It's All Universal Right?

Happy Friday Virtus Family.

"To thine own self, be true" 
Nietzsche

Are the lessons, triumphs, challenges, failures and victories that we face as individuals universal in nature? Or are our own individual experiences just that, individual? 

I've been writing this weekly email since January 2018. That's (give or take) 139 separate emails consisting of my own lessons, triumphs, challenges, failures and victories. In each one, I combined a pile of words to extract and impart a lesson in which we can all learn from my own experiences. 

I believe that when we know better, we do better. I believe that we should all be cultivating a curiosity to learn from our own experiences, and the experiences of others to continually improve our quality of life.

These beliefs led me to begin this weekly email & every week I try to write as authentically as I can. To identify and shine a spotlight on areas for improvement in my own life, so that you can all take something away to implement in yours. 

I don't like calling it advice because I certainly don't profess to know the answers to all of life's questions. I am simply presenting my experiences and attempts to try to unearth my own truth & show the universality amongst life's lessons. 

Over the past 200 days or so, we have experienced what could be described as a collective shift in our day to day existence. A change that on the surface is universal, but when examined is filled with millions of individualities. 

It's easy to offer sweeping generalities when discussing how we have all dealt with the challenges that we have been faced with this year. But when honestly examined, the truth is that each of us, individually have had our own unique interpretation of the events of 2020. None are more or less important than any other, they all can add value to our lives if we examine them with an open heart and an open mind. 

I think the answer to the question I posed earlier is that it's all universal. but it is up to us to explore the universality of experience to draw our own meaning from what happens. It's up to us whether we put that learning to use, or let it float away into oblivion. 

In the 139 passages of writing that preceded this one, you may have only read a handful, and of that handful, you may have only resonated with a few. But I'm sure at different times of your life, each one will resonate in a different way, as they did with me. Every now and again I scroll back and read an old email, only to relearn an important lesson, or wonder why I forgot that important piece of wisdom.  

I'll leave you with this little directive from Philosopher & Poet Friedrich Neitzsche 

"To thine own self, be true"

Whatever you're feeling, however you're experiencing the lessons of life, examine them with curiosity & don't underestimate the growth that can come from the universality of experience. Share what you learn & we can all improve our lives together. 

Big love

Wallace