Why Splendid?
Once in a while, a simple line from a book or a movie stays with us because it so effortlessly encapsulates an idea. One of mine came from the protagonist in a decades-old movie: How many ten years do we have?
Early 2025, I was working through a difficult question — whether and how to restructure my business after working in it for over thirty years. The easy path was to stay where I was, running the business I love in the same capacity. It was a decision I had made several times before. I would be content; and ten years from then — somehow unfinished.
It was a safe option, yet an increasingly uncomfortable thought.
I thought of the movie line: How many ten years do we have in our life?
I recognized at my age, not many. Not even many five years.
What would I want my next five years to look like? How would I want them to feel?
These questions kept circling like my garden pinwheels in the desert breeze — spinning, going nowhere.
Sometimes it takes a while to find the right word, the right phrase, the right syllables to articulate a feeling you are carrying.
For me, I was trying to reach for a word that could capture what I was looking for. Something boundless, joyful, aspiring — something that touches beyond how I have lived my life.
I thought of the words meaningful, awesome, excellent. They are beautiful words, yet insufficient for the moment — I had felt them before. I was looking for something unexplored; something not yet lived.
It came to me on a morning walk under the brilliant desert sky: Splendid.
Splendid has a soothing yet exuberant quality to it. To my ear, it sounds quieter than awesome, deeper than excellent, more radiant than meaningful. Like a warm family drama, it carries weight without being heavy.
About the same time, I found myself drawn to a singer from 9,000 miles away — from the world I had left half a century ago. I was inspired by his life story, his perseverance, his artistry. I thought my grandchildren could learn from his teaching moments on and off the stage.
Somewhere in that thought came the idea of capturing this in a book.
The last book I wrote was twenty-three years ago. I didn’t think I would write again, though that dream had never fully left. It flitted in and out of my peripherals like a hummingbird, visible one moment, gone the next. And in typical dream fashion, there was always a reason to set it aside.
Somehow, the word splendid and my dream found each other.
I began to realize that part of living my five most splendid years was to realize my dream.
It was the crystallation of Inspiration from 9,000 Miles Away — the founding book of the Five Most Splendid Years™ project. With the book done, it is an artifact of living its philosophy.
Splendid may sound like an older word to some. To me it feels fresh.
I like how it carries no obligation, no measuring stick.
I like how it doesn’t ask us to earn it or explain it.
And most of all, I like how it simply asks one time — whether we feel alive, whether the years ahead feel genuinely worth saying yes to.
[ I’m In ]