“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
“All the things you’re worried about potentially happening in the future are in fact happening right now somewhere in the world. All the things you’re not sure you could handle… people have been handling since the beginning of time. Nothing new looms, only reruns of what you’ve already experienced or read about in the annals of history.”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“The future is only an illusion inferred from our present state. What is important is not the length of life, but the depth of life. What is most important is not to make life longer, but to take your soul out of time, as every sublime act does. Only then does your life become fulfilled. And do not ask yourself questions about time. Jesus did not explain a thing about the eternity of life, but his influence brought people to the eternal.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 345)
“Look, no matter where you live, the biggest defect we human beings have is our shortsightedness. We don’t see what we could be. We should be looking at our potential, stretching ourselves into everything we can become. But if you’re surrounded by people who say ‘I want mine now,’ you end up with a few people with everything and a military to keep the poor ones from rising up and stealing it.”
Morrie Schwartz, via Tuesdays With Morrie (Page 156)
“We’re in a freefall into future. We don’t know where we’re going. Things are changing so fast, and always when you’re going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. And all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It’s a very interesting shift of perspective and that’s all it is… joyful participation in the sorrows and everything changes.”
Joseph Campbell, The Hero’s Journey
“The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.”
Swedish proverb, via Sunbeams (Page 86)
“Psychoanalysts are fond of pointing out that the past is alive in the present. But the future is alive in the present too. The future is not some place we’re going to, but an idea in our mind now. It is something we’re creating, that in turn creates us. The future is a fantasy that shapes our present.”
Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life (Page 157)
Abraham Lincoln Quote on The Future and How It Only Comes One Day At A Time
“The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.”
Abraham Lincoln, Sunbeams (Page 12)
Beyond the Quote (Day 381)
This is great news because it means you don’t have to have your whole life figured out right now. I think sometimes people forget that. The fear of not knowing how everything is going to play out in a year, five years, ten years, their lifetime—causes many people unnecessary anxiety and stress. And while it’s certainly beneficial to have a one year, five year, ten year, lifetime plan/ goal/ direction—it shouldn’t steal you away from what’s available to you now.
Read More »Abraham Lincoln Quote on The Future and How It Only Comes One Day At A Time“For if we open our eyes and see clearly, it becomes obvious that there is no other time than this instant, and that the past and the future are abstractions without any concrete reality. Until this has become clear, it seems that our life is all past and future, and that the present is nothing more than the infinitesimal hairline which divides them. From this comes the sensation of ‘having no time,’ of a world which hurries by so rapidly that it is gone before we can enjoy it. But through ‘awakening to the instant’ one sees that this is the reverse of the truth: it is rather the past and future which are the fleeting illusions, and the present which is eternally real.”
Alan Watts, The Way of Zen, via Sunbeams (Page 12)
Andy Andrews Quote on Creating a New Future and No Longer Dwelling On The Past
“Beginning today, I will create a new future by creating a new me. No longer will I dwell in a pit of despair, moaning over squandered time and lost opportunity. I can do nothing about the past. My future is immediate. I will grasp it in both hands and carry it with running feet. When I am faced with the choice of doing nothing or doing something, I will always choose to act! I seize this moment. I choose now.”
Andy Andrews
Beyond the Quote (196/365)
One of the best ways to build a better lifestyle is to focus less on trying to break bad habits and to focus more on building new, better habits. One of the best ways to feel better when you’re hurt is to focus less on analyzing the pain and to focus more on doing what heals you. One of the best ways to overcome hate is to focus less on the hate and to focus more on love. This is all to say, one of the best ways to move on from a rough past is to focus on building a better future.
Read More »Andy Andrews Quote on Creating a New Future and No Longer Dwelling On The Past“Great people have a vision of their lives that they practice emulating each and every day. They go to work on their lives, not just in their lives. Their lives are spent living out the vision they have of their future, in the present. They compare what they’ve done with what they intended to do. And where there’s a disparity between the two, they don’t wait very long to make up the difference.”
Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page 139)
Iain Thomas Quote On Giving People A Chance and How Everyone Is Someone
“Joan of Arc came back as a little girl in Japan, and her father told her to stop listening to her imaginary friends. Elvis was born again in a small village in Sudan, he died hungry, age 9, never knowing what a guitar was. Michelangelo was drafted into the military at age 18 in Korea, he painted his face black with shoe polish and learned to kill. Jackson Pollock got told to stop making a mess, somewhere in Russia. Hemingway, to this day, writes DVD instruction manuals somewhere in China. He’s an old man on a factory line. You wouldn’t recognize him. Gandhi was born to a wealthy stockbroker in New York. He never forgave the world after his father threw himself from his office window, on the 21st floor. And everyone, somewhere, is someone, if we only give them a chance.“
Iain Thomas, I Wrote This For You
Beyond the Quote (176/365)
What do you see when you look into the eyes of another human being? Do you see a person for what they appear to be? Do you see them for who they were? Do you see them for who they could be? It depends on the person, I suppose. When I look into the eyes of another human being, I try to see someone who, when given a chance, can become somebody. Somebody who has limitless potential inside that is only but waiting to be molded and realized. Somebody who is capable of great things. Somebody who can make a real difference in their world. I see this in almost everyone. But, not everybody sees it in themselves or others.
Read More »Iain Thomas Quote On Giving People A Chance and How Everyone Is Someone