#27 Appreciating the meaningless melody of a foreign language

ByLukas

Learning a foreign language is both a frustrating and liberating experience.

We can focus on the frustration of not understanding the words the way we understand our mother tongue. Or we can realize that without the words, we are free to fall back on other ways of capturing and understanding meaning.

A crying baby can be soothed by words it does not yet understand, because she senses what’s behind the sounds, lets the meaningless melody cradle her to sleep…

Similarly, we don’t always have to know what’s behind the words, as long as we make an effort to understand the meaning behind the sounds.

Hearing a foreign language brings us back to that wordless world the way we experienced it as a newborn, before we tried so hard to put everything within and around us into language.

It makes us remember, there’s more to life than our words will ever allow us to express. And somehow, that’s a soothing thought.

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    When I write, I’m meditating.

    When I meditate, I’m writing.

    When I run, I’m meditating.

    When I meditate, I’m running.

    When I play the guitar, I’m meditating.

    When I meditate, I’m playing the guitar.

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    And no matter what I do, I’m always living.

    Life experience always carries over.

  • #381 Why you should make habits doable and frequent

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  • #321 Maintain the momentum

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  • #319 Starting silly small

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    Very small.

    So small, it might feel silly at first.

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    #294 The true purpose of goals

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    Goals make you write every day and enjoy the process, even if you’ll never publish a book.

    Goals make you practice yoga and get to know your body, even if you’ll never be able to be in that ultimate pose.

    Goals makes you help someone and learn to give and contribute, even if your help ultimately doesn’t get them to the place they wanted to go.

    Goals don’t predict outcomes. Because the purpose of a goal is not to achieve it, but to set the direction of your life.

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    I don’t know about you, my friend, but to me, that’s a fulfilling thought.

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