Where to look when you are… faced with different choices
A Bag of Nails ~Unknown
There once was a young boy with a very bad temper. The boy's father wanted to teach him a lesson, so he gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper he must hammer a nail into their wooden fence.
We have so many options these days that we end up being pickers, not choosers, and that's a big part of the problem here. We don't decide what we want and then go get it. Things are shoved in our faces and then we shrug and say, "Okay, I guess." Basically, we let other people tell us what to do. — Barry Schwartz(resource) Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree
Ryan Holiday, The 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
My reasoned choice is is as indifferent to the reasoned choice of my neighbor, as to his breath and body. However much we've been made for cooperation, the ruling reason in each of us is master of its own affairs. If this weren't the case, the evil in someone else could become my harm, and God didn't mean for someone else to control my misfortune.— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.56
We control our reasoned choice and all acts that depend on that moral will. What's not under our control are the body and any of its parts, our possessions, parents, siblings, children, or country - anything with which we might associate.
All I could think at that moment was, Mark, I would give all the masking tape in the world if only you would talk to me.
All the Good Things
Sister Helen Mrosla
He was in the first third grade class I taught at Saint Mary's School in Morris, Minnesota. All thirty four of my students were dear to me, but Mark Eklund was one in a million. Very neat in appearance, he had that happy-to-be- alive attitude that made even his occasional mischievous delightful.
A study of lucky and unlucky people to see if it was just random chance, spooky magic... or if there were real differences that caused such different results in life.
It turns out luck isn't just serendipity or due to the paranormal. A lot of it is about the choices people make.
—Richard Wiseman, a professor at the University of Hertfordshire, (resource) Barking Up the Wrong Tree
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom Perseverance and Art of Living
We must give up many things to which we are addicted, considering them to be good. Otherwise, courage will vanish, which should continually test itself. Greatness of soul will be lost, which can't stand out unless it disdains as petty what the mob regards as most desirable. — Seneca, Moral Letters, 74:12b-13
