To Live with Grace

& how to not hate everyone all day, everyday.

Apr 17, 2025

∙ Paid

What does it mean to offer courteous goodwill? And quite frankly is there any goodwill left in the world? Or even any in your own pocket to offer?

Full disclosure, I really dig deep at times. Digging deep because my patience is becoming more and more nonexistent. Interestingly enough, when I am digging deep, I always find sonder.

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig defines sonder as “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own— populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness — an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you'll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.”

What? It’s shocking to think such a thing. While I am over here living my life through the lens of my own eyes, so is the person blocking the aisle in the grocery store with their cart while they read the ingredient labels on every single bottle of BBQ sauce and I’ll I want to do is get the last carton of eggs at the end of the aisle. As easy as it can be to forget this reality, we too are a part of their story, and we have this incredible ability to influence the trajectories of the people around us.

Maya Angelou said 'I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.'

Imagine how you would make someone feel when you show up with GRACE.

Let me know how it goes, send me an email or comment below. I’d love to hear from you.

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