That’s what so many of us do when we fail or get ourselves into trouble. Lacking the ability to examine ourselves, we reinvest our energy into exactly the patterns of behavior that caused our problems to begin with.
Detachment is a sort of natural ego antidote.
To experience another person fully in the moment is a rare thing. To feel them engage with you, to be giving all their energy to you, as though there is nothing else that matters in the world, is rarer still.
It is why he serves as our model in this phase of our ascent.
We tend to think that ego equals confidence, which is what we need to be in charge. In fact, it can have the opposite effect.
Every project and goal deserves an approach fitted perfectly to what needs to be done.
It’s far better when doing good work is sufficient. In other words, the less attached we are to outcomes the better. When fulfilling our own standards is what fills us with pride and self-respect. When the effort – not the results, good or bad – is enough.
That’s a man who has a job to do and would bear anything to get it done.
The more skilled you become seeing things for what they are, the more perception will work for you rather than against.
We have only minimal control over the rewards for our work and effort – other people’s validation, recognition, rewards. So what are we going to do? Not be kind, not work hard, not produce, because there is a chance it wouldn’t be reciprocated? C’mon.
A great destiny, Seneca reminds us, is great slavery.
Yet it’s so revealing in these moments, when we’re privately, powerfully yearning for something, just how nakedly selfish our requests usually are. We want divine intervention so that our lives will magically be easier. But what about asking for fortitude and strength so you can do what you need to do?
In these situations, talent is not the most sought-after characteristic. Grace and poise are, because these two attributes precede the opportunity to deploy any other skill.
To the Epicureans real pleasure was about freedom from pain and agitation. If wanting something makes you miserable while you don’t have it, doesn’t that diminish the true value of the reward?
We should enjoy this brief time we have on earth – not be enslaved to emotions that make us miserable and dissatisfied.
Suddenly,” Hakuin promised his students, “unexpectedly your teeth sink in. Your body will pour with cold sweat. At the instant, it will all become clear.” The word for this was satori – an illuminating insight when the inscrutable is revealed, when an essential truth becomes obvious and inescapable.
If you give things more time and energy than they deserve, they’re no longer lesser things.
Fear is debilitating, distracting, tiring, and often irrational. Pericles understood this completely, and he was able to use the power of perspective to defeat it. The.
Facts are better than dreams, as Churchill put it.
Think of what you have been putting off. Issues you declined to deal with. Systemic problems that felt too overwhelming to address. Dead time is revived when we use it as an opportunity to do what we’ve long needed to do.