Matthew From the Heart
Hey, friends!
As we look back on another orbit around the sun and look ahead to the new year, I wanted to thank you for being part of the Cowboys and Astronauts community, and I also wanted to share a few ideas that I hope will empower and feel like a big ol’ hug to your heart.
As many who have followed our journey are aware, my partner, Greg, and I love to collect quotes, and one of our very favorite quotes that many of you might already know is from the poet Maya Angelou and I’d like to share it with you…
“This is a wonderful day, I have never seen this one before.” (Please do yourself a favor and pause and read that again slowly.)
I would offer that she would not be angry at us if we took the spirit of her transcendent words and cast them in the light of looking ahead to 2025. What if we were to say, “This is a wonderful year. We have never seen this one before.”
What the quote really says to us is that despite ANYTHING happening in the world around us—or maybe sometimes because of those things—we can still hold an intent for discovering wonder and remaining curious. Most importantly, we can focus on choices and actions each day that enrich us and enrich those around us and we can remind ourselves that we have an incredible and almost limitless capacity to shape our coming year…
- We can focus on our day-to-day contributions
- We can focus on family
- on friends
- on community
- on nature
- on hobbies and pastimes
- on growth and learning
- on volunteering and giving back
- on gratitude
- on creativity
- on bravery
- and on kindness
Above all we can focus on being true to that explorer’s compass inside us that points us in the direction that our passions and our hearts want to go. Or as one of our favorite singer-songwriters, Kacey Musgraves, says in more poetic terms: “Follow your arrow wherever it points.”
So, in that spirit and on behalf of myself, on behalf of my family, and on behalf of the whole Cowboys and Astronauts team—a team I feel so incredibly lucky to be a part of—I wish all of you a safe, joyful, and truly wonderous new year! Thank you, thank you…a million times thank you.
Matthew
