Beyond the Quote

J. Cole Quote from Snow On Tha Bluff and How It’s More Effective To Treat People Like Children

“I would say it’s more effective to treat people like children
Understandin’ the time and love and patience that’s needed to grow
This change is inevitable but ain’t none of us seen this before
Therefore we just gotta learn everything as we go”
J. Cole, Snow On Tha Bluff

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There’s no disrespect in treating people “like children” in this way. It’s actually a brilliant way to look at uniquely challenging situations. For, what’s the difference between adults and children anyway? Development and experience? Adults are obviously developmentally more mature physically, mentally, and emotionally. And beyond that, the only other real difference is experience. Adults have undergone more experiences in their lives which have had more direct effects on how they think, feel, and act. And the reason most adults make better decisions is because their “better” judgement comes from their “bad” judgement remembered. Most children are still in the “bad” judgement phase.

“People who live far below their means enjoy a freedom that people busy upgrading their lifestyles can’t fathom.”
Naval Ravikant

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Most people think that freedom is the absence of responsibility. But, when you look closely, the opposite is actually the case: freedom is a byproduct of responsibility. You can’t be free until you’ve taken proper responsibility for yourself and your life. You can’t even free up the mental resources needed to enjoy said freedom until you’ve covered the bases for your survival, right? How free are you really if you’re starving? How free can you possibly be if you’re without water? Is being free of a house freedom? Or is it a constant threat to your survival and a chronic cage of worry that haunts you? Let’s start by looking at the relationship between freedom and responsibility more closely.

Glenn Danzig Quote on Shopping Carts and How They Are The Ultimate Litmus Test

“The shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test for whether a person is capable of self-governing. To return the shopping cart is an easy, convenient task and one which we all recognize as the correct, appropriate thing to do. To return the shopping cart is objectively right. There are no situations other than dire emergencies in which a person is not able to return their cart. Simultaneously, it is not illegal to abandon your shopping cart. Therefore the shopping cart presents itself as the apex example of whether a person will do what is right without being forced to do it. No one will punish you for not returning the shopping cart, no one will fine you or kill you for not returning the shopping cart, you gain nothing by returning the shopping cart. You must return the shopping cart out of the goodness of your own heart. You must return the shopping cart because it is the right thing to do. Because it is correct. A person who is unable to do this is no better than an animal, an absolute savage who can only be made to do what is right by threatening them a law and the force that stands behind it. The Shopping Cart is what determines whether a person is a good or bad member of society.”
Glenn Danzig

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…Maybe not an “animal” or an “absolute savage,” but certainly a person who has given in to their lazy tendencies. I think we all have that moment when we load the last grocery bag into the car and we look back at the cart only to deeply contemplate how to handle the no-longer-needed thing that’s just sitting there staring at us. We look around for the nearest cart return station and try to minimize the amount of effort it will take to get the thing out of our way so that we can quickly make our escape back home. Isn’t it amazing how quickly we can change our minds about something that provided us so much convenience to all-of-a-sudden being something that is such an annoyance and has become such a hassle? Ah, but how quickly we do that for so much in life, eh?

“I hope you aren’t held back because of a number. And that you don’t rush into things because it feels like time is slipping by. I hope you do what’s right for you. Hold on. Slow down. And breathe in. Your age is your age. But more importantly, your life is your life. Don’t change your journey so that it matches someone else’s. We need to walk different paths so the whole world can be explored. Revel in the differences. And enjoy where you are, in this moment.”
Unknown

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Don’t make it hard for people to leave your life—make it easy. How else to know for sure who really wants to be there? Would you rather have somebody in your life because they were barricaded in or because they genuinely wanted to be in? Would you rather have somebody feel obligated to be in your life or excited to be there? How good does it feel when somebody has a billion and one options and yet, continuously chooses to share the path with you day-in and day-out? I reckon it’s probably one of the best feelings in the world.

“You need to be very gentle with your spirit. It needs to be free, but it also needs you to direct its attention. Too much of one, and not enough of the other, and your spirit will take off like a wild horse. That’s how you need to think of your spirit, like a wild horse. Part of it is there to serve you, and another part to serve itself. The thing you need to learn is which part is which. If you put it behind a fence, you will kill it. But if you leave it to come and go as it pleases, you will never understand it.”
Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page 158)

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…And it’s not until you understand your spirit that can ever tame and unite forces with it. This is critical to understand because your spirit is one of the most powerful driving forces in your life. It’s only when your actions are backed by the power of your spirit that you can only ever realize your true potential and capability as a human being.

“The world will always wear you down, so let it wear you down until only the good remains. Hold on to the incredible parts of you that survive.”
Iain Thomas, Every Word You Cannot Say (Page 93)

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The world will always be this way. Life will continue to be relentless and will certainly try to wear you down. So, let it. If you can’t control the world, why bother trying to control it? Don’t resist what happens. Don’t resist what is. Let life send its blessings your way and let life send its storms, too. If the world is going to wear you down, let it wear down the worst parts of you. Don’t let it break down what’s beautiful. Don’t let it harden you up. Don’t let it steal away your vulnerability. Hold on to the parts of you that make you proud to be you. Hold on to hope and love and beauty and joy and gratitude and individuality. And let the storms wear down and wash away what’s faulty, unnecessary, and not you.

“When you’re in an ill mood, learn to pass it off as simply that: an unavoidable human condition that will pass with time, if you leave it alone. A low mood is not the time to analyze your life.”
Richard Carlson, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

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And yet, low moods seem to draw out of us those very thoughts about our lives don’t they? It isn’t when we’re in a good mood that we decide to sit down and analyze our lives. When things are good—things are good! What’s there to analyze? You’re moving fluidly from one moment to the next and joyfully embracing the wonders of the world around you. When you’re in a good mood you’re laughing, dancing, singing, playful, excited, and warm. There’s nothing to diagnose and there’s nothing to fix—and so on with the good mood momentum we go!

“The more you desperately want to be rich, the more poor and unworthy you feel, regardless of how much money you actually make. The more you desperately want to be sexy and desired, the uglier you come to see yourself, regardless of your actual physical appearance. The more you desperately want to be happy and loved, the lonelier and more afraid you become, regardless of those who surround you. The more you want to be spiritually enlightened, the more self-centered and shallow you become in trying to get there.”
Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

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The more desperate you are, the more intense your feelings of lack become. Sometimes desperation comes from a lack of a need. These intense feelings are legitimate survival mechanisms designed to keep you alive. When you are desperately hungry, it implies that you would do just about anything for food. When you are desperately ill, it means that you would sacrifice almost anything for health. When you’re desperately sad, it means you would likely try anything for happiness again. But, desperation can be self-imposed from a lack of a want, too.

“Joan of Arc came back as a little girl in Japan, and her father told her to stop listening to her imaginary friends. Elvis was born again in a small village in Sudan, he died hungry, age 9, never knowing what a guitar was. Michelangelo was drafted into the military at age 18 in Korea, he painted his face black with shoe polish and learned to kill. Jackson Pollock got told to stop making a mess, somewhere in Russia. Hemingway, to this day, writes DVD instruction manuals somewhere in China. He’s an old man on a factory line. You wouldn’t recognize him. Gandhi was born to a wealthy stockbroker in New York. He never forgave the world after his father threw himself from his office window, on the 21st floor. And everyone, somewhere, is someone, if we only give them a chance.“
Iain Thomas, I Wrote This For You

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What do you see when you look into the eyes of another human being? Do you see a person for what they appear to be? Do you see them for who they were? Do you see them for who they could be? It depends on the person, I suppose. When I look into the eyes of another human being, I try to see someone who, when given a chance, can become somebody. Somebody who has limitless potential inside that is only but waiting to be molded and realized. Somebody who is capable of great things. Somebody who can make a real difference in their world. I see this in almost everyone. But, not everybody sees it in themselves or others.

“It’s the nature of dealing with other people that we all get frustrated and angry from time to time. We take offense at the other person’s actions. But the other person’s actions aren’t the problem—it’s our attachment to the ideal we have of how they should behave, which of course is unrealistic, and the real problem is the Childish Mind wanting so badly for that ideal to be true.”
Leo Babauta, Essential Zen Habits (Page 188)

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It’s one of the beautiful flaws of the human condition. Our ability to envision a life beyond where it is right now. A life that is filled with people, places, and things that excite us. A life that is filled with ideal situations and circumstances and opportunity. A life that would be a dream come true if only things played out how they’re supposed to according to what we see in our minds.

“Loving someone means helping them to be more themselves, which can be different from being what you’d like them to be, although often they turn out the same.”
Merle Shain, Some Men Are More Perfect Than Others

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Never forget that who you want someone to be is none of your business. Love doesn’t manipulate. Love doesn’t control. Love doesn’t place expectations. Love doesn’t try to change people for who they are. Love is never selfish. Love is a pure manifestation of presence, compassion, gratitude, and joy that is shared with the world. Love is patient. Love is free. And love is always kind.

“Whatever happens, keep moving. Get through it. Choose to live. ‘Cause even on the worst day, there are people who love you. There’s new music waiting for you to hear; something you haven’t seen before that will blow your mind in the best way. Even on the worst day, life is a pretty spectacular thing.”
Clay Jensen, Graduation Speech, 13 Reasons Why (Season 4)

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If you’re going through hell… keep going. I mean, why would you want to stay in hell? Not moving doesn’t seem like an option when hell is where you find yourself—so don’t fool yourself if you’re in some kind of hellish reality. Keep moving. Whatever happens. No matter how hard things get. Keep moving forward in some kind of direction that’s going to take you away from where you are and out of the hell that you might find yourself in. What’s the alternative?

“Love is not selective, just as the light of the sun is not selective. It does not make one person special. It is not exclusive. Exclusivity is not the love of God but the ‘love’ of ego. However, the intensity with which true love is felt can vary. There may be one person who reflects your love back to you more clearly and more intensely than others, and if that person feels the same toward you, it can be said that you are in a love relationship with him or her. The bond that connects you with that person is the same bond that connects you with the person sitting next to you on a bus, or with a bird, a tree, a flower. Only the degree of intensity with which it is felt differs.”
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 155)

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This is an important distinction to make. One that many people in relationships fail to recognize. Love is not selective. Love is not an emotion that is rightly reserved for but one person. Love is a way of being. It is an overflowing. It is a contentment, a joy, an excitement, an appreciation, a curiosity, a gentleness, a passion, a presentness that is free of mind and is connected to all that is life.

“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”
General Orders, Number 3; Headquarters District of Texas, Galveston, June 19, 1865

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When Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger issued the above order, he had no idea that, in establishing the Union Army’s authority over the people of Texas, he was also establishing the basis for a holiday, “Juneteenth” (“June” plus “nineteenth”), today the most popular annual celebration of emancipation from slavery in the United States.

“Camera loaded, the light
near sundown blushes
the grey, beat wood
of the boathouse, flashes
along arcs of the waves.
Don’t photograph this. Don’t render it
immutable now. Let it
distort, let it unravel,
reconstruct itself.
This image will retell
this here and now for years,
without conclusion —
It will never change,
it will always be different,
we will never agree. For now,
let the light slip down
around you. Don’t
remember this yet.”
Paul Hogan, Point of Departures (Page 37)

Beyond the Quote (167/365)

In a world where the camera on our phone takes better pictures than most DSLR cameras from just a few years ago, where 4K quality can be held in the palm of one hand and activated with the push of one thumb, where so much of what we see and hear in the world can be so vividly captured and contained within the confines of a memory chip that’s smaller than a penny and backed up by an imaginary cloud—the line between knowing when to be present in a moment and when to capture a moment can become incredibly blurred. Hell, if we wanted to, we could record every moment we ever wanted to and store it into a neat and tidy timeline of moments that could quite literally make up the story of our lives. Rather than our life “flashing before our eyes” at the end, we could playback our lives in a flash with just a few clicks on a computer screen.

“As with many of the dichotomies of leadership, a person’s biggest strength can be his greatest weakness when he doesn’t know how to balance it. A leader’s best quality might be her aggressiveness, but if she goes too far she becomes reckless. A leader’s best quality might be his confidence, but when he becomes overconfident he doesn’t listen to others.”
Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership (Page 281)

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One of my greatest strengths, I believe, is my ability to empathetically connect to and listen to others. When somebody talks to me about how upset they are that their dog died, I feel the upset. When people call me to express their frustrations towards other people, I feel their frustrations. When the people around me get angry, I can feel their anger in me. Basically, I feel like I have an uncanny ability to put myself in other people’s shoes and feel what they’re feeling even if I’ve never been in their exact situation myself. This is something that I have noticed after many years of introspection and while it can certainly be a strength, it also comes with its fair share of drawbacks and challenges that can turn it into a weakness if left unchecked.

“Yes, breadth of experience is likely necessary and desirable when you’re young—after all, you have to go out there and discover what seems worth investing yourself in. But depth is where the gold is buried. And you have to stay committed to something and go deep to dig it up. That’s true in relationships, in a career, in building a great lifestyle—in everything.”
Mark Mason, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

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With every major category in life—relationships, career, lifestyle—we must choose how to optimally invest our time. With time being our most precious resource, this is no easy task. How much time should we spend with our family versus our friends? With our current friends versus new friends? On our career versus our vacations? On tasks related to our career versus tasks that might expand our career options? On consuming things produced versus producing things to be consumed? On acquiring more versus minimizing and using less? What Manson points to above, however, is a fundamental insight that can help guide you in this effort.

“Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. How do you gain influence from people? You invest in them. How do you invest in them? It starts with giving them time.”
John C. Maxwell, Leadership Gold

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Investing time into another person is undoubtedly one of the most powerful ways to influence them. For, time is our most precious resource and when somebody shares their most precious resource with you, it is a clear showing that you are precious to them. If you had a very precious diamond, you wouldn’t just share that with anybody would you? You would only share that with someone precious—someone close.

“You are the master of your destiny. You can influence, direct and control your own environment. You can make your life what you want it to be.”
Napoleon Hill

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Influence is the effect one person has on another person’s thoughts and actions. Influence happens every second of every day of your life. Most notably, when you are in direct communication with another person. What another person says and what they do influences you. Either you like what you hear and see and so adjust accordingly, or you dislike what you hear and see and so adjust accordingly the other way. There is no neutral when it comes to interactions because neutral would either mean that you were looking at an exact replica of yourself or that you didn’t notice the other which implies no interaction. We are all so different and unique that we can’t help but influence each other in one way or another.

“People may teach what they know, but they reproduce what they are.”
John C. Maxwell, Leadership Gold

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Let’s say you are driving and a friend is following you in a separate car, but to the same destination. While driving, you suddenly realize that you’ve made a wrong turn. You quickly think to yourself that there’s still time for your friend behind you to make the proper turn, so you stick your hand out the window and try to point them in the proper direction. Yet, rather than make the proper turn they still follow you in the wrong direction.