Excerpt: A powerful short story of a tea master who gets mistaken for a samurai and how he remains calm even in the midst of certain death.
“Whatever age you are today, your future self would love to be it. Most people do not consider 65 to be a young age… but when you’re 75, you’d love to rewind to 65 and regain those years. Few people would describe 35 as your youth, but in your mid-50s your mid-30s will seem like the “young you.” Today is a great opportunity, no matter your age. Looking back in a few years, today will seem like the time when you were young and full of potential or the moment when you could have started early or the turning point when you made a choice that benefited your future. The moment in front of you right now is a good one. Make the most of it.”
James Clear, Blog
“If it were not so blindly accepted as a part of our customs and traditions, how could any sensitive person accept the thought that in order to feed ourselves we should kill such a huge number of animals, in spite of the fact that our earth gives us so many different treasures from plants?”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 280)
“What nature of struggle for existence or kind of madness forces you to shed blood with your hands in order to eat animals? Why do this, if you have all the comforts of life?”
Plutarch, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 280)
“The true artist has no public; he works for the sheer joy of it, with an element of playfulness, of casualness. Art reaches its greatest peak when devoid of self-consciousness. Freedom discovers man the moment he loses concern over what impression he is making or about to make.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 140)
“If you do anything at the last minute that takes more than a minute, you’re not organizing your project properly. The last minute is not a buffer zone, nor is it the moment to double-check your work. The last minute is simply sixty seconds to enjoy and to remind yourself that you successfully planned ahead.”
Seth Godin
“[Hemingway] would always end a writing session only when he knew what came next in the story. Instead of exhausting every last idea and bit of energy, he would stop when the next plot point became clear. This meant that the next time he sat down to work on his story, he knew exactly where to start. He built himself a bridge to the next day, using today’s energy and momentum to fuel tomorrow’s writing.”
Tiago Forte
“The problem isn’t that you’re too busy. You are too busy, but that’s not the problem. If you view being busy as the problem, there is no solution. You will always be too busy, and that will never change. As Andy Grove once noted: ‘A manager’s work is never done. There is always more to be done, more that should be done, always more than can be done.’ The problem is that you’re acting like a firefighter instead of a fire marshal.”
Ed Batista
“I often hear phrases like, ‘If you don’t take action on what you learn, it’s pointless.‘ I think it’s bullshit. From late 2016 to 2020, I binged around 130 self-development books and hours of Tim Ferriss Show podcast episodes. I took direct action, maybe on 0.5% of the advice I heard. But the real change happened with my beliefs. Hearing stories, struggles, and behind-the-scenes from various people who did dope shit stretched my thinking of what’s possible.”
Janis Ozolins
