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the greatest work and art comes from wrestling with the void, facing it instead of scrambling to make it go away.
In every case, they can quickly redirect us from doing to being. From earning to pretending. Ego aids in that deception every step of the way.
updating your appraisal of your talents in a downward direction is one of the most difficult things to do in life—but it is almost always a component of mastery.
The state of “perfection” BXVI points out.
Realism is detachment and perspective.
Purpose is about pursuing something outside yourself as opposed to pleasuring yourself.
Clear the path for the people above you and you will eventually create a path for yourself.
the constant benefit in making other people look good and letting them take credit for your ideas.
Be lesser, do more.
There’s no one to perform for. There is just work to be done and lessons to be learned, in all that is around us.
“The first thing, Kurnos, which gods bestow on one they would annihilate, is pride.”
We must understand that we are a small part of an interconnected universe. On top of all this, we have to build an organization and a system around what we do—one that is about the work and not about us.
Ego needs honors in order to be validated. Confidence, on the other hand, is able to wait and focus on the task at hand regardless of external recognition.
If success is ego intoxication, then failure can be a devastating ego blow—turning slips into falls and little troubles into great unravelings. If ego is often just a nasty side effect of great success, it can be fatal during failure.
Psychologists call it narcissistic injury when we take personally totally indifferent and objective events.
He explained that training was like sweeping the floor. Just because we’ve done it once, doesn’t mean the floor is clean forever. Every day the dust comes back. Every day we must sweep.
