(Quotes are capsules of information, reinforcement, or enlightenment.)


“It’s easy to live in silence, she thought;
what I could not do is live with these voices.”

Ursula K. Le Guin


Coaching Point: The character in the story was an old woman living alone in a remote cabin in a war-decimated land. As her story unfolded we learn of her life journey, the richness of her experiences, the sadness of her losses.

And then she spoke the quoted line, “It’s easy to live in silence, she thought; what I could not do is live with these voices.”

The voices were the ones played over and over in her mind. Voices of what had been, or shouldn’t have been, or maybe never even were. But they all spoke in her thoughts.

It caused me to think of the voices we each hear, voices we carry forward from our life experiences. Some of them support, some lecture, some lament. All, of course, are about the past. They express in current moments of time but are replays of our pasts.

Remembering and revisiting has value. Do you choose the voices you hear? Or do they choose you?


Copyright 2022 Steve Straus. All rights reserved.