“One of the great gifts of sports is learning how to fail in public. People never go to the gym because they’re scared of looking stupid, never share their writing because they’re scared of judgment, never open their heart because they’re scared of rejection. Sports train you to face your fear.”
James Clear, Blog
“Complete outer calmness is impossible. But when there are some calm periods, we should appreciate them and make them last longer. This is the time when useful thoughts appear; they become stronger and guide us in life.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 307)
“If you come across any special trait of meanness or stupidity… you must be careful not to let it annoy or distress you, but to look upon it merely as an addition to your knowledge—a new fact to be considered in studying the character of humanity. Your attitude towards it will be that of the mineralogist who stumbles upon a very characteristic specimen of a mineral.”
Arthur Schopenhauer, via The Daily Laws (Page 368)
“Even the longest biography is only 66 hours on audio. This means that the author has to leave out almost everything. We write our own autobiography each day by deciding what to focus on, what to rehash, and what to worry about. The same life story can be told in many ways, and the way we tell it changes who we are and who we become. Who is editing your version?”
Seth Godin, Blog
“Life throws stuff at us. We have to figure out how to catch it and throw it back. That’s what Epictetus meant when he said we don’t control what happens, we control how we respond. But he also liked that throwing metaphor–and clearly was more than a casual fan of sports. Epictetus admired the way that skilled athletes caught the ball that was thrown to them and whipped the ball right back. They didn’t complain. They didn’t demand certain conditions be met before they dove for it. He admired their concentration, their coolness under pressure, their grace, their creativity.”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“If we looked at ourselves closely and honestly, we would have to admit that the moment we enter our workspace or any group, we undergo a change. We easily slip into more primitive modes of thinking and behaving, without realizing it. Around others, we naturally tend to feel insecure as to what they think of us. We feel pressure to fit in, and to do so, we begin to shape our thoughts and beliefs to the group orthodoxies […] To resist this downward pull that groups inevitably exert on us, we must conduct a kind of experiment in human nature with a simple goal in mind—to develop the ability to detach ourselves from the group and create some mental space for true independent thinking.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 364)
“We, with our mindset, can make people respond to us in a friendly or unfriendly manner, depending on our anxiety or openness. We shape much of the reality that we perceive, dictated by our moods and emotions.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 362)
“My life it seems is a life of self-examination: a self-peeling of my self, bit by bit, day by day. More and more it’s becoming simple to me as a human being [as] more and more I search [within] myself. And more and more the questions become listed. And more and more I see clearly. It is not a question of developing what has already been developed but of recovering what has been left behind. Though this has been with us, in us, all the time and has never been lost or distorted except for our misguided manipulation of it.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 182)
“To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person. Relationship is a process of self-revelation. Relationship is the mirror in which you discover yourself—to be is to be related.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 181)
“Envy is perhaps the ugliest human emotion. Destroy it before it destroys you. Develop your sense of self-worth from internal standards and not incessant comparisons.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 359)
A person who loves himself has the advantage of having very few competitors.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 297)
“The problem lies in asking somebody else to solve your own problem instead of asking yourself. I can give you ten thousand of my ways, but they are my way, not yours. An individual’s questions are answerable only by the individual himself, and nothing would be gained by his sitting in on a recital of mine.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 179)
“Like sympathy, compassion begins with feeling bad for someone. But instead of simply wanting the person’s suffering to go away, compassion involves someone who is willing to suffer alongside that person so that they may overcome their challenges. Sympathy is sending flowers and a card to a friend when a parent dies. Compassion is driving to their house and holding them as they cry. Sympathy is letting a screaming child have that toy they want so they’ll stop screaming. Compassion is letting them cry because you know they will be better off once they understand that they can’t always get what they want. Sympathy is changing your profile picture on social media for whatever the new cause du jour is. Compassion is actually giving time or money to victims, listening to their stories, helping them rebuild their lives.”
Mark Manson
“It’s OK to cry. When Marcus’ [Aurelius] tutor died, he cried uncontrollably. He wouldn’t allow anyone to try to calm him down or remind him of the need for a prince to maintain his composure. ‘Neither philosophy nor empire,’ Marcus’s stepfather Antoninus said, ‘takes away natural feeling.’ The same goes for you. No matter how much philosophy you’ve read. No matter how much older you’ve gotten or how important your position or how many eyes are on you. It’s OK to cry. You’re only human. It’s okay to act like one.”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“Simple mindset shifts: I’m not hurt, I’m healing; I’m not losing, I’m learning; I was not rejected, I was redirected. Negative things happen. Negative mindsets make them harder.”
James Clear, Blog
“All of us can live a much easier existence if we stopped expecting greatness and started expecting something less. At least when you expect failure in everything that you do, you start living your life doing the shit you actually want to do versus doing the shit you think will help you achieve some unpromised outcome.”
Cole Schafer
“We constantly feel emotions, and they continually infect our thinking, making us veer toward thoughts that please us and soothe our egos. It is impossible to not have our inclinations and feelings somehow involved in what we think. Rational people are aware of this and through introspection and effort are able, to some extent, to subtract emotions from their thinking and counteract their effect. Irrational people have no such awareness. They rush into action without carefully considering the ramifications and consequences.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 355)
“If, every time there’s a dish in the sink, you load and run the dishwasher and scrub the entire kitchen, you’re never going to get anything else done. On the other hand, if you wait until the sink is overflowing and the kitchen is filthy before you work on it, you’re going to spend a lot of time living with a dirty kitchen. Somewhere in between the two extremes is a productive steady state. The same goes for your relationship with a customer, your staffing decisions and just about everything else we do all day. Setting the triggers for action is best done in advance, and maintained regularly. Waiting for a crisis is expensive and risky.”
Seth Godin, Blog
“Real love refers not just to love for a particular person but to the spiritual state of loving everyone.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 290)