Always keep Ithaca on your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.
Constantine Cavafy, Ithaca, via The Happiness of Pursuit (Page 114)
Archives
“If you want to make every day an adventure, all you have to do is prioritize adventure. It has to become more important than routine.”
Chris Guillebeau, The Happiness of Pursuit (Page 87)
“A dog is not considered a good dog because he is a good barker. A man is not considered a good man because he is a good talker.”
Chuang Tzu, via Sunbeams (Page 64)
“To a worm in horseradish, the whole world is horseradish.”
Yiddish proverb, via Sunbeams (Page 64) (Read Matt’s Blog On This Quote)
“I may wish to be free from torture, but if the time comes for me to endure it, I’ll wish to bear it courageously with bravery and honor. Wouldn’t I prefer not to fall into war? But if war does befall me, I’ll wish to carry nobly the wounds, starvation, and other necessities of war. Neither am I so crazy as to desire illness, but if I must suffer illness, I’ll wish to do nothing rash or dishonorable. The point is not to wish for these adversities, but for the virtue to make adversities bearable.”
Seneca, Moral Letters, via The Daily Stoic (Page 90)
“Everything good needs time. Don’t do work in a hurry. Go into details; it pays in every way. Time means power for your work. Mediocrity is always in a rush; but whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing with consideration. For genius is nothing more nor less than doing well what anyone can do badly.”
Amelia Barr
“Some things are better off ignored than attacked. Attention is the oxygen of conflict. When you fight a problem, you breathe life into it. When you starve a problem of your attention, you suffocate it. In a surprising number of cases, the way to solve a problem is to ignore it.”
James Clear, Blog (Read Matt’s Blog On This Quote)
“I’d like to repeat the advice that I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”
Chriss McCandless, Into The Wild, via The Happiness of Pursuit (Page 84)
“As much as it sounds trite to ‘live like you’re dying’ or ‘live every day as if it were your last,’ that’s exactly what many people obsessed with a quest do. This shift from an intellectual awareness that we will someday die to an emotional awareness can be a guiding light to discovering what really matters.”
Chris Guillebeau, The Happiness of Pursuit (Page 54)
“All of us will someday die. Yet not all of us live in a state of active awareness of this reality. In the words of a great Bob Dylan song, ‘He not busy being born is busy dying,’ and perhaps some of us are busier than others.”
Chris Guillebeau, The Happiness of Pursuit (Page 58)
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”
Carl Sagan, via Sunbeams (Page 63)
“Every day matters. The emotional awareness of mortality can help us pursue a goal.”
Chris Guillebeau, The Happiness of Pursuit (Page 54)
“Many quests begin from a sense of discontent or alienation. If you find yourself feeling discontented, pay attention to the reasons why. Add action to discontent: Find a way to do something about the uncertainty you feel.”
Chris Guillebeau, The Happiness of Pursuit (Page 38) (Read Matt’s Blog On This Quote)
“Unhappiness can lead to new beginnings.”
Chris Guillebeau, The Happiness of Pursuit (Page 26)
“Sometimes it seems to me that in this absurdly random life there is some inherent justice in the outcome of personal relationships. In the long run, we get no more than we have been willing to risk giving.”
Sheldon Kopp, via Sunbeams (Page 61)
“On tough days we might say, ‘My work is overwhelming,’ or ‘My boss is really frustrating.’ If only we could understand that this is impossible. Someone can’t frustrate you, work can’t overwhelm you—these are external objects, and they have no access to your mind. Those emotions you feel, as real as they are, come from the inside, not the outside.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 88)
The Happiness Of Pursuit [Book]
Book Overview: In The Happiness of Pursuit, Chris Guillebeau draws on interviews with hundreds of questers, revealing their secret motivations, their selection criteria, the role played by friends and family, their tricks for solving logistics, and the importance of documentation. Equally fascinating is Chris’s examination of questing’s other side. What happens after the summit is climbed, the painting hung, the endurance record broken, the at-risk community saved? A book that challenges each of us to take control—to make our lives be about something while at the same time remaining clear-eyed about the commitment—The Happiness of Pursuit will inspire readers of every age and aspiration. It’s a playbook for making your life count.
Post(s) Inspired By This Book:
- 18 Quest Inspiring Chris Guillebeau Quotes From The Happiness Of Pursuit
- #446—Yeah, Yeah. Adventure Would Do You Some Good. But Have You Considered The Benefits Of Misadventure?
- #443—Rather Than Run From Effort, Why Not Make Effort It’s Own Reward?
- #442—If Variety Is The “Spice” Of Life, Monotony Is The Entire Meal
- #437—Discontent Might Be Exactly What You Need Right Now
“To some extent, each of us marries to make up for his own deficiencies. As a child, no one can stand alone against his family and the community, and in all but the most extreme instances, he is in no position to leave and to set up a life elsewhere. In order to survive as children, we have all had to exaggerate those aspects of ourselves that pleased those on whom we depended, and to disown those attitudes and behaviors that were unacceptable to them. As a result, to varying degrees, we have each grown into disproportionate configurations of what we could be as human beings. What we lack, we seek out and then struggle against in those whom we select as mates. We marry the other because he (or she) is different from us, and then we complain, ‘Why can’t he (she) be more like me?'”
Sheldon Kopp, via Sunbeams (Page 61)
“It’s easy to confuse the image we present to the world for who we actually are, especially when media messaging deliberately blurs that distinction. You might look beautiful today, but if that was the result of vain obsession in the mirror this morning, the Stoics would ask, are you actually beautiful? A body build from hard work is admirable. A body build to impress gym rats is not.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 87) (Read Matt’s Blog On This Quote)
“You are not your body and hair-style, but your capacity for choosing well. If your choices are beautiful, so too will you be.”
Epictetus, Discourses, via The Daily Stoic (Page 87)