“The misery that oppresses you lies not in your profession but in yourself! What man in the world would not find his situation intolerable if he chooses a craft, an art, indeed any form of life, without experiencing an inner calling? Whoever is born with a talent, or to a talent, must surely find in that the most pleasing of occupations! Everything on this earth has its difficult sides! Only some inner drive—pleasure, love—can help us overcome obstacles, prepare a path, and lift us out of the narrow circle in which others tread out their anguished, miserable existences!” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, via Mastery
“You are born with a particular makeup and tendencies that mark you as a piece of fate. It is who you are to the core. Some people never become who they are; they stop trusting in themselves; they conform to the tastes of others, and they end up wearing a mask that hides their true nature. If you allow yourself to learn who you really are by paying attention to that voice and force within you, then you can become what you were fated to become—an individual, a Master.” ~ Robert Greene, Mastery
“You possess a kind of inner force that seeks to guide you toward your Life’s Task—what you are meant to accomplish in the time that you have to live. In childhood this force was clear to you. It directed you toward activities and subjects that fit you natural inclinations, that sparked a curiosity that was deep and primal. In the intervening years, the force tends to fade in and out as you listen more to parents and peers, to the daily anxieties that wear away at you. This can be the source of your unhappiness—your lack of connection to who you are and what makes you unique. The first move toward mastery is always inward—learning who you really are and reconnecting with that innate force. Knowing it with clarity, you will find your way to the proper career path and everything else will fall into place. It is never too late to start this process.” ~ Robert Greene, Mastery
“In moving toward mastery, you are bringing your mind closer to reality and to life itself. Anything that is alive is in a continual state of change and movement. The moment that you rest, thinking that you have attained the level you desire, a part of your mind enters a phase of decay. You lose your hard-earned creativity and others begin to sense it. This is a power and intelligence that must be continually renewed or it will die.” ~ Robert Greene, Mastery
“You must see your attempt at attaining mastery as something extremely necessary and positive. The world is teeming with problems, many of them of our own creation. To solve them will require a tremendous amount of effort and creativity. Relying on genetics, technology, magic, or being nice and natural will not save us. We require the energy not only to address practical matters, but also to forge new institutions and orders that fit our changed circumstances. We must create our own world or we will die from inaction.” ~ Robert Greene, Mastery
“In our culture we tend to equate thinking and intellectual powers with success and achievement. In many ways, however, it is an emotional quality that separates those who master a field from the many who simply work at a job. Our levels of desire, patience, persistence, and confidence end up playing a much larger role in success than sheer reasoning powers. Feeling motivated and energized, we can overcome almost anything. Feeling bored and restless, our minds shut off and we become increasingly passive.” ~ Robert Greene, Mastery
“Everyone holds his fortune in his own hands, like a sculptor the raw material he will fashion into a figure. But it’s the same with that type of artistic activity as with all others: We are merely born with the capability to do it. The skill to mold the material into what we want must be learned and attentively cultivated.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, via Mastery
“We are all capable of contributing to the world in a way that makes a profound difference. A rare few go big. Make the big gesture. Take the big risk. Expose themselves on a grand scale. Create and then ride the big wave. But most of us, myself included, take a different yet equally valid path. It’s the path of the ripple. Simple actions, moments, and experiences. Created, offered, and delivered with such a purity of intention and depth of integrity and clarity that they set in motion a ripple that, quietly, in its own way, in its own time, expands outward. Interacting with, touching, mattering to people we’ve never met in ways we never conceived.” ~ Jonathan Fields, How To Live A Good Life
“Knowing what you want out of life, and who you want in it, means nothing if you can’t also say no to everything but those people and things. Until you cultivate the ability to say no to the things that fill your life but not your soul, you’ll never have the space to bring into it the things you desperately want to say yes to.” ~ Jonathan Fields, How To Live A Good Life
“When we think about giving, we often think about grand gestures, setting aside hours or days to volunteer, mentor, or contribute to some person or group we want to see rise. Or we think about specific charities, foundations, and organizations to donate to. But giving even on the smallest level has power. So often, we miss the momentary opportunities to contribute, the countless moments to be generous, to help, to be of service in the moment, for a moment.” ~ Jonathan Fields, How To Live A Good Life
“There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don’t ask, walk!” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, via How To Live A Good Life
“It is so easy to make a life and a career out of sitting in the bleachers… There are people who have amazing gifts, who could make the world an incredibly better place, who won’t put their work out there for [fear of judgement]. And that’s a loss. And whether we know what that work was or not, we miss it and grieve it every day. There are songs that we need to hear, there are stories that need to be told, that we’ll never see or know because there are so many people out there who are so reflectively cynical and critical and mean-spirited. I don’t like it.” ~ Brené Brown, via How To Live A Good Life
“To know what you’re going to draw, you have to begin drawing.” ~ Picasso, via How To Live A Good Life
“What if you don’t so much have a passion or purpose as much as you pursue something, or a bunch of things, with passion and a sense of purpose? And what if the deeper you get into that exploration or pursuit and the more competent you become, the more interested you get in doing and learning and discovering on a fiercer, more engaged, dare I say a more ‘passionate’ or ‘purposeful’ way?” ~ Jonathan Fields, How To Live A Good Life
“Simply having a phone on the table or within reach keeps the conversations shallow. None of this would be a big deal if mobile and app-based conversation were complementing rather than replacing face-to-face conversation, but that’s not the case. In fact, so many people are turning to digital to have potentially messy and emotional conversations in a less messy and emotional way. It may bring more calm to a relationship, sure, but it also strips the vulnerability and revelation that come from looking someone in the eye, seeing how your words land, seeing how their body responds, hearing the catch in their breath, understanding what is truly going on between you in a way no emoji chain or composed text could ever express. That emotional, messy, hard, exhilarating, don’t-know-what’s-coming-next space is where the moments that make life most worth living lie. Kill the space, kill the moment. Hello, tidy matrix and numbed-out life.” ~ Jonathan Fields, How To Live A Good Life
“Self-discipline is a form of freedom. Freedom from laziness and lethargy, freedom from the expectations and demands of others, freedom from weakness and fear and doubt. Self-discipline allows a pitcher to feel his individuality, his inner strength, his talent. He is the master of, rather than a slave to, his thoughts and emotions.” ~ Harvey Dorfman
“Simple truth: fast and busy are a choice. We choose to go fast and be busy because we think it’ll get us what we want. All too often, it doesn’t. Fast and busy makes life brittle. It makes us feel like every inch of space in life is locked in and there’s no room to move. Instead of unlocking productivity and potential, it throttles both. It deludes us into feeling like we’re getting more done faster, but in reality, we could get the same done in the same or less time with more grace by dialing it back, not forward. In the end, we’re left feeling dissatisfied and helpless to extract ourselves from the process. Except we’re not. It’s all an illusion.” ~ Jonathan Fields, How To Live A Good Life
“Remember, the thing you strive for isn’t perfection; it’s not the easy win or the avoidance of failure. It’s the gift of growth, the opportunity for evolution. Life in a box is not life well lived.” ~ Jonathan Fields, How To Live A Good Life
“Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.” ~ Søren Kierkegaard, via How To Live A Good Life