“The problem is, the more you get, the more you want. It’s like drinking salt water to quench your thirst. We develop a tolerance that makes us need more just to get the same high. I started to recognize the game, the trick, the insanity, the carrot on the stick. I had never liked vampire movies, but I suddenly understood their mythology—they are a metaphor for insatiable human hunger, unquenchable thirsts, and chronic dissatisfaction—the attempt to fill a spiritual hole with external things. If unparalleled winning and achieving everything I’ve ever dreamed of does not secure perfect happiness and ultimate bliss, then what does?”
Will Smith, Will (Page 368)
Archives
“To place the responsibility for your happiness on anybody other than yourself is a recipe for misery.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 357)
“If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one’s own self-deception and ignorance.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 50)
“The ability to love yourself improves your ability to be loved. We are unlikely to accept a relationship that is worse than the one we have with ourselves, and thus the person who is happy and comfortable with themselves is in a great position. The person with healthy self-esteem doesn’t have to jump into any relationship because they already have a great one wherever they go.”
James Clear, Blog
“You can’t force your partner to change or heal in the ways you want them to. Even though you may think you know what is best for them and you see a clear way for them to deal with their inner issues or old pain, it does not work to push someone to do work that only they themselves can decide they are ready for. Of course, you can give suggestions and share what has helped you, but every person needs to walk the path of healing themselves, from their own volition.”
Yung Pueblo
“We had concluded that no one can make a person happy. You can make a person smile; you can compose a moment that helps a person to feel good; you can deliver a joke that makes a person laugh; you can create an environment where a person feels safe. We can and must be helpful and kind and loving, but whether a person is happy or not is utterly out of your control. Every person must wage a solitary internal war for their own contentment.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 357)
“Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart.”
Kahlil Gibran, via Will (Page 356)
“Nobody gives a shit about anything except how they feel. Feeling good is the most important thing to everyone, everywhere, at all times. We are choosing our words, actions, and behaviors in order to achieve a feeling that we deem positive. There’s nothing more important than feeling how we want to feel. And people determine whether or not you love them by how well they feel you honor their feelings.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 344)
“‘If I am more successful, I’ll be happier, and people will love me more.’ I was trying to fill an internal emotional hole with external, material achievements. Ultimately, this kind of obsession is insatiable. The more you get, the more you want, all the time never quite scratching the itch. You end up with a mind consumed by what it doesn’t have and what it didn’t get, and in a spiraling inability to enjoy what it has.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 333)
“It’s impossible to build something that is of a higher quality than the quality of the people around you.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 318)
“The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 46)
“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”
Viktor Frankl, via Will (Page 314)
“Desire is what you want; purpose is the flowering of what you are. Desire tends to weaken over time, whereas purpose strengthens the more you lean into it. Desire can be depleting because it’s insatiable; purpose is empowering—it’s a stronger engine. Purpose has a way of contextualizing life’s unavoidable sufferings and making them meaningful and worthwhile.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 314)
“This fight-camp, support-the-champ mentality became the new law of our group. Everybody had to run five at five; everybody had to work out in the gym; everybody had to eat right; everybody had to read and study and offer new ideas. Everybody had to live a disciplined life, to reach for the best version of themselves, otherwise they had to go the fuck home. The unified mission of telling Muhammad Ali’s story established a new fundamental way of being that would extend within our group far beyond the completion of Ali.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 310)