Today is James Clear email day and I am doing something I have never done before.  Including everything in the email.  I am doing it as it feels everything is good advice to me.
Ok the use of the word fate in the last quote seems a bit fixed, as I feel at liberty to make choices.  I may not understand the mechanics of having a free will set against everything being pre-determined, but that does not stop me feeling I am at liberty to make choices.
It can be for me that it becomes too easy not to see the wood for the trees.  I cannot dispute compromising character is a slippery road, or the value of pursuing what is natural, or the value of training hard.  Nor can I dispute the existence and value of both good and bad news.  Nor do I want to dispute the last quote which talks about fate and the value of ever experience.  I have been big on finding good in bad.  Others ay it better than I but to me it is important as life is made up of both.
"You can lose yourself one small compromise at a time. You can transform yourself one small win at a time."
"You don't have to be good at everything, you just need to double down on what you're naturally suited for."
"Train hard and focus on what you can control."
2 Quotes From Others
Scientist Donella Meadows on being proactive, yet positive:
"There is too much bad news to justify complacency. There is too much good news to justify despair."  Source: Thinking in Systems​​​
Writer and professor Joseph Campbell on loving your fate:
"Nietzsche was the one who did the job for me. At a certain moment in his life, the idea came to him of what he called "the love of your fate."
Whatever your fate is, whatever happens, you say, "This is what I need." It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment — not discouragement — you will find the strength is there. Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege!
Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures followed by wreckage were the incidents that shaped the life you have now. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes."
Source: Reflections on the Art of Living (edited lightly for clarity), Hat tip to Dylan O'Sullivan.
I like to read and pray to start the day.  I consistently read one source and read others more randomly.  Starting early is good for me but no matter when it happens, a good start is good for me.

I do enjoy the thought of a day off.  As said before it is not that I do nothing, but I do not make appointments.  I really feel it is a day when I can do stuff that needs doing around the home.  Or sleep - which I have done a number of times before.
Today is that day.  I have a few things in mind to do.  I am hoping the inspiration hits.  Though often I know something needs doing and I set a time length to the activity.  That normally works.  I may go over or under the time I have set, but I find getting started the hardest part.  Once started I often want to take it further.
Yesterday I was sitting waiting for someone to come by who was colleting me for an event I was going to that night.  I saw a cockatoo in our tree.  Merril mostly goes and gets it some seed (she is visiting her mum right now).  So that is what I did.
Sure enough, that is what it was waiting for.  It came down and had a feed.
I actually love the eyes of those birds.  They are big and beautiful birds but seem to have a nice nature too.  If the eyes are anything to go by that is not surprising.
So I have fed the birds and the fish this morning.  It is sort of a ritual.  The birds know it is feeding time and wait around.  I call them our “fly in, fly out” birds.  We recently had a tradesman come early and he commented on the number of birds present.  We like it and others do too.
Right now we were to be on a cruise.  It did not happen.  We are disappointed but as is my custom I look for the good.  It is not always immediately obvious, but it is always there when I look.
This time we have had a resolution to an issue.  Merril had a stent put in last week.  It had been incredibly disconcerting for me to hold her hand and find it was really cold on a warm day.  Now we know and have dealt with why.
So today is a day off.  What’s in store is an unknown.  I have plans but they are casual plans.

Someone commented that “try being my age you will really know what being invisible is then.”
It got me thinking of invisible people.  Not the super-hero types but the ones that tend to be ignored or overlooked.  Also not just the homeless.  They were known as the invisible people but at this time are being seen more and more.
Not that I set myself up, as I am as capable of selfishness as the next.  It is the action of those who act without thought for another.  Not thinking “if I do this how will it impact others?”
It seems to me being seemingly invisible can come with age.  I was helping build something with some young fellas.  They were talking indoor cricket.  I was not a part of the conversation at all, yet I have spent heaps of time playing indoor cricket and have a multitude of stories.  It was ok and I know life moves on, but it highlighted to me how one group can completely overlook another.
Merril being a nurse had a lot to do with seemingly invisible people.  One of her experiences that really impacted me was looking after an elderly lady.  No one would give her a second thought, but Merril found out she had been presented with something from Gandhi.
One of the saddest pictures I have ever seen (which I have not been able to find again) was a hunchbacked woman in front of empty shelves during the pandemic.  I do not know if it was real or not, but the thought was to me very real.  It reminds me of an ad I saw on tv which was only there for a short period, of an old fella getting a knock at the door.  He moved real slow and by the time he reached the door the visitor had determined no one was home and left.
I guess those sort of things mean heaps to me.  What to me may only take seconds can mean a heap to another.  Knowing they are seen.  Knowing they matter.