“The nearer a man is to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.”
Marcus Aurelius, via Discipline Is Destiny (Page 249)
“There are two ways to live a longer life: 1) Biologically. Extend the timeline between your birth and your death. 2) Psychologically. Fit more lives into whatever time you are given. Make each decade rich with experiences and perhaps you can live a handful of lives before you are done.”
James Clear
“‘You don’t have to turn this into something,’ [Marcus Aurelius] reminded himself when someone did something wrong or said something untrue about him. When he lusted after something, he stopped himself, turning those desires to stone before they burned through him and he did something he’d regret. He tried to make beautiful choices, tried to look for the best in people, tried to put himself in their shoes, tried to lead by serving. It was the pride of Marcus’s life that he not only didn’t need to ask anyone for favors but that anytime anyone asked him for something—money, advice, a hand—he could be generous.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 234)
“The opposite of self-awareness is unconscious reactions and impulsiveness, which leads to simply repeating the past endlessly. Self-awareness opens the door to new opportunities, where you can see more than just your impulsiveness. Being able to see yourself and the way you move through your emotional range helps you be mindful of what you are saying and why you are saying it. Through self-awareness comes better decisions because you know when your intentions are genuine, when you would benefit from pausing and slowing down, and when you need to take accountability.”
Yung Pueblo
“There are two modes of travel; retreat or engage. People often travel to escape the routines of work, to recharge, relax, reinvigorate, and replenish themselves— R&R. In this mode you travel to remove yourself from your routines, or to get the pampering and attention you don’t ordinarily get, and ideally to do fun things instead of work things. So you travel to where it is easy. This is called a vacation, or R&R. The other mode is engagement and experience, or E&E. In this mode you travel to discover new things, to have new experiences, to lean into an adventure whose outcome is not certain, to meet otherness. You move to find yourself by encountering pleasures and challenges you don’t encounter at home. “
Kevin Kelly
“Be reliable. You can get pretty damn far in life by just being someone that people can count on to show up and do the work. Reliability is one of the most underrated traits. In the short run, it is much harder to be exceptional than it is to be reliable, and in the long run, being consistently reliable makes you exceptional.”
Sahil Bloom
“It was said that the true majesty of Marcus Aurelius was that his exactingness was directed only at himself. He did not ‘go around expecting Plato’s republic.’ People were people, he understood they were not perfect. He found a way to work with flawed people, putting them to service for the good of the empire, searching them for virtues that he celebrated and accepting their vices, which he knew were not in his control.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 232)