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Happiness,  Special Topics,  Thinking

Vision, 2020 Vision, and Expectations for a New Year

I’ve always enjoyed the excitement and anticipation that comes with a blank page. It speaks to me of hope and possibility, of space for the vision that will become a story. And although I rarely bring the clarity of 20/20 vision to that beginning, I trust my experience as I trust the process. I assume a satisfying and positive outcome. It’s an attitude I try to bring to anything new and a new year provides good practice.

As we all know, some years are easier to love than others: this one brought some great joys. It provided an abundance of soul-crushing moments as well. No, not “challenges” — real honest-to-Pete, street fight, jumped in a dark alley, ass-kicking, bone bruising days. Some have been mine while others have tried to take down the people I love, my community, and some beliefs I hold dear.

[bctt tweet=”Some years are easier to love than others.This one brought great joy and some ass-kicking, bone bruising days.” username=”AndreaPatten”]

How Much Magical Optimism Juice?

There. I said it. I’ll be glad to see this one go. I struggle only with not sprinkling too much magical optimism juice on the one that’s waiting just around the corner, on the next page of my weekly calendar. It actually feels good to exhale and let a little bit of air out of the ugly party balloon in my chest. That’s the balloon with the words “what now” scrawled on it.

I habitually take a few days after Christmas to review the year that’s winding down and make adjustments to my expectations for the new year. I use a process that’s a lot like making a vision board except that I create pages. I have books full of them. This year I started early. Very early. It takes some time for the themes of the artwork to come into focus. One of themes from this year’s process is “vision.” And I’m noodling around the internet to see what others have to say on the topic.

[bctt tweet=”It actually feels good to exhale and let a little bit of air out of the ugly party balloon in my chest. ” username=”AndreaPatten”]

Is Vision in the Mind’s Eye?

If you don’t have a vision you’re going to be stuck in what you know.  And the only thing you know is what you’ve already seen. ~ Iyanla Vanzant

A vision is not just a picture of what could be; it is an appeal to our better selves, a call to become something more. ~ Rosabeth Moss Kantor

In my mind’s eye, I visualize how a particular… sight and feeling will appear on a print. If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice. ~ Ansel Adams

Artists, musicians, scientists – if you have any kind of visionary aptitude, it’s often something that you don’t have a choice in. You have to do it. ~ Patti Smith

Do You Have a Big Vision?

Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others. ~ Jonathan Swift

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. ~ Melody Beattie

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. ~ Carl Jung

You have to have a big vision and take very small steps to get there. You have to be humble as you execute but visionary and gigantic in terms of your aspiration. In the Internet industry, it’s not about grand innovation, it’s about a lot of little innovations: every day, every week, every month, making something a little bit better. ~ Jason Calacanis

[bctt tweet=”Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart…” username=”AndreaPatten”]

A Curtain Gives a Clear Vision

I don’t ask for the sights in front of me to change, only the depth of my seeing. ~ Mary Oliver

The visionary starts with a clean sheet of paper, and re-imagines the world. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

I think unconscious bias is one of the hardest things to get at. My favorite example is the symphony orchestra. When I was growing up, there were no women in orchestras. Auditioners thought they could tell the difference between a woman playing and a man. Some intelligent person devised a simple solution: Drop a curtain between the auditioners and the people trying out. And, lo and behold, women began to get jobs in symphony orchestras. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better. ~ J.K. Rowling

[bctt tweet=”We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already…” username=”AndreaPatten”]

Starry Eyed, Realistic & Visionary

When women reassert their relationship with the wildish nature, they are gifted with a permanent and internal watcher, a knower, a visionary, an oracle, an inspiratrice, an intuitive, a maker, a creator, an inventor, and a listener who guide, suggest, and urge vibrant life in the inner and outer world. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary. ~ Cecil Beaton

To be realistic today is to be visionary. To be realistic is to be starry-eyed. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

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