“At bottom, every man knows perfectly well that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Having had the good fortune to travel to foreign lands both near and far over the course of my lifetime, I am of the conviction everyone, regardless of race, color, creed or sex, realizes, as Nietsche put it so eloquently, “that he is a unique being, only once on this earth.” The peculiar configuration of body, mind and and heart that translates and magnifies what lies within you is as a snowflake, never to be repeated again. The question that naturally comes to my mind in relation to such an astounding reality is this: how can you make best use of the endowment you’ve received by Providence?

Whether you’ve been told by others or not, you are well-endowed. Every single person born to this earth receives an endowment of life. This endowment is at once a legacy, a slice of the eternal and a promise of greatness in the future. Your life comes on the heels of the lives of many others who have been given the sacred privilege of life before you. Their success, failures, dreams, goals and achievements conditioned the earth into which you were born, providing starting points, limitations and resources available to you in as unique a combination as your personal configuration.

Likewise, the life that is expressed through your intricately designed body, mind and heart has its provenance in the eternal. As we’ve examined before, life is. The forms that clothe life come and go, but life itself is eternal. As such, you have the opportunity in your quotidian affairs to to provide a connection between the world you center and that which is eternal.

Your life is not predetermined. Granted you may be born into a unique set of constraints that serve as a malleable yet often well-defined template for your life – socioeconomic, political, moral, ethical, religious, etc. – but each one has the capacity of free choice, if the eternal is given space for expression through your heart, your mind and your body. Bound by the ceiling of the temporal, physical world, it would seem that free choice is an illusion, but I beg to differ.

Find a way to to be still and you will discover the means by which the original, undisturbed and pertinent essences of life are translated from inner, invisible potential into outer, visible expression. A troubled heart or a frenzied mind will block or at least frustrate or distort this natural and magnificent expression. An empty mind is certainly not the answer; neither is a numb heart, for life in potential requires a ground to be translated into expression.

Your mind and heart must be activated, but at peace. The peace of which I write is an active, dynamic state, not just as many have assumed an inert or static state. Like a hawk poised for an attack, a heart and mind at peace are ready to move on a moment’s notice, keenly aware of the environs and capable of marshaling every necessary resource to get the job done.

No one can show you this place in yourself, for as I mentioned, you are a unique being. Sure you can study the example of those who left a highly visible legacy of success in this regard, but ultimately you must do the highly personal work required to come to the point that your every thought, word and deed give evidence of the presence of the vivifying currents of life.