Patterns are everywhere.

In your Mom’s sewing drawer.  In a woodworker’s toolkit.  On materials for dresses, and couches, and rugs.  In the way your house is made.  Birds have patterns in their flights.  Beavers in the way they build dams.

There are so many great patterns in nature.  Nature has a way of repeating itself.  I like to look at those repetitions in the natural world.  They are everywhere.  In trees, and snowflakes, and corn.  You name it… just about.

History.  Yep, there are patterns in history too.  It definitely has a way of repeating itself.

But there are patterns in us too.  Not the physical kind.  Sure, there are plenty of those.  Our fingerprints, in the flecks of our eyes, on our tongues, and on and on.

We have behavioral, emotional, psychological, and intellectual patterns as well.  Sometimes these can be good, and other times… not so much.

The difference is….. figuring out which are good… and which are bad.

And THAT can be a heck of a lot harder than what it seems.  Sometimes we can’t see our own patterns, but others can spot them like a bad, bad floral print on a Lay-Z-Boy Rocker.

I’m not sure what the best way is to break bad patterns.  But I know it means being truthful with ourselves.  You know…. figuring out our authentic selves.

And those times we identify a good pattern… we should fly with it.  Like a bird.  Or grow with it.  Like a tree.   Or build on it.  Like a beaver.

Maybe with the bad ones… we should apply similar analogies.  If we know it is a harmful pattern…..    Like a bird.  We should peck away at it.  Like a tree.   Leaf it alone.  Or like a beaver.

Dam.