Excerpt: In this powerful story, John Lewis recounts a time when a terrible storm threatened his aunt’s house and how he and those around him saved it.
“As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.”
Nelson Mandela
Read the following short story first. It lays the scene for what, “leaving bitterness and hatred behind” really means. The speaker in the story is Nelson Mandela himself and the credit for the story goes to Geoff Pentz via FaceBook. My thoughts to follow.
Read More »A Short Story Told By Nelson Mandela and What It Really Means To Leave Bitterness and Hatred Behind“Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.”
Samuel Ullman, Youth
Forget about your age already. Who cares what your number is? Why live your life according to the number of times you’ve traveled around the sun? Once you’ve reached adulthood, that number of sun revolutions is arbitrary. 25 Times? 40 Times? 60 Times? What of it?
Read More »Sumuel Ullman Quote on Living Young Regardless of Age and How Age Really is Just a Number
Excerpt: There is such a thing as trying to do too much. Your intentions may be good, but your actions are what leave an imprint. Don’t fix me, love me for what is broken.
“What I had been taught all my life was not true: experience is not the best teacher! Some people learn and grow as a result of their experience; some people don’t. Everybody has some kind of experience. It’s what you do with that experience that matters.”
John C. Maxwell, Leadership Gold
“Experience is the best teacher” works when you’re talking about touching a hot stove. I can describe to you the feeling of getting burned with conviction, give you examples, and use sound logic until I’m blue in the face—it still won’t compare to what you come to understand when you touch the hot stove. The same is true when we’re talking about swimming. I can teach you all of the best strokes, floating strategies, and swimming techniques in the field—it still won’t compare to what you learn by actually being in the water.
Read More »John C. Maxwell Quote on Experience and How It Isn’t The Best Teacher“How can anyone feel complete when they only ever accept a fraction of themselves?”
Leslie Ralph, Tiny Buddha
Many people try and fill the “holes” in their lives with another person. The “holes” being fears, doubts, insecurities, and traumas that might have been a part of their past that leave them feeling un-whole. Like parts of them are missing. Like there are voids that they can’t quite figure out or understand. Like only “half” of a person who needs another “half” to feel completed. But, there are two problems with this way of thinking.
Read More »Leslie Ralph Quote on Feeling Complete and How To Feel Whole Even With Holes In Your Life“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”
Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Breaking the shackles of time? Getting to curiously peer inside the mind of another human being? Communicating with people who have long since passed away? Well, when you put it like that, how could you NOT believe in magic? These little “flat objects” containing “funny dark squiggles” are nothing short of astonishing and are some of the most uniquely magical objects that you might ever find grasped within the palms of your two hands. Carl Sagan makes a convincing case.
Read More »Carl Sagan Quote on Books and How They Are Proof That We Are Capable of Working Magic
Excerpt: Fear holds you back. You can’t live your best life held back. Read our 46 fantastic quotes on fear to help you live your best life despite it.
“We all have a bag. We all pack differently. Some of us are traveling light. Some of us are secret hoarders who’ve never parted with a memory in our lives. I think we are all called to figure out how to carry our bag to the best of our ability, how to unpack it, and how to face the mess. I think part of growing up is learning how to sit down on the floor with all your things and figuring out what to take with you and what to leave behind.”
Hannah Brencher
Part of me loves this idea. Just sit down on the floor, unpack all of the memories, feelings, and experiences and figure out what to take and what to leave behind. Sounds great, doesn’t it? We could all just pack up our bags with all of the good and take all of the “bad” to the curb and part with it forever. But, as great as it sounds, the other part of me knows that it isn’t that easy.
Read More »Hannah Brencher Quote on Baggage and How We Might Best Move Forward From Our Past“You cannot transform the world without transforming the individual.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 262)
Just like you cannot transform a wall without transforming each individual brick. Or a football team without transforming each of the individual players. Or a relationship without transforming each of the individual actions. What most people miss, in my opinion, is the immediate opportunity in exchange for a grandiose vision. Our opportunity to change the world is right in front of our faces every day, but so many of us are too busy thinking about how we can change the whole world and are doing nothing instead.
Read More »Sadhguru Quote on Transforming The World and Where To Focus Your Efforts First“I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.”
Pearl S. Buck
How to let your mind know that it has to get down to work? The answer isn’t as obvious as it might seem. You might think, it’s your mind and your mind is in your control, right? But, why then can’t you just tell your mind to “get down to work” and be done with it? Why is so much of what we have to get done always such a fight? Why can’t we just do what we need to do automatically? And the answer, as far as I can see it, is that control over your mind is something that has to be earned—it’s never just given.
Read More »Pearl Buck Quote on Getting Work Done and Why You Shouldn’t Follow Your Moods“You cannot be partying till early morning and attempt to scale Mount Everest tomorrow!”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 223)
We all have an “Everest” in our lives. A challenge that surpasses all of the other challenges we could face and yet, excites us to our core. A challenge that we know is going to take every ounce of strength and vigor and focus that we have and yet, still entices us to step forward. A challenge that feels right. One which our whole lives have prepared us for and one that matches our drive to our potential; our talents to our interests; our aptitude to our attitude. The type of challenge that you would skip a full night of partying for because your mission is more important to you.
Read More »Sadhguru Quote on Priorities and How Discovering Your “Everest” Will Change Your Life“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”
Hans Hofmann
When given the choice between simple and complicated, choose simple. Simple doesn’t mean “easier” or “less valuable.” Simple just means that less is required. Less effort needs to be exerted. Less steps need to be taken. Less thought is required. It essentially minimizes the size of the hurdle that needs to be cleared in order for the task to be completed. And in order to maximize the chances of a task being completed, simplicity is one of the most significant playing factors.
Read More »Hans Hofmann Quote on Simplifying and How Complexity Is The Enemy of Execution
Excerpt: Learn how to strip away everything that is covering, distracting, and blocking what Thomas Moore might consider to be… your Original Self.
Excerpt: A short story where two elderly men describe the most potent moments of their lives—moments when they were, ironically, closest to death…
“Nothing out there will ever satisfy you except temporarily and superficially, but you may need to experience many disillusionments before you realize that truth. Things and conditions can give you pleasure, but they will also give you pain. Things and conditions can give you pleasure, but they cannot give you joy. Nothing can give you joy. Joy is uncaused and arises from within as the joy of Being.”
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 187)
Where’s your “happy place?” You know, the place you go to “escape” or maybe “find your bliss?” The beach? The mountains? A cabin in the woods? Here’s the thing, if the answer to those questions is anywhere outside of yourself, then you’re handicapping yourself. Your happiness is handicapped. Your bliss is handicapped. And your inner peace is handicapped.
Read More »Eckhart Tolle Quote on Joy and How Your Frequent Desire To Travel Might Be Limiting The Joy You FeelThese people gon’ tell you that you will never make it /
Then when you do, they gon’ say they knew you were goin’ places /
That’s just how it works, next thing you know you’ll be overrated /
Hearing people say they miss the “old you,” it’s crazy, ain’t it?
NF, Remember This
It doesn’t matter where you are in life, there will always be noise that’s trying to take you away from where you are. When you’re first starting out, of course you’re not great. Who is? In fact, you probably suck. Like, you’re probably really awful. Especially compared to all of the greats that you’re probably comparing yourself to. So, of course you’re going to have people around you saying you will “never make it.” That you should probably quit and stick to something more “commonplace.” Or that you will never be as good as that person or this person. The noise when you first start out is real and it can stop you in your tracks before you ever even start.
Read More »NF Quote from “Remember This” on Success and How There’s Always Hate At Each Step of the Way“Start now. Start where you are. Start with fear. Start with pain. Start with doubt. Start with hands shaking. Start with voice trembling, but start. Start and don’t stop. Start where you are, with what you have. Just… Start.”
Unknown
What makes you think starting later is going to be any better than starting now? What makes you think the fear or pain or doubt or trembling won’t be there later just as much (if not more) than it is now? What makes you think starting is ever going to be easier? How about we call your desire to do later that which you could do now what it actually is: procrastination.
Read More »Quote on Starting Where You Are With What You Have—Even With Fear, Pain, and Doubt.“Don’t chase, don’t beg, don’t stress, don’t be desperate, just relax. When you relax it will come to you. Make your wants, want you.”
Unknown
What happens when you relax? You release. You let go of held tension both in the body and the mind. Or, maybe better said, in the mind and then in the body. For, the body is but a puppet of the mind. And in order for the mind to relax what needs to happen? Well, you have to ease your mind away from the regrets of the past and the anxieties of the future and connect to the now. How else can you be truly relaxed if you’re preoccupied thinking and worrying about the past and future? It is only when you are utterly present that you can be truly relaxed. Isn’t it so?
Read More »Quote on Making Your Wants Want You and How Relaxing Helps Make That Happen“Love has nothing to do with someone else. It is all about you. It is a way of being. It essentially means you have brought sweetness into your emotion. If a loved one travels to another country, would you still be able to love them? You would. If a loved one passed away, would you still be able to love them? You would. Even if a loved one is not physically with you anymore, you are still capable of being loving. So, what is love then? It is just your own quality. You are only using the other person as a key to open up what is already within you.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 65)
Why is it that our love gets locked behind a door that needs opening? Why is it that we aren’t able to open up to what is already within us on our own, intuitively, and without prompting? Why is love seen only (or perhaps primarily) as being a product of something that happens in a relationship between two people? For, as Sadhguru points out above, love has nothing to do with anyone else—it has only to do with you. And if that’s true and if love is a way of being, then where might we have lost our way? Why might we have stored our love away behind a locked door? Shouldn’t “sweetness into our emotion” be the default and most enjoyable state that beats any of the alternatives?
Read More »Sadhguru Quote on Love and How It Has Nothing To Do With Someone Else