A bore is a man who, when you ask him how he is, tells you.
~ Bert Taylor
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A bore →
Not just fear, but reality →
Overwhelm from tasks, messages, and more is completely normal. It’s based on a fear that we can’t handle everything coming our way. That we’re going to fail at juggling all of these balls, and drop them, and be a failure. It’s a fear of inadequacy, that shows up as anxiety.
~ Leo Babauta, from Transforming Overwhelm into a Creative, Productive Energy
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It’s not just a “fear” that we can’t handle everything coming our way. It’s the reality for me. I’m ambitious to a fault and I set myself up daily for far too much. As always, Babauta has the keys for pivoting away from the overwhelm, into the possibilities of progress.
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Acceptance →
My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations.
~ Michael J. Fox
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Dance while we can →
Yes, guilty, are happy. Today, lost none of our number. All still here. Will not be here forever. But all here now.
~ George Saunders, from The Moron Factory
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This short story is written in a style that feels like text messaging. However, do not let that make you miss reading it.
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Freedom →
I think freedom, ideally, is being able to choose your responsibilities. Not not having any responsibilities, but being able to choose which things you want to be responsible for.
~ Toni Morrison
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Perspective →
Maybe it’s the nature of the binary times that we’re in that makes it very, very difficult to applaud one thing without condemning another. I think we’re afraid to take a victory lap, and maybe we should be. Maybe that’s just a bit premature or arrogant.
~ Nick Gillespie, from Mike Rowe on Patriotism, Paul Harvey, and American Progress
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The same question (can we applaud one thing without condeming other things?) arises with eulogies. I say we can. The key is to know and understand the broader context that we’re—just for a little while—ignoring.
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Professionalism →
The essence of professionalism is the focus upon the work and its demands, while we are doing it, to the exclusion of all else. The ancient Spartans schooled themselves to regard the enemy, any enemy, as nameless and faceless. In other words, they believed that if they did their work, no force on Earth could stand against them.
~ Steven Pressfield
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Self-forgiveness →
But what about self-forgiveness? Is it morally valuable, or just something we do to make ourselves feel better? And what is self-forgiveness, anyway?
~ Mordechai Gordon, from Self-forgiveness is more than self-comfort − a philosopher explains
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This is one of those topics that I thought I understood… until I started reading more about it.
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Review each day →
I will keep constant watch over myself and—most usefully—will put each day up for review. For this is what makes life evil—that none of us looks back upon our own lives. We reflect upon only that which we are about to do. And yet our plans for the future descend from the past.
~ Seneca
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Complainer heal thyself →
And so I’ve been learning to find the complainer in myself, and bring love to him. This is transformative! It means it’s OK for me to have complaint, to feel put upon, to not be happy or grateful. This is a permission to just be how I am right now — which is sometimes full of complaint.
~ Leo Babauta, from Transforming Our Complaints into Something Generative
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Some days I really wish I could just let go of all this blogging shenanigans. But it does force me to do a lot of reading, and that means I’m periodically reminded to pay attention to what Babauta is saying.
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