In 2005 I was driving across Nebraska from an east coast residency, and stopped in tiny Cozad to visit the Robert Henri Museum, and the 100th Meridian Museum, which I just couldn't resist. The founder of the "Ash Can" school of American realism, Robert Henri was born there, and apparently never went back, preferring New York City and Paris to Nebraska. Cozad forgives him.
I remember, afterwards, sitting in a diner and fretting as usual about what to do with my life. I know I was doing this, because I have it on paper in my journal. I also remember looking up at a flashing sign on the bank across the street.
That got my attention.
"I let my life be guided by a strange language that I call “signs”. I know that the world is talking to me, I need to listen to it, and if I do so I shall always be guided towards what is most intense, passionate and beautiful. Of course, it is not always easy. If you trust life, life will trust you."
Paolo Coelho