We must master ourselves unless we’d prefer to be mastered by someone or something else.
The pivotal moment for Florence Nightingale was the realization that she was never going to be given what she knew she needed. She discovered, as she wrote in her journal, that she’d need to take it. She had to demand the life she wanted.
Start small... on something big.
Our duty is to do the right thing – right now.
In the world’s broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife! – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
A sitting president – the man who led the Rough Riders on a suicidal charge, who hunted bears, who had conquered a crippling childhood illness, who had beaten depression and grief and a million other obstacles – was scared of what people might think.
That’s the question the world is asking sometimes. It knows we’re brave, so it wants to know: Death or kintsugi? Will you find a way to become stronger at the broken places? Or will you so cling to your old ways that you will be shattered? A hero gets back up. They heal. They grow. For themselves and others.
There’s a great expression: Whatever you’re not changing, you’re choosing. Later, you’re going to wish you did something. Whether it’s leaving an abusive relationship or starting a company, don’t fight it – decide it. Now.
As they say, another way to spell “perfectionism” is p-a-r-a-l-y-s-i-s.
Waste not a second questioning another man’s courage. Put that scrutiny solely on your own.
Virtue” can seem old-fashioned. Yet virtue – arete – translates to something very simple and very timeless: Excellence. Moral. Physical. Mental. In the ancient world, virtue was comprised of four key components. Courage. Temperance. Justice. Wisdom.
It’s not just: How can I think this is not so bad? No, it is how to will yourself to see that this must be good – an opportunity to gain a new foothold, move forward, or go in a better direction. Not “be positive” but learn to be ceaselessly creative and opportunistic. Not: This is not so bad. But: I can make this good. Because it can be done. In fact, it has and is being done. Every day.
You don’t have to always be amazing. You do always have to show up. What matters is sticking around for the next at bat.
Always do what you are afraid to do,” Ralph Waldo Emerson said. Or as William James wrote, we want to “make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy.” When we make things automatic, then there is less for us to think about – less room for us to do the wrong thing. There.
As Pressfield concludes, the opposite of fear – the true virtue contrasted with that vice – was not fearlessness. The opposite of fear is love. Love for one another. Love for ideas. Love for your country. Love for the vulnerable and the weak. Love for the next generation. Love for all.
The fact is, the body keeps score.
Most happy people don’t need you to know how happy they are – they aren’t thinking about you at all.
Jesus told his disciples not to worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will take care of itself.
Soldiers and comrades in this adventure,” he said. “I hope that none of you in our present strait will think to show his wit by exactly calculating all the perils that encompass us, but that you will rather hasten to close with the enemy, without staying to count the odds, seeing in this your best chance of safety. In emergencies like ours calculation is out of place; the sooner the danger is faced the better.
Don’t let your reflection on the whole sweep of life crush you,” Marcus Aurelius said. “Don’t fill your mind with all the bad things that might still happen. Stay focused on the present situation and ask yourself why it’s so unbearable and can’t be survived.