Where to look when… you are feeling curious
The next time you feel yourself getting high and mighty — or conversely, feeling low and inferior — just remember, we all end up the same way. In death, no one is better , no one is worse. All our stories have the same finale.
— Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance and Art of Living —
Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and chance the future.
— Saul Alinsky —
The more we understand our own minds, the more we understand everyone else. We increasingly feel the commonality of our human condition, of what creates suffering and how we can be free. Our practice also benefits others through the transformation of how we are in the world. If we’re more accepting, more peaceful, less judgmental, less selfish, then the whole world is that much more loving and peaceful, that much less judgmental and selfish. Our mind-body is a vibrating, resonating energy system. Of necessity, how we are affects everyone around us. On a boat in the middle of a great storm, one wise, calm person can bring everyone to safety. The world is like that boat, tossed by the storms of greed and hatred and fear. Can we be one of those people who help to keep it safe?
— Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening —
Daily Touch of Inspirations
June 9th: Solve problems early
Ryan Holiday, The 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
There is no vice which lacks a defense, none that at the outset isn't modest and easily intervened —but after this the trouble spreads widely. If you allow it to get started you won't be able to control when it stops Every emotion is at first weak. Later it rouses itself and gathers strength as it moves along —it's easier to slow it down than to supplant it. —Seneca, Moral Letters, 106.2b-3a
There are three areas in which the person who would be wise and good must be trained. The first has to do with desires and aversions- that a person may never miss the mark in desires nor fall into what repels them. The second has to do with impulses to act and not to act- and more broadly, with duty- that a person may act deliberately for good reasons and not carelessly. The third has to do with freedom from deception and composure and the whole area of judgment, the assent our mind gives to its perceptions. Of these areas, the chief and most urgent is the first which has to do with passions, for strong emotions arise only when we fail in our desires and aversions.
—Epictetus, Discourses, 3.2.1-3a
www.myINSPIRATIONALquotes.net
When you cling to your desires and expectations -- even after life crosses its arms and says, "Nope" -- you suffer. We must accept that life is not always going to give us what we want.
When we give up trying to control things we can't, we feel better.
— Buddhism —
Daily Touch of Inspirations
April 29th: Washing away the dust of life
Ryan Holiday, The 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Watch the stars in their courses and imagine yourself running alongside them. Think constantly on the changes of elements into each other, for such thoughts wash away the dust of earthly life. ~Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.47