“Stopping was equally as powerful as going; resting was equally as powerful as training; silence was equally as powerful as talking. Letting go was equally as powerful as grasping. ‘Surrender’ to me no longer meant defeat—it was now an equally powerful tool of manifestation. Losing could be equal to winning in terms of my growth and development.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 387)
“‘Surrender’ had always been a negative word for me—it meant losing or failing or giving up. But my burgeoning relationship with the ocean was exposing that my sense of control was actually an illusion. Surrender transformed from a weakness word to an infinite power concept. I had had a bias toward action—thrusting, pushing, striving, struggling, doing—and I began to realize that their opposites were equally as powerful—inaction, receptiveness, acceptance, non-resistance, being.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 387)
“There is a Buddhist parable that has guided me through many a perilous transition: A man is standing on the banks of a treacherous, raging river. It’s rainy season—if he can’t get to the other side, he’s done. He quickly builds a raft and uses it to safely cross the river. In joyous relief, he high-fives himself, lifts the raft, and heads toward the forest. But as he attempts to make his way through the dense tree cover, the raft is banging and knocking into trees and becoming entangled in vines, preventing him from moving forward. He only has one chance for survival: He must leave the raft behind—the vessel that saved his life yesterday is the same one that will kill him today if he does not let it go.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 193)
“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
“You’re not trying to become non attached. You’re trying to move towards non attachment every time you get scared of a loss. For most people, they’ve never been non attached for one second in their whole life. So even the fact that they can move towards that is helpful for them. So the goal is not to become completely non attached. No. It’s work towards no one person, place, or thing leaving you can completely take away your whole existence and your sense of wholeness.”
Phil Stutz, Stutz
“The average person wants to get paid back. They want everything to be fair. They want everything to be balanced. But you’re not gonna get it from them. The way you feel you’re getting paid, the way you feel things are being rebalanced, is to get your satisfaction from the exercise [forgiveness/ letting go/ love] itself. That’s called Active Love.”
Phil Stutz, Stutz
“The only time you’re going to really hold onto the past is when you haven’t fully learned from the past. When you have, you can apply those lessons to the present moment and create what you wanted to experience then.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 226)
