Author Nathan W Morris talks about editing our lives ruthlessly because they’re our greatest masterpiece and I have come to believe that this is a task just like editing a novel - you cannot get to the best version of it until you are ruthless in identifying where you’re saying more than you need, where you’re making excuses to cut things out and where you’re unclear about the direction you need to go in.
What would our stories be if we cut off the people who wiped our tears when we cried and maintained a little book on it to bargain for our lives and loyalties in exchange?
How would we live if we weren’t burdened with the refusal to look our own selves in the mirror as we were and not as we told ourselves what we were?
Would we be just as unbothered both in happiness and sadness? I have heard that the Buddhists advocate this state as the one that is closest to perfection, but I wonder.
Like every good story, a good life is perhaps the one that has been edited well. One that has been edited ruthlessly. And being a good editor is a lifetime’s work.
If you know me already, you know that I live and breathe the intersection of culture and marketing. This caught my attention today: