Keep It Moving: Lessons for the Rest of Your Life

by Twyla Tharp

Why not evaluate your accomplishments as beginnings rather than endings.

Master cellist Pablo Casals was asked late in life, “Why practice at age ninety-one?” “Because I am making progress” was his answer. Right!

Intention defines our next move, and the next, and the one after that. It’s how we plan and control our life. Without it, we’re either marching in place or losing ground.

Eliminate inaction as a choice. Your bigger, freer, better life starts with a choice to act.

The life we choose pays dividends. The life that we let choose us will bankrupt us.

Many carry the misconception that we should become more comfortable and that things should become easier as time goes by. This is a belief system designed to undermine you. In life, there will be problems. This is guaranteed. We must learn to use our obstacles, transforming them into advantages.

Hand to heart, find your allegiance. Then keep reaching.

Studies show that the procrastinator’s brain is very good at feeling future rewards without doing the work.

Get out of your own way; do not expect what you have been in the past to make your today. The wealth of our past does not entitle us to anything other than—with luck—another shot at tomorrow.

Still, even for the faithful, there will be whining days. There will be kvetching. That’s your cue to get funny. Go to laughter; the implosion releases huge energy.

It was like climbing Mount Everest and praying for a life-threatening storm to make the ascent more meaningful or dramatic. It rarely turned out well. Afterward I’d reproach myself, Why didn’t I trust the voice that said I’m wasting time?

Stamina fades fast with immobility, and the more tired we become, the more critical it is to confront this reality.

While many of our physical tools diminish noticeably as we age—speed, flexibility, and power—we don’t have to lose stamina. The more my youthful powers wane, the more I appreciate stamina as the great equalizer.

Like King Solomon, you are able to let the extremes burn themselves out and look straight down the middle to find what is right.

All master adjusters learn to push their strengths and drop everything else—resentment, insecurity, doubt, physical handicaps.

This is how we leave our mark; we access something that refuses to die and pass it along.

Thus the final lesson of the master: when you can let yourself off the hook for knowing it all, there is freedom.