Leftovers eventually spoil. At that point, they can only be discarded.

But at the start — when the leftovers go into the refrigerator — they have a lot of promise. A delicious dish is somewhere in the future.

Sometimes that comes to pass. And sometimes we forget about the stored food, missing our window of opportunity.

In life, we have leftovers, too. Abandoned projects. Shelved endeavors. Hobbies that — if we’re honest with ourselves — we will never revisit.

Some of those things have a beautifully long shelf life. But others … they’re just taking up space. Physical space. Mental space. Emotional space.

It’s OK to move on. They’re not failures. They’re not things to regret. They’re just leftovers that we never got back to eating.

When it makes sense, give yourself a little grace and let go of what needs to be let go.

Our culture is filled with quick fixes. Easy steps. Simple tricks.

What if we chose another path?

What if we chose the long way? The hard steps? The journey that is immensely challenging but absolutely worthwhile?

It could be the difference between leading an ordinary life and one that is remarkable.

Every once in a while, we need to slow down.

Sometimes we’re lucky enough to get a sign.

Mine came this morning as I hurriedly poured a second cup of coffee. Except that I wasn’t holding the carafe; I was holding a box of cereal.

Sometimes little slip-ups give us a clue that we need to stop rushing and to pay closer attention.

For me, cereal mixed with a sip of coffee prompted me to pause, to check in with myself, and to say, “Slow down.”

I said it aloud for good measure.

We give thanks for the applause. We give a bow. And another. And yet another.

But at some point, we recognize: the people we seek to serve don’t want more bows — they want an encore.

Give them one.

We are grateful.

Even though we have suffered loss.

Even though we are apart.

Even though things are not as we had planned.

Even though some dreams are yet to be.

We are still grateful.

Amidst all the struggle and disappointment, we remain filled with gratitude.

There are always “even though” conditions; we are imperfect people living in an imperfect world.

But our reasons for thanksgiving are too many to number.

What are you leaving behind? Is it a gift? Is it generous?

I can hear the previous homeowner’s thoughts, “We’ll just leave these here, stacked in the cellar. Maybe someone could use them one day.”

My response — ten years too late — is, “Please don’t.”

Disposing of thirty cans of leftover paint has given me time to think about this. A few full. Most not. Some covered with rust. Some holding dried cakes of latex. Many with liquidy goo.

None of them useful.

So back to the original question: Could someone actually use what I’m leaving behind? Is it generous? Or am I just being a little lazy?

* * *

Practically speaking: when selling a home, the thoughtful thing to do is to leave a list of paint manufacturers and colors, along with a note saying, “If you like any of these colors, here’s where you can get more.”

That’s a gift I’d take. I might not use it, but I’d appreciate the gesture.

(This is a tenth of the gift I received instead. Beautiful in its own way, actually.)

What feels important isn’t always important.

And what is important doesn’t always feel that way.

Substitute “urgent” for important, and the same is true.

And of course, urgent and important are not the same. The greatest challenges of our time — those which are most important — are rarely seen as urgent, but they’re in desperate need of our attention.

Maybe the problem isn’t with our ability, or our circumstances, or our resources, or our influence.

Maybe the problem is that we just don’t begin.

We delay. We self-sabotage. We talk ourselves out of it before we even start.

But if we’re clever enough to poke holes in our biggest plans — before we let them breathe their first breath — then aren’t we also clever enough to begin, and to solve problems as they arise?

Sometimes we work for change, to no avail.

It’s useful to remember, though, that without the proper conditions, seeds will not grow.

Even with persistence, seeds scattered on a concrete pad will not produce a single plant. Despite years of trying.

We might be discouraged because of this.

But then we’d be forgetting about the generations of birds that we’ve fed.

Some of the best moments in life come when generous people show up and remind us of the fullness of who we are called to be.

Those moments come … but not every day. Maybe not even every year.

But they’re memorable.

And they endure.

I’ve learned of a new way to think about saying yes and no.

Saying “no” is saying “no” to one thing.

Saying “yes” is saying “no” to a thousand things.

This doesn’t necessarily make turning someone down any easier, but it somehow helps to have an awareness that we’re saying “no” to things all the time.

H/T Vince

It sounds cute. Useful even. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

That makes sense. Why spend time and resources trying to change something that’s working?

And yet the phrase is a dangerous adherence to the status quo. It says nothing of how to make things better. It assumes that we all know, and we can all agree upon what “broken” means (and for whom).

When we think of all the complexities of our culture, our systems, our businesses, and our daily lives … the broken-fixed duality is a poor way to determine what we should do.

Let’s abandon “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Let’s embrace, “If we can make it better, let’s make it better.”

At a drive-through window, I noticed the outward-facing back of a computer monitor. Three cables connected it to a port in the wall.

The cables were coiled and wrapped perfectly. Noticeably. Beautifully.

This didn’t happen accidentally. Someone took care to do this. Someone took care to do this at a drive-through window.

The moment made me smile — seeing how much attention someone brought to a small detail that might have otherwise been overlooked.

There’s beauty so many places if we only have eyes to see it.

I recently attended an hour-long webinar. During part of the presentation, the microphone cut out. About twenty seconds of speaking were unintelligible.

Of the many participants on the call (I’m guilty too) no one asked the speaker to back up and repeat what was missed. We were fine letting it go.

Conversely, I’ve attended events where the audience was captivated. A microphone glitch would have resulted in quickly raised hands. We had hung on every word.

* * *

Not every presentation will be a viral TED Talk. However, we can strive to be compelling. We can endeavor to offer what’s meaningful to our audience. And we can seek the audience that needs to hear what we have to say.

But no matter what, we can learn from our missteps. If our microphone is dead and no one tells us, we’ve just learned that there’s a mismatch between what we’re saying and who we’re seeking to serve.

We don’t always feel grateful. We’re not always in a good mood.

We might be having a bad moment within a worse day.

But let civility rise above it. Set courtesy and politeness to “always on”.

This is not to say that we should bury our emotions. Not at all. But words like “hello,” “goodbye,” “please,” and “thank you,” should be unconditional — proffered whether we are in love with life or having a moment of struggle.

From embattled leader to angsty teen, civility is a choice — one that signals a connection to our shared humanity, no matter the prevailing weather conditions.

How can we live in such a way that when someone says to us, “It was you!” … it’s said with delight?

Every day, we have opportunities to make a difference in the world around us. As a result, our fingerprints will be on an unknowable number of projects and legacies.

Where are we contributing? How are others enriched by what we do?

It’s not about getting credit. It’s about being part of something that matters.

I received a thank you yesterday and it blew me away.

It wasn’t a note. It wasn’t a phone call.

It was a thirty-nine second video.

Sincere words spoken to me in the way they were intended.

I was speechless and my heart was full.

* * *

Writing a thank you is courteous. But saying it — in person or through video … unscripted and direct — that’s a generous expression of gratitude that has the power to turn words into lyrics.

During my son’s piano lesson, I could tell that he was not playing the music as written.

I had anticipated the teacher gently saying, “Those aren’t the right notes,” or, “Let’s try that again.”

But she took a different approach. She said, “That’s kind of your own song … because you’re playing the notes and rests where you want to.”

I love this.

I do love discipline and the persistence it takes to get something just right — as someone else has outlined. But I also love the idea of writing one’s own story, and a teacher who doesn’t begin with “that’s wrong” but instead embraces a student’s own creative voice.

And in the big picture, I think that’s a better lesson.

Our default self is not our best self. It’s maybe not a bad version of ourselves, but it’s not our best.

Being our best involves effort. It requires intention. It calls for some measure of striving.

But regardless of how far we stray, an unbreakable thread of a lifeline always connects us to that best self. It might take some time to get there, but we know the direction, and we know how to take the smallest first steps.

Your problems may weigh heavy, but that doesn’t mean that it’s all going to come crashing to the ground.

Take a lesson from cumulus clouds — the big, white, fluffy kind.

Scientists estimate that a one cubic kilometer cloud weighs about 500,000 kilograms (1.1 million pounds).

We don’t think of clouds as having weight, but they do. A lot of it.

They look like they’re just floating in the sky, but they’re really sitting on top of dry air.

* * *

Like the clouds in the sky, with the right support, the right environment, and enough distance, our heaviest of burdens might just become majestic and beautiful.