Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Tiny Beautiful Things

A few years ago I read the great book, Tiny Beautiful Things.  I'm certain I've written more than a few posts about it and the follow-up to it, the Podcast Dear Sugar.   Fortunately, some geniuses adapted the book to a screenplay and I had the good fortune of seeing it this weekend.  The acting was tear-jerkingly beautiful and the night was fantastic.   I was reminded of the genius of Cheryl Strayed's book and have already revisited several of the columns with a slightly different life vantage point. 

It's this one I want to choose today - like everything else she writes it's just so good. 


If you had to give one piece of advice to people in their twenties, what would it be?
To go to a bookstore and buy ten books of poetry and read them each five times.
Why?
Because the truth is inside.
Anything else?
To be about ten times more magnanimous than you believe yourself capable of being. Your life will be a hundred times better for it. This is good advice for anyone at any age, but particularly for those in their twenties.
Why?

Because in your twenties you’re becoming who you’re going to be and so you might as well not be an asshole. Also, because it’s harder to be magnanimous when you’re in your twenties, I think, and so that’s why I’d like to remind you of it. You’re generally less humble in that decade than you’ll ever be and this lack of humility is oddly mixed with insecurity and uncertainty and fear. You will learn a lot from yourself if you stretch in the direction of goodness, of bigness, of kindness, of forgiveness, of emotional bravery.