Me and We

The other day, a close friend of mine had come over to visit. Each of us with warm brewed teas at hand and chatted like school kids on the couch. We went through the list of some of our favourite conversations: How we met How far we've come  What we are truly proud of in each other Our goals of the previous year What else we still need to do to progres s. How we've been significant influences in each other's lives Every year, whenever we would write our goals together, we would have a list of 25 different line items. Upon reflection, the end of the year brought a new kind of dread. We barely achieved a third of it.  Rather than being proud of the goals that we did achieve it (some of them were rather BIG goals that we accomplished!) we would instead divert our attention to the failures of not completing the other two thirds. This meant, promising ourselves to do more  the following year, not noticing the potential of burnout.  I asked her, ...

“Me, we.” is supposedly the shortest poem, or a couplet, in the English language, spoken by the legendary boxer Muhammed Ali at a Harvard graduation address. It's intentions are explained within his speech. “… what I gained was the ability to see the world in something like the way God must see it. To understand that there are no distinctions of any real importance in the affairs of men, that there is only one time and one place and one person and one truth. And that we are all contained in that time and place and person, and that the truth contains us all.” | Muhammed Ali