Often we don’t have a good notion of what our talents are, because we have never had a chance to try them out.
Try to be surprised by something every day.
If you’re alone with nothing to do, the quality of your experience really plummets.
To gain control over the quality of experience, one needs to learn how to build enjoyment into what happens day in, day out.
We can transform reality to the extent that we influence what happens in consciousness and thus free ourselves from the threats and blandishments of the outside world.
Take charge of your schedule. Make time for reflection and relaxation.
I have a naive trust in the universe – that at some level it all makes sense, and we can get glimpses of that sense if we try.
People without an internalized symbolic system can all too easily become captives of the media.
Pleasure is an important component of the quality of life, but by itself it does not bring happiness. Pleasure helps to maintain order, but by itself cannot create a new order in consciousness.
The most important step in emancipating oneself from social controls is the ability to find rewards in the events of each moment.
Happiness is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person.
When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. They become rigid and defensive, and their self stops growing.
Those periods of struggling to overcome challenges are what people find to be the most enjoyable times.
To play the trumpet well, a musician can not let more than a few days pass without practicing.
In large organizations the dilution of information as it passes up and down the hierarchy, and horizontally across departments, can undermine the effort to focus on common goals.
For a person to become deeply involved in any activity it is essential that he knows precisely what tasks he must accomplish, moment by moment.
The more a person feels skilled, the more her moods will improve; while the more challenges that are present, the more her attention will become focused and concentrated.
The mood state Americans are in, on average, when watching television is mildly depressed.
Whether we like it or not, each of us is constrained by limits on what we can do and feel. To ignore these limits leads to denial and eventually to failure. To achieve excellence, we must first understand the reality of the everyday, with all its demands.
It is how we choose what we do, and how we approach it, that will determine whether the sum of our days adds up to a formless blur, or to something resembling a work of art.