Did you know: (I'm sure you do, but just in case) The MerryMeeting Bay is one of four confluences in the world.

Three are famous, having loomed large in the histories and economies of their regions: the Sacramento, San Joaquin delta in California; Tigris, Euphrates delta in Iraq; and the Ganges, Brahmaputra delta in Bangladesh. The fourth is Merrymeeting Bay in Maine. It is unfamiliar to most people, even within its immediate vicinity. (source)

(If you haven't gone to give it a look lately, do it this autumn--straightaway to see it at peak--by going out SR24, which starts as Elm in Topsham, then becomes Middlesex at the rail overpass. Keep going past the Cathance Road a couple of miles until you notice a cemetery on your left. Look to the right to see a stunning view of the MerryMeeting Bay. The book about it at the link above is really interesting, too.)

I love that idea of "confluence"--the merging of similar but apparently distinct parts. I often notice it in things I read and listen to, noticing how an article, book, or interview has so much more meaning because of another I've recently read or heard. Or maybe because of a project I'm working on.

Right now, for example, I'm preparing workshops for a conference. Coincidentally, a podcast I listen to interviewed Woo-Kyoung Ahn about her new book Thinking 101, which is based on a class she teaches and includes lots of ways we short-cut thinking with biases and assumptions. I promptly got the book and read it. (OK, listened to it on Audible, but...)

Then, I read a blog post by Fox Wizard--Dr. Jason Fox--on Smuggling Insight wherein he looks at "slipping past the gatekeepers," referring to the ways we resist new information! THEN, in another podcast, I listened to Dr. Erika James & Dr. Lynn Perry Wooten discuss their book, The Prepared Leader, in which a central theme is how we need to get out of our ego and to prepare for something unexpected to happen and mess up our timeline! (This book is next in my queue!)

I needed the messages in these three sources right now. 

Of course I've been building and offering workshops for a long time. I have a degree in education and another in psychology, so I should know this stuff, right?

Sure.

And isn't it lovely when things come together in a way to shine a new light on what we "know" to challenge us to look at it from a different angle or two (or 360)?

Each of these in their own way took me back to more recently reminders in Adam Grant's Think Again, Carol Dweck's Mindset, and Brian Grazer's Curious Mind--and others! 

Aren't there a lot of smart people "out there" with so many amazing insights?

What confluences are you noticing in your life, now or as you look back?

How are you drawing on those to find meaning?