I’m a writer, not a visual artist. I invite you to translate the following little lesson for writers into one that you can use as a visual artist. I bet you’ll find the translating easy!

Today I wrote a sentence that I like:

You do not need to be whole to be hopeful.

Books are massive things. But they are built out of sentences and other limited strings of words. Where is it written that a good sentence doesn’t make for a good writing day? A good sentence does! It does, if we honor that it does.

Of course, books can’t get written in a lifetime if we write just one good sentence a day. But that’s a separate idea. One idea is to get our book written, which is important. But a different, equally valid idea is that we can enjoy, celebrate, and feel proud of a single sentence. Nowhere is it written that a sentence doesn’t count.

We forget that. This idea is much easier to embrace if we are writing poetry or song lyrics. But book writers have trouble remembering to take joy in the sentence, in the phrase, in the right word. Remember, there is joy to be had there!

Here’s a possible mantra for the week: Get a lot done, but celebrate the bits.

[You might want to get your hands on Lighting the Way, my latest book in which I introduce kirism, a contemporary philosophy of life. Check it out!]