Happen
“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.”
– Leonardo da Vinci
Follow Through
“Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.”
– Enrest Hemingway
Samsara
“Man sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices his money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
– The Dalai Lama
Odd Indeed
Odd that we select the heads of agencies by who is most qualified. But we select Presidents by whose personality we like best
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) August 10, 2015
[And also, just because I love this:]
If you removed all the arteries, veins, & capillaries from a person's body, and tied them end-to-end, the person will die.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) May 8, 2015
Freakin’ Weekend
“Music always sounds better on Friday.”
― Lou Brutus
Raining
“If you are caught unprepared by a sudden rainstorm, you should not run foolishly down the road or hide under the eves of houses. You are going to get soaked either way. Accept that from the beginning and go on your way. This way you will not be distressed by a little rain. Apply this lesson to everything.”
– Hagakure
Rebooting
“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.”
– Joseph Campbell
Cursed
“When angry, count four. When very angry, swear.’
– Mark Twain
[Ed note: as I’ve gotten older, I’ve increasingly noticed how often people talk adjacent to each other, rather than truly with each other – sort of the adult equivalent of ‘parallel play.’ Arguing a point, both sides become more deeply entrenched, rather than listening to, and staying open to, the opposing position. As I’ve aged, I’ve also become increasingly sure I’m wrong a large percentage of the time. As a stubborn asshole at heart, it takes work for me to put that insight into practice, to admit I’m wrong and to really listen to what others have to say, especially if it’s hurtful for me to hear. But I’m sure trying. It’s always good to know that, if a comment is a bit too close to home, i can always count to four. Or curse.]
Quotidian
“If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing every day.” – Dan John
With lots unmoored in my life at the moment, I’ve been honing my to-do list, trying to figure out the things I value enough to do every single day. At the moment, I’m down to a core seven daily obligations: meditate, work out, inbox zero, journal, blog, practice trumpet, stretch/mobilize.
Hence this post. #everydamnday
Stoic
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations