John Gardner on the Key to Self-Renewal Across Life and the Art of Making Rather Than Finding Meaning

“The potentialities you develop to the full come as the result of an interplay between you and life’s challenges.”

A person is not a potted plant of predetermined personality but a garden abloom with the consequences of chance and choice that have made them who they are, resting upon an immense seed vault of dormant potentialities. At any given moment, any seed can sprout — whether by conscious cultivation or the tectonic tilling of some great upheaval or the composting of old habits and patter...