“There is, in fact, no word in Japanese that means retire in the sense of ‘leaving the workforce for good’ as in English. According to Dan Buettner, a National Geographic reporter who knows the country well, having a purpose in life is so important in Japanese culture that our idea of retirement simply doesn’t exist there.”
Héctor García and Francesc Miralles, Ikigai (Page 10)
What’s your goal?
“When I finish the day’s work, I turn my mind off. The office is closed. The work has been handed off to the Unconscious, to the Muse. I respect her. I give her her time. If I see family or friends, I never talk about what I’m working on. I politely deflect any queries. But beyond not talking with others, I refuse to talk to myself. I don’t obsess. I don’t worry. I don’t second-guess. I let it rest. The office is closed.”
Steven Pressfield, Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be (Page 79)
“Work is good, but it should not become an addiction. Many people have turned their work into a drug so that they can forget themselves in it—just like a drunkard forgetting himself in alcohol. One should be as capable of nondoing as of doing—then one is free. One should be capable of sitting, not doing anything, as perfectly and beautifully and blissfully as when one is working hard and doing many things; then one is flexible.
Osho, Everyday Osho (Page 235)
“Here’s my frame of mind as I sit down to work: This is the day. There is no other day. This is the day. In other words, I release every thought that smacks of, ‘Maybe we can do this some other time.’ There is no other time. Today is the Superbowl. Today is the day I give birth. Today is the day I die.”
Steven Pressfield, Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be (Page 74)
“When you and I put our ass where our heart wants to be, the universe responds. We change. We see ourselves differently. But others, sometimes those we are not aware of (and whom we have no idea are aware of us), see us differently too. They may come to our aid in ways we could never have predicted and by some word or act of kindness change everything.”
Steven Pressfield, Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be (Page 41)
Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be [Book]
Book Overview: Are you losing your “war of art”? Are you being defeated by a tendency to procrastination, self-doubt, fear, distraction, and perfectionism? Are you self-sabotaging your loftiest artistic entrepreneurial dreams? The antidote is in nine words: Put your ass where your heart wants to be. Can you shift your artistic identity—your “ass”—from the shallow, fearful, superficial ego to the wise, loving, fearless self? Can you commit to your dream for the long haul and for keeps? In this book, best-selling author Steven Pressfield delivers the tough-love inspiration to help you make this life-altering transformation.
“Work is love made visible.
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet (Page 26)
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine. And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.”
“Instead of asking, ‘How much do I value this item?’ we should ask, ‘If I did not own this item, how much would I pay to obtain it?’ We can do the same for opportunities and commitment. Don’t ask, ‘How will I feel if I miss out on this opportunity?’ but rather, ‘If I did not have this opportunity, how much would I be willing to sacrifice in order to obtain it?’ Similarly, we can ask, ‘If I wasn’t already involved in this project, how hard would I work to get on it?'”
Greg McKeown, Essentialism (Page 149)
“Your profession should only be one part of life. It should not overlap into every dimension of your life, as ordinarily it does. A doctor becomes almost a twenty-four-hour doctor. He thinks about it, he talks about it. Even when he is eating, he is a doctor. While he is making love, he is a doctor. Then it is madness; it is insane. My suggestion is that you work for five or six hours. Use the remaining hours for other things: for sleep, for music, for poetry, for meditation, for love, or for just fooling around. That too is needed. If a person becomes too wise and cannot fool around, he becomes heavy, somber, serious. He misses life.”
Osho, Everyday Osho (Page 87)
“If we’re only excited when people say nice things about our work, it’s a sign that we’re not passionate about the work itself. And if we indulge our interests and skills, but nobody responds to them, then our passion is without purpose. If either piece is missing, we’re not living our dharma.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 97)
“In a way, overwork is selfish (no matter how much the workaholic claims they are doing it for other people). Because it deprives them and the world of that later fertility. It causes needless breakdown and injury. As Seneca observed, ‘Constant work gives rise to a certain kind of dullness and feebleness in the rational soul.’ Nobody likes the person who is all business all the time. So go out and live today. Rest from your labor. Come back better for it. Come back improved and sharper for it. That’s the idea.”
Ryan Holiday
“Don’t be distracted by anything. The work is what counts. There are a lot of things that can get in your way, that take up your time and your emotional and intellectual energy; none of them account for anything. They mean nothing. The only thing, in the final analysis, at this stage of the game, that really counts, is the work. The work is everything. The years that I spent in advertising I saw an awful lot of people who had the potential to be good lose a lot of their ability to distraction, to politics, to fear, and to who has the bigger office. You’ll get the bigger office; you’ll make the money. Anything you want will happen, but sometimes it’s hard for people to see that when they’re in the middle of it. It looks like it’s incredibly complicated. Well, it’s not complicated at all. In fact, it’s so uncomplicated it’s amazing. All it is about is the work. Finally, if you do the work people will notice and you will get what you want. That’s it. It’s as simple as that.”
Tom McElligott
