Wise men are able to make a fitting use even of their enmities. – PLUTARCH.
Start by learning the power of “No!” – as in “No, thank you,” and “No, I’m not going to get caught up in that,” and “No, I just can’t right now.” It may hurt some feelings. It may turn people off. It may take some hard work. But the more you say no to the things that don’t matter, the more you can say yes to the things that do.
Steven Pressfield calls this force The Resistance. As he put it in The War of Art, “We don’t tell ourselves, ‘I’m never going to write my symphony.’ Instead we say, ‘I’m going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start tomorrow.
Not to aspire or seek out of ego. To have success without ego. To push through failure with strength, not ego.
To see an obstacle as a challenge, to make the best of it anyway, that is also a choice – a choice that is up to us. Will I have a chance, Coach? Ta eph’hemin? Is this up to me?
The evidence is in, and you are the verdict. – ANNE LAMOTT.
Don’t let the force of an impression when it first hit you knock you off your feet; just say to it: Hold on a moment; let me see who you are and what you represent. Let me put you to the test. – EPICTETUS.
We cannot be in harmony with anyone or anything if the need for more, more, more is gnawing at our insides like a maggot.
Being well-trained, he becomes naturally gentle. Then, unfettered, he obeys his master.
He is a bold surgeon, they say, whose hand does not tremble when he performs an operation upon his own person; and he is often equally bold who does not hesitate to pull off the mysterious veil of self-delusion, which covers from his view the deformities of his own conduct. – ADAM SMITH.
Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
The material we’ve been given genetically, emotionally, financially, that’s where we begin. We don’t control that. We do control what we make of that material, and whether we squander it.
The Book of Five Rings, he notes the difference between observing and perceiving. The perceiving eye is weak, he wrote; the observing eye is strong.
Letters used to be signed “Deo volente” – God willing. Because who knew what would happen?
Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing and wherever we are going, we owe it to ourselves, to our art, to the world to do it well. That’s our primary duty. And our obligation. When action is our priority, vanity falls away.
The mixed martial arts pioneer and multi-title champion Frank Shamrock has a system he trains fighters in that he calls plus, minus, and equal. Each fighter, to become great, he said, needs to have someone better that they can learn from, someone lesser who they can teach, and someone equal that they can challenge themselves against.
You owe it to yourself and to the world to actively engage with the brief moment you have with this planet. You cannot retreat exclusively into ideas. You must contribute.
Confidence is the freedom to set your own standards and unshackle yourself from the need to prove yourself.
Where little danger is apprehended, the more the enemy will be unprepared and consequently there is the fairest prospect of success.
Who is so certain that they’ll get another moment that they can confidently skip over this one?