“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
Reflections from my spontaneous holiday road trip, now that I’m home:
“Adventure is curiosity, the willingness to embrace uncertainty, wondering about the possibility of doing just one thing differently than before.”
Bruce Kirby
One beautiful thing about exploring is that it connects you to the present. For a few wonderful moments you forget about your problems and future concerns. Curiosity leads you. Intuition kicks in. You notice details and sounds and smells that might otherwise get overlooked and unheard and disregarded.
Read More »Bruce Kirby Quote on How Adventure is Curiosity“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something.”
Neil Gaiman
With a new year comes an opportunity for a fresh start. Of course, we can choose to start fresh whenever we want—the opportunity is always only one decision away. But, when the clock strikes midnight and the year switches over, it feels only natural to begin anew with the great reset of time on our calendars. And if you can align yourself with this great renewing, like a surfer aligning themselves with the coming of a great wave, then you may be able to enjoy a great ride of momentum heading into your new year.
Read More »Neil Gaiman Quote on the New Year and How He Hopes You Make Mistakes
Excerpt: My best friend is excellent at communication. He’s good at signaling and receiving. Most are bad at both. Some are good at one. Here’s what I have learned from him as of late.
Excerpt: Hustle can help you get ahead. But, how good is getting ahead if you can’t stay ahead? Here’s what hustle culture is missing…
“Some people hesitate to share an idea because they’re worried it will be stolen. In general, these people are afraid of success, not failure. An idea unspoken is a safe one, which not only can’t be stolen, but it can’t be tested, criticized, improved or used in the real world.”
Seth Godin, Blog
Excerpt: Brandon Stanton’s new book, Humans, is a masterpiece. These quotes from Humans give a behind-the-scenes look at how he works and thinks.
Book Overview: Brandon Stanton created Humans of New York in 2010. What began as a photographic census of life in New York City, soon evolved into a storytelling phenomenon. A global audience of millions began following HONY daily. Over the next several years, Stanton broadened his lens to include people from across the world. Traveling to more than forty countries, he conducted interviews across continents, borders, and language barriers. Humans is the definitive catalogue of these travels. The faces and locations will vary from page to page, but the stories will feel deeply familiar. Told with candor and intimacy, Humans will resonate with readers across the globe―providing a portrait of our shared experience.
Post(s) Inspired by this Book:
“Our struggles connect us. We relate to the challenges of other people much more than we relate to their victories. We empathize with pain much more than joy. The moment we truly see ourselves in another person is when we realize that we’ve felt the exact same pain.”
Brandon Stanton, Humans (Page 278)
This is the oversight with always wanting to show off. It might make people envy you, but it doesn’t allow people to easily connect with you. If anything, it creates a larger disconnect between where they are and where you portray yourself to be. As Brandon points out above, it’s our struggles that connect us, not our victories.
Read More »Brandon Stanton Quote on Connection and How We Connect Through Struggles More Than Victories“Karma isn’t fate. Nor is it a punishment imposed on us by some external agent. We create our own karma. Karma is the result of the choices that we make every moment of every day.”
Tulku Thondup
Karma is real. Maybe I can’t describe it in a metaphysical sense, but I can certainly describe it from a common sensical, sense. When somebody texts me asking if I want a coffee while they’re at the café—I can promise you it makes me want to text them when I’m at the café next. When somebody brings in food for me, just because—it makes me think about getting food for them on a random, “just because,” day, too. When somebody does a favor for me, it leaves me feeling grateful and in their debt—which makes me want to return a favor. Karma, undoubtedly, returns.
Read More »Tulku Thondup Quote on Karma and How We Create Our Own Karma—It Isn’t Fate“People come to me, they always say, ‘The other is not loving me.’ Nobody comes and says, ‘I am not loving the other.’ Love has become a demand: ‘The other is not loving me.’ Forget about the other! Love is such a beautiful phenomenon, if you love you will enjoy. And the more you love, the more you become lovable. The less you love and the more you demand that other should love you, the less and less you are lovable, the more and more you become closed, confined to your ego.”
Osho, Courage (Page 67)
Do for others that which you most want done for yourself. I cannot think of better advice for anyone who is looking to improve the relationships in their lives. The overwhelming majority seem to default to blaming and criticizing rather than relating and empathizing. You don’t often hear people say things like, “What am I doing wrong?” “How can I better love the other?” “How might I improve the way I treat them?” It is more often than not things like, “Look at all of these things they are doing wrong!” “Listen to all of these reasons on how they are not loving me!” “Let me vent to you about how poorly they are treating me.”
Read More »Osho Quote on Relationships and How The More You Love, The More You Become Lovable“Despite having interviewed thousands of people, I still learn something new from each person I meet. Everyone has a unique expertise. The quickest way to find a person’s expertise is by learning their struggle. What they’ve battled. What they’ve carried with them the longest. Because it’s what they’ve thought about the most.”
Brandon Stanton, Humans (Page 278)
“There’s an old cliché that ‘everyone has a story,’ but there’s a reason it’s a cliché. Every person has a story because everyone has a struggle. The heart of a story is the struggle—the obstacle that has been faced, and hopefully overcome. It can be an obvious physical feat, like climbing a mountain or rescuing someone from drowning. It can be a mental battle: like depression, or addiction, or schizophrenia. It can be comedic or tragic. But none of these particular elements are the reason that struggles are crucial to a story. Struggles are crucial because they’re transformative. Struggles change people. And a well-told story merely follows the arc of that transformation.”
Brandon Stanton, Humans (Page 277)
