Scold the Wind

February 7

From “A Calendar of Wisdom” by Leo Tolstoy

Good morning, friend.

“We would think a man insane who, instead of covering his house with a roof and putting windows in his window frames, goes out in the stormy weather and scolds the wind. But we all do the same when we scold and blame the evil in other people instead of fighting that evil which exists in us.” - A Calendar of Wisdom, page 33

You could be an expert debater with a seven-stripe black belt in rhetoric, launching tear breaking speech into vicious rebuttal with the poise and elegance of a young Hemingway—

You could be at the top of every bestseller list with news outlets clamoring for even a few short words from you, falling over backwards just to put your name in the paper—

You could win every laureate award for poetry, stacking up honorary doctorates next to Nobel peace prizes for prose that united the darkest of enemies—

You could be the talk of every roast and corporate negotiation, slinging high-powered insults and daring repartees like nobody’s business—

And it would still get you nowhere with the weather.

The rain falls on the just and the unjust,

The eloquent and the ineloquent,

The smart and the not-so-smart.

Some things in life can have a story wrapped around them. Some things in life just are.

So you can try to scold the wind,

Or you could pack an umbrella.

Morning Reading is a daily email to help center yourself, reflect, and prepare for the day. It’s sent with love from your friend, Zach in Austin, Texas. He even drew the logo himself.

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