Reflection: Day 24

TAKE ACTION — “Action’s ecstasy is instantaneous and compounding: Even if for the millionth time, it works its magic. Its trigger is sure: All you do is peel your ass off the bottom of whatever hole you are in, and climb!” ~ Bryan Ward


Are you surprised by your thoughts’, and your mind’s, complexity? Are you amazed? Are you empowered?

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Arrived in the middle? Visit the first post, Where to begin?
(The entire series is available to download as a PDF ebook.)

Action’s ecstasy

Action’s ecstasy is instantaneous and compounding: even if for the millionth time, it works its magic. Its trigger is sure: All you do is peel your ass off the bottom of whatever hole you’re in, and climb.

~ Bryan Ward from, The #1 Drug For Dads

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I can vouch for the potentcy of this drug. And it’s method of action is clear: With each small action which demonstrates one can affect one’s environment, the pattern of learned helplessness is broken.

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Move or die

Suffering long and mild, leading nowhere of consequence…

And suffering swift, short, and harrowing… leading to the life you long for.

We take to the former gladly, happy to stagger down tortuous but clear paths.

But it is the brief, blind leaps that change the game entirely.

~ Bryan Ward from, Move Or Die

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Reading anything written by Bryan Ward is like playing with a sharp knife: You will get cut, and you will learn a very valuable lesson.

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Stop aspiring

But if aspiring was our true fulcrum, you’d be on your throne already. Here’s the truth: It’s not the heights we aspire to but the FLOOR WE PUT UP WITH that determines our place.

~ Bryan Ward from, Stop Aspiring

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A good friend recently said something to the effect of, “Life is full of compromises which you cannot avoid. So don’t compromise with yourself.”

I find both of these things are very useful for me to keep in mind.

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The myth of the bloodless calling

I don’t care how much you say you love your work. If your vision is bold enough, there will soon be a point where your passion is used up before the work ends. Enjoyment does not carry you far enough when you are sailing epic waters.

~ Bryan Ward

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Stop hoarding your best

Creative hoarding is different than other kinds of hoarding. You’re not withholding your treasure from others, you’re withholding it from yourself. You are denying yourself permission to take the best of what you have, here and now, and make it manifest in the world.

~ Bryan Ward

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1 “realistic” belief

This growing discontent is a warning: a message to stop dissipating your powers in low-level problem solving, to lift your aim and seek better, higher-order problems: ones more lucrative, more alluring… ones better suited to your highest gifts.

~ Bryan Ward

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