of friends to remind us that the change in our lives is both positive and necessary.  And we need that circle to encourage us to embrace the new identity and not the old one.

Stephen Goforth

Improving your inner circle

I reviewed my life when I turned forty. I had the desire to keep going to a higher level and to make a greater impact, but I realized that I had leveraged my time as much as I possibly could, and it would have been impossible to sharpen the focus on my priorities any more than it already was. In other words, I could not work harder or smarter. That left me only one choice: learning to work through others.

John Maxwell, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership