The Spaces Within Us

While on Martha's Vineyard with my Creative Women's Business Group this past weekend (see photo above), I came across the following graduation speech in the The Martha's Vineyard Times by Margaret M. Regan, the principal of The Martha's Vineyard Regional High School. Her soaring words of wisdom apply to early and late bloomers alike:

This afternoon I would like to speak to you about space. Not outer space or intergalactic matters of which I know very little, but rather of the space we as humans create: The spaces between us and within us. . . . Important space, like the space between a thought and an action, or. . . between an action and a creation. . . .

Throughout the rest of this day and the rest of your life, you will always have the opportunity to carve space for creativity and happiness to emerge. You can also shrink those spaces by rushing ahead full tilt from one thing to the next the way we often do. It is the way of America to hurry up and make things happen. But the lesson I have learned from this senior class and all the classes that have passed before, the lesson I will take into the rest of my life is that if I don’t pause, if I don’t sit, if I don’t practice taking those moments — those luxurious spaces between my ideas and my action, I will simply go from one year to the next without noticing the wonderful rhythm of things. Today is an end and a beginning for all of us.

Let us celebrate the spaces that connect us as humans, one high school, one [i]sland, one shimmering world.