itsreadwritesnap

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Do less but do better.

Any energy that goes into what doesn't matter comes at the expense of what does.

With a little extra time, you can raise the standard from good enough to great.

Narrow the focus. Raise the standard. And set yourself apart.

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Author and social activist bell hooks on how to love yourself:

"One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are often dreaming about receiving from others. There was a time when I felt lousy about my over-forty body, saw myself as too fat, too this, or too that. Yet I fantasized about finding a lover who would give me the gift of being loved as I am.

It is silly, isn't it, that I would dream of someone else offering to me the acceptance and affirmation I was withholding from myself. This was a moment when the maxim "You can never love anybody if you are unable to love yourself" made clear sense. And I add, "Do not expect to receive the love from someone else you do not give yourself."

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“As to the causation, of the feeling of meaningless, one may say, albeit in an oversimplifying way, that people have enough to live by but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning.”

- Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl

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The process might not look like a process at first. Even if it’s more like a messy set up, a curve ball thrown splat on the ground, leaving a trail of undeveloped, inconsistent train of thoughts. Let it be. As long as it’s moving, as the series of actions progress, trust that the process will eventually get into shape.- rws

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PATIENCE, n. a minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.

Ambrose Bierce

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"There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen."

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

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Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous - to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.

Thomas Mann, Death in Venice and Other Tales

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"After examining the philosophies, the theories, and the practiced methods of influencing human behavior, I was shocked to learn the simplicity of that one small fact: You will become what you think about most; your success or failure in anything, large or small, will depend on your programming - what you accept from others, and what you say when you talk to yourself.

It is no longer a success theory; it is a simple but powerful, fact. Neither luck nor desire has the slightest thing to do with it. It makes no difference whether we believe it or not. The brain simply believes what you tell it most. And what you tell it about you, it will create. It has no choice."

- excerpt from What to Say When You Talk to Yourself by Shad Helmstetter

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“A seed grows with no sound, but a tree falls with a huge noise. Destruction has noise, but creation is quiet. This is the power of silence. Grow silently."

Confucius

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“We unconsciously become what we are near. If you work for a jerk, sooner or later you will become one yourself. If your colleagues are selfish, sooner or later you become selfish. If you hang around someone who is unkind, you will slowly become unkind.

Few things are more important in life than avoiding the wrong people. It’s tempting to think that we’re strong enough to avoid adopting the worst of others. But that’s not how it typically works. The changes are too gradual to notice until they are too large to address.

Over a long enough timeline, bad people eventually destroy themselves. They ignore relevant data because it doesn’t agree with them, they take unwarranted risks, they end up alone, without any friends. They might achieve external success, but they lack inner calmness and clarity.

Just as you watch what you put into your body or your mind, closely look at who you spend your time with. Are they kind? Are they honest? Are they thoughtful? Are they helping you or pulling you down? Are they reliable? Are they clear thinking? In short, are they the things you want to become? If not, don’t tempt fate, cut bate.

Distance yourself from the people you don’t want to become. Cultivate people in your life that make you better. People whose default behavior is your desired behavior. If circumstances make this difficult, choose among the eminent dead.”

Farnam Street

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If Enterprise is afoot, Wealth accumulates  whatever may be happening to Thrift; and if Enterprise is asleep, Wealth decays whatever  Thrift may be doing. John Maynard Keynes

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When little changes rock you, and bits of yourself starts to feel the scratches of transition, step back. Allow yourself to withdraw, not to give up, but to see everything in a bigger frame. To decide which one to tackle first, or needs more attention. So that time and energy is utilized more efficiently.

Or not.

Just the time and energy to yourself. Just whatever, for sanity’s sake.

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