If life is all about pleasure, then when it ceases to be fun or immediately beneficial, we quit. When we step outside the wish for comfort, when we live for something greater than ourselves, we no longer have to fight the pain;
we accept the pain as a sacrifice.
— Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science behind why everything you know about success is (mostly) wrong
Thanksgiving Day editorial in the newspaper told of a school teacher who asked her first graders to draw a picture of something they were thankful for. She thought of how little these children from poor neighborhoods actually had to be thankful for. But she knew that most of them would draw pictures of turkeys on tables with food. The teacher was taken aback with the picture Douglas handed in.. a simple childishly drawn hand.
But whose hands? This class was captivated by the abstract image. "I think it must be the hand of God that brings us food," said one child. "A farmer," said another, "because he grows the turkeys." Finally when the others were back at work the teacher bent over Douglas' desk and asked whose hand it was. "It's your hand, Teacher," he mumbled.
She recalled that frequently at recess she had taken Douglas, a scrubby forlorn child, by the hand. She often did that with the children. But it meant so much to Douglas. Perhaps this was everyone's Thanksgiving, not for the material things given to us but for the chance, in whatever small way, to give to others.
8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
Ryan Holiday, The 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Enough of this miserable, whining life. Stop monkeying around! Why are you troubled? What's new here? What's so confounding? The one responsible? Take a good look. Or just the matter itself? Then look at that. There's nothing else to look at. And as far as the gods go, by now you could try being more straightforward and kind. It's the same, whether you've examined these things for a hundred years, or only three.—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.37
