“No one can possibly do a better job of being you than you can. And the best version of you is the one who has committed to a way forward. Your work is never going to be good enough (for everyone). But it’s already good enough (for someone). Committing to a practice that makes our best better is all we can do.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 246)
“Ultimately, the goal is to become the best in the world at being you. To bring useful idiosyncrasy to the people you seek to change, and to earn a reputation for what you do and how you do it. The peculiar version of you, your assertions, your art.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 226)
“A genius is the one most like himself.”
Thelonious Monk, via The Practice
“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, day and night, to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight… It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
E. E. Cummings, via More Myself (Page 251)
“My mother was very strong about my doing well in school and living up to my potential. Two things were important to her and she repeated them endlessly. One was to ‘be a lady,’ and that meant conduct yourself civilly, don’t let emotions like anger or envy get in your way. And the other was to be independent, which was an unusual message for mothers of that time to be giving their daughters.”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, My Own Words
“You can’t be yourself if you don’t know who you are. So how do you know who you are? Everyone is a gooey batter of both nature and nurture, and every time shit hits the fan in our lives, we have an opportunity to get to know ourselves a bit better. It’s an exhausting experience, but it’s enriching. We learn about ourselves through all of our interactions with the world, both good and bad. So with everything you do, think about how it shapes who you are, and think about how who you are shapes your experience of everything you do.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 57)
Stephen Cope Quote on Being Yourself and How You Can’t Be Anyone You Want To Be
“You cannot be anyone you want to be. Your one and only shot at a fulfilled life is being yourself—whoever that is. Furthermore, at a certain age it finally dawns on us that, shockingly, no one really cares what we’re doing with our life. This is a most unsettling discovery to those of us who have lived someone else’s dream and eschewed our own: No one really cares except us. When you scratch the surface, you finally discover that it doesn’t really matter a whit who else you disappoint if you’re disappointing yourself. The only question that makes sense to ask is: Is your life working for you?”
Stephen Cope, The Great Work Of Your Life
Beyond the Quote (Day 4)
If your life isn’t working for you, then who is it working for? Are you working to please yourself or someone else? Are you fulfilling dreams that are uniquely your own or dreams that were bestowed upon you by your parents? Do you feel a sense of growth and contribution when you work or do you feel a sense of dread and purposelessness?
Read More »Stephen Cope Quote on Being Yourself and How You Can’t Be Anyone You Want To Be
“Too many of us succumb to a weak internal story informed by flawed but popular beliefs. We are reactionary to objective events, easily buffeted by the winds of change. Pop culture, people we interact with daily, and external events shape and reinforce this subjective reality. In these instances, we end up being extras in someone else’s story, reacting our way through life, lacking integrity and out of balance.” ~ Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal
“Everybody has a secret world inside of them. All of the people of the world, I mean everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside, inside them they’ve all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds. Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands maybe.” ~ Neil Gaiman, The Sandman
“You are special, and there is no need to want to be special. You are special, you are unique—existence never creates anything less than that. Everyone is unique, utterly unique. There has been no person like you before, and there will never be a person like you again. Consciousness has taken this form for the first time and the last time, so there is no need to try to become special: you already are. If you are trying to be special, you will become ordinary. Your very effort is rooted in misunderstanding. It will create confusion because when you try to become special, you have taken one thing for grated—that you are not special. You have become ordinary already. You have missed the point.” ~ Osho, Fame, Fortune, and Ambition
