More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.
“The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.”
Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been. —MARCUS AURELIUS
There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means.
Remember that this moment is not your life, it’s just a moment in your life. Focus on what is in front of you, right now. Ignore what it “represents” or it “means” or “why it happened to you.”
Consider this mind-set. never in a hurry never worried never desperate never stopping short
Remember and remind yourself of a phrase favored by Epictetus: “persist and resist.” Persist in your efforts. Resist giving in to distraction, discouragement, or disorder. There’s no need to sweat this or feel rushed. No need to get upset or despair. You’re not going anywhere—you’re not going to be counted out. You’re in this for the long haul. Because when you play all the way to the whistle, there’s no reason to worry about the clock. You know you won’t stop until it’s over—that every second available is yours to use. So temporary setbacks aren’t discouraging. They are just bumps along a
...more
What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first steps to something better. —WENDELL PHILLIPS
There’s a saying about how the Irish ship captain located all the rocks in the harbor—using the bottom of his boat. Whatever works, right?
The great psychologist Viktor Frankl, survivor of three concentration camps, found presumptuousness in the age-old question: “What is the meaning of life?” As though it is someone else’s responsibility to tell you. Instead, he said, the world is asking you that question. And it’s your job to answer with your actions.
No one has ever said this better than Mike Tyson, who, reflecting on the collapse of his fortune and fame, told a reporter, “If you’re not humble, life will visit humbleness upon you.”
Beware the calm before the storm. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. The worst is yet to come. It gets worse before it gets better.
The Fates guide the person who accepts them and hinder the person who resists them. —CLEANTHES
Your obstacle may not be so serious or violent. But they are nevertheless significant and outside your control. They warrant only one response: a smile.
When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. —DR. JOHNSON
Reminding ourselves each day that we will die helps us treat our time as a gift. Someone on a deadline doesn’t indulge himself with attempts at the impossible, he doesn’t waste time complaining about how he’d like things to be. They figure out what they need to do and do it, fitting in as much as possible before the clock expires. They figure out how, when that moment strikes, to say, Of course, I would have liked to last a little longer, but I made a lot of out what I was already given so this works too.
And so, if even our own mortality can have some benefit, how dare you say that you can’t derive value from each and every other kind of obstacle you encounter?
Each time, you’ll learn something. Each time, you’ll develop strength, wisdom, and perspective. Each time, a little more of the competition falls away. Until all that is left is you: the best version of you. As the Haitian proverb puts it: Behind mountains are more mountains.
