One Man’s Junk is Another Man’s Treasure

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200 words, broken, community, creativity, Diana Schwenk, Diana's Enormous Book of Quotes, garbage, ideas, imagination, inventions, junk, Life's like that, Purpose

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.

Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison, quite possibly, was the most prolific American inventor of all time, having invented many things including the phonograph, motion picture camera and the long-lasting electric light bulb. I’m guessing he may have been a bit of a collector too, perhaps even an hoarder.

I stand in awe of his powerful imagination, yet I am also curious about his pile of junk. Junk, by definition is discarded material, items that have worn out, don’t work anymore or are broken.

We need to be imaginative and creative in life, not only to invent, but to solve problems, manage projects and live and work together as families, teams and community. And if imagination is necessary, might we not also have a need for junk, i.e., those broken ideas or materials that did not necessarily work for their original purpose, but with some imaginative creativity could be the answer to some other question?

~ DIANA’S ENORMOUS BOOK OF QUOTES ~

Did you know that before Listerine was used to combat bad breath, it was created as a surgical antiseptic, a cure for gonorrhea, sweaty feet and a treatment for dandruff?

Life Has A Way Of Showing Us

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200 words, alone, believe, broken, community, courage, death, Diana Schwenk, Diana's Enormous Book of Quotes, family, Fear, grief, hope, humbled, learning, life, live, living in the moment, loss, love, memories, strong, struggles, Truth, vulnerability, weak

He who kneels before God can stand before anyone.

Why do we struggle so to get up from our knees? Why do we resist vulnerability and humility so vehemently? What drives us to prove we are not ‘weak’. What are we so afraid of?

Why do we tell ourselves that we can plan it all out so that we’ll never have to face our fears?

That from this high and lofty place we’ve constructed, we can stand up to anything or anyone?

Life has a way of showing us that we are fooling no one but ourselves.

Life has a way of driving us down to our knees.

As counterintuitive as it seems and has hard as we may resist – it is on our knees when we are:

Broken.

Naked.

Vulnerable.

Humble.

Weak in our own eyes.

Facing and embracing the truth about ourselves.

That we are made strong,

that we learn to live, laugh and love 

and are able to stand up before anyone or anything.

~ DIANA’S ENORMOUS BOOK OF QUOTES ~

Upon the recent death of our Dad, my brother Michael said, “Dad taught so much and he is still quietly teaching us.”

Related post: The Glory of Life