“The greatest enemy of love is attachment. Why? Because it tries to disguise itself as love. There is a similarity between closeness and clinging that easily confuses the mind. A well- fed connection between two people can create a nurturing feeling of closeness while a fear of loss or craving to control creates the type of clinging that tries to grasp another person with tension. Closeness can foster a relationship, while clinging can stifle a relationship and drain it of love. Attachment is at the root of behaviors that lead to relationships breaking. Love is meant to be grounded in freedom. Attachment is an opposing force to freedom; it tries to keep things the same, while freedom understands that change is ultimately good.”
Yung Pueblo
“When you start protecting your time, something interesting happens. People who depend on you learn to plan better themselves. They start respecting your boundaries. And the stuff that’s truly urgent becomes clear. Will some people be disappointed? Definitely. And that’s okay. Because building a meaningful life sometimes means disappointing others to avoid constantly disappointing yourself. How you spend your time is a reflection of your priorities. And you don’t need to apologize for prioritizing what matters to you.”
Justin Welsh
“When we habitually prioritize other people’s urgencies, we’re really setting a precedent that our time (and our family’s time) is less important than anything else that might pop up. Our goals are less important. Our boundaries aren’t real. When we drop our work to handle someone else’s emergency, we reinforce a dangerous message: Your poor planning is more important than my well-planned day.”
Justin Welsh
“It’s easy to assume that getting rich in money will also mean you are rich in time, but it is often the case that when you earn more money, you end up with less time and more responsibilities. Being rich is nice, but what you really want to optimize for is (1) an income that exceeds your spending by a healthy margin and (2) a lifestyle that is free from rushing.”
James Clear
“The purpose of letting go is not to erase emotions, but to acknowledge their presence and transform your relationship to them. Being able to let go while a tough emotion is passing through helps us be okay with not being okay. Letting go reaches deeper levels when your observation of what is happening inside you is done with total acceptance and when you remember that every part of life is impermanent. Especially in the mind, adding more tension to the tension that is already there will not make things better. When tension is met with unconditional acceptance, it has the space it needs to naturally unfold and release. Unloading and facing the mental weight of past hurt is never easy, but it is possible, especially when you feel ready for a great transformation.”
Yung Pueblo
“To the right of my computer monitor, between two photos of my boys, is a picture given to me by the sports psychologist Jonathan Fader. It’s the famed Dr. Oliver Sacks and behind him is a large sign he kept in his office that just said NO! By saying no—to interviews, to meetings, to ‘Can I pick your brain for a minute?’—I was saying yes to what matters: my family. My work. My sanity.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 307)
“Precisely when we think we’ve earned the right to relax our discipline is exactly when we need it most. The payoff for all our efforts? So much more temptation. So many more distractions. So many more opportunities. The only solution? Even more self-mastery! Achieving things is great. Becoming a selfish jerk because you accomplished them? Thinking you’re suddenly better or matter more than anyone else? C’mon.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 292)
“Don’t try to be efficient with your grief. Just like healing, moving through grief can be a messy process. An important thing to understand is that you can grieve for years while still living a full and enjoyable life. Letting go is not a quick process, feeling sadness is totally normal, the heaviness of loss can sit in your heart for a long time. The sadness may come up over and over again, sometimes triggered by something small, let it arise and pass away. Let yourself experience grief in an organic manner. Losing someone essential to your life is not an easy thing to overcome.”
Yung Pueblo
“Queen Elizabeth inherited the monarchy. Marcus Aurelius was selected for the purple as a boy. But it wasn’t the throne that made either of them kingly, it was their behavior. They were what the ancients called first citizens, for their character as much as their rank. As Marcus said, his aim was never to be the most powerful king, never to conquer the most territory, or build the most beautiful buildings. Instead, he was after ‘perfection of character: to live your last day, every day, without frenzy or sloth or pretense.’ It just happens that wonderful external accomplishments, like those achieved by Elizabeth and Marcus, can come out of internal endeavor. They are not the goal, they are the byproduct.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 283)
“In the end, it’s not about what we do, it’s about how we do it and, by extension, who we are. Too often, we find people choosing to be great at their profession over being a great human being, believing that success or art or fame or power must be pursued to the exclusion of all else. Does it have to be that way? Does being loved have to be at odds with being lovely?”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 282)
“Spend a handful of hours a day going fast. Crush a gym session. Do deep work on a project you care about. Spend the rest of the day going slow. Take walks. Read books. Get a long dinner with friends. Either way, avoid the anxious middle where you never truly relax or truly move forward.”
Charles Miller
“We keep on dumbly doing the same things we’ve always done… under the illusion it will someday bring about different results. We think it’s a sign of character that we won’t give in, when it may well be stupidity or weakness. Or we think that we can continue going forward forever, when in fact it is exactly this insatiability that often leads us right into the trap that the enemy laid for us. Hope is important but it is not a strategy. Denial is not the same thing as determination. Delusion is destruction. Greed will get you in the end.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 273)
“The person who can only go forward… who never backs up, who has no escape plan, who is not brave but reckless. They are not self-controlled, they are stuck in one gear. You don’t win everything, every time—not in war, in life, or in business. A person who doesn’t know how to disengage, to cut their losses, or to extricate themselves is a vulnerable person. A person who does not know how to lose will still lose… only more painfully so.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 272)
“Both peace and joy and their counterparts, non-reactiveness and present moment awareness, all stem from a particular quality of mind, equanimity. When the mind is balanced and steady, when it is taking in the world without clinging to it, when it is simply observing without judging, the mind is in a state of equanimity. The door to access the full beauty of life and the wisdom of the universe is opened by equanimity.”
Yung Pueblo