“When I think back to my childhood, I visualize my father, my mother, and Gigi arranged as a philosophical triangle. My father was one side of the triangle: discipline. He taught me how to work, how to be relentless. He instilled in me an ethic that ‘It’s better to die than to quit.’ My mother: education. She believed that knowledge was the irrevocable key to a successful life. She wanted me to study, to learn, to grow, to cultivate a deep and broad understanding, to either ‘know what you’re talking about or be quiet.’ Gigi: love (God). Whereas I tried to please my mother and father so I wouldn’t get into trouble, I wanted to please Gigi so that I could bathe in that transcendent ecstasy of divine love. These three ideas—discipline, education, love—would fight for my attention throughout the rest of my life.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 39)
“Gigi didn’t make a distinction between your burdens and her own. She truly believed the message of the Gospel. She saw loving and serving others not as a responsibility but as an honor. She was joyfully her brothers’ and sisters’ keeper.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 38)
“The bigger the fantasy you live, the more painful the inevitable collision with reality. If you cultivate the fantasy that your marriage will be forever joyful and effortless, then reality is going to pay you back in equal proportion to your delusion. If you live the fantasy that making money will earn you love, then the universe will slap you awake, in the tune of a thousand angry voices.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 27)
“Fortune is not out to get you. Life is not picking on you. This is just what’s happening, period. It happens to involve you…but it does not revolve around you.“
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“Mom-mom would never say it to Daddio, but she would repeat all the time, ‘Never argue with a fool, because from a distance, people can’t tell who’s who.’ So when she would stop arguing with you, you knew what she thought of your position.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 20)
“How we decide to respond to our fears, that is the person we become.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 14)
“He hit her again, knocking her to the ground. She stood right back up, looked him in the eye, and calmly said, ‘Hit me all you want, but you can never hurt me.’ I have never forgotten that. The idea that he could hit her body but somehow she was in control of what ‘hurt’ her? I wanted to be strong like that.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 13)
“No action should be undertaken without aim, or other than in conformity with a principle affirming the art of life.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 23)
“We will not take personally a slight or a screw-up we have been guilty of ourselves—because we remember that when we did it, it was not personal or even intentional. When we recall how dumb we were when we were young, we won’t be so quick to judge the generation coming after us. When we consider all the current beliefs we will be judged for by that generation, perhaps we can be a little more tolerant of the older generation in front of us. We’ve all messed up. We will all continue to mess up. Does it really benefit us—is it really fair—to go around condemning people for mistakes we’ve made ourselves? For going astray as we have gone astray? No. It doesn’t.”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“If you set yourself to your present task along the path of true reason, with all determination, vigour, and good will: if you admit no distraction, but keep your own divinity pure and standing strong, as if you had to surrender it right now; if you grapple this to you, expecting nothing, shirking nothing, but self-content with each present action taken in accordance with nature and a heroic truthfulness in all that you say and mean—then you will lead a good life. And nobody is able to stop you.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 21)
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
Helen Schuman, A Course in Miracles
“Shame is past-obsessed. One way of overcoming shame is to become future-obsessed. Stop focusing on what’s broken. Instead, focus on what can be built. For one week, focus on what you can add to your life: a new hobby, a new friend, a new skill. Then go make an effort to add it.”
Mark Manson, The Breakthrough
“Peak experiences are fun, but you always have to come back. Learning to appreciate ordinary moments is the key to a fulfilling life.”
Cory Muscara, Twitter
“Real confidence looks like humility. You no longer need to advertise your value because it comes from a place that does not require the validation of others.”
Cory Muscara, Twitter
“The belief that there is some future moment more worth our presence than the one we’re in right now is why we miss our lives.”
Cory Muscara, Twitter
“The more comfortable you become in your own skin, the less you need to manufacture the world around you for comfort.”
Cory Muscara, Twitter
“You don’t find your ground by looking for stability. You find your ground by relaxing into instability.”
Cory Muscara, Twitter
“Desires that arise in agitation are more aligned with your ego. Desires that arise in stillness are more aligned with your soul.”
Cory Muscara, Twitter