"And, most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition." ~ Steve Jobs

Contemplation...

looking thoughtfully at something...

is usually forced upon us;
we just don't take the time...

until it is too late.

After viewing Steve Jobs commencement speech to Stanford...
back in 2005...

as he spoke to thousands of invincible graduates...

he refers to his health... 

and how it had forced him... 

to "not waste time...

living someone else's life".


He tells them how he was able to contemplate... 
and use his failures... 
instead of allow them to defeat him.

He mentions specific experiences of his life that directly influenced who he was at that moment.

Very poignant indeed.

One of those experiences involved Reed College... 

in Portland, Oregon...

where he attended as a student before dropping out...

only to continue auditing classes that truly interested him.

Reed College has always intrigued me...

since reading about it...

in the book,

Colleges that Change Lives, by Loren Pope,

while researching colleges with my children.

"If you're a genuine intellectual, live the life of the mind, and want to learn for the sake of learning, the place most likely to best empower you is . . . the most intellectual college in the country—Reed in Portland, Oregon . . . Reed is a precious asset of American democracy. It develops people with intellectual openness and honesty, clear thinkers who are not afraid of new or unpopular ideas, men and women who have the character and the ability to make the increasingly tough decisions in an increasingly complex and troubled society."
--Loren Pope, former education editor, the New York Times, in Colleges that Change Lives, (Penguin, 2006).

Around the same time... 

I was reading another book...

that mentions Reed College quite a bit, 

and it just happens to be one of my ten most favorite books...

EVER.

So click on Other Worlds here...

or on the tab above...

to read all about it.

Day 5 of my food challenge...

you know the one where I am trying to eat 120 different foods over 7 days...

is moving right along.

Currently...

I am at...

72.

It is a bit scary to think about where I will find 48 different types of food to incorporate into my diet between now and Sunday at midnight.

Ren Man is in for a treat...

Happy Weekend!