Category: quotations

It’s your life

Eric Johnson

This:

“It’s your life — but only if you make it so. The standards by which you live must be your own standards, your own values, your own convictions in regard to what is right and wrong, what is true and false, what is important and what is trivial. When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else or a community or a pressure group, you surrender your own integrity. You become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being.” –Eleanor Roosevelt

And this:

“to be nobody but yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.” –e.e. cummings

 

Raise the aspirations of others

Eric Johnson

Tyler Cowen is an economics professor and a prolific blogger at Marginal Revolution. He’s an A-list follow with multiple blog posts every day, and he’s a voracious reader who has pointed me to a lot of insightful articles and books.

I love this thought from Cowen: “At critical moments in time, you can raise the aspirations of other people significantly, especially when they are relatively young, simply by suggesting they do something better or more ambitious than what they might have in mind”

I have appreciated those who have seen more in me than I thought possible, who summoned something greater from me by their expectations.

And I have delighted in those moments when I have been able to awaken a new possibility in someone else. That’s a calling that keeps me going.

What if you looked for opportunities to heighten the trajectory of someone who would otherwise settle for a lower arc?

What if you regularly asked “What if…?”

There could be more people more fully fulfilling their potential with even a slight course correction thanks to your interest and curiosity and encouragement.

Awaken possibility.

A belief in the blood

Eric Johnson

“My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true. The intellect is only a bit and a bridle. What do I care about knowledge? All I want is to answer to my blood, direct, without fribbling intervention of mind, or moral, or what not.” –D. H. Lawrence

This reminds me of Kubrick’s “The truth of a thing is the feel of it, not the think of it.”

“We can go wrong in our minds.”

Indeed. Just read the news.

Undoubtedly, our age is more disconnected than any before it from the physical—from blood and flesh and the feel of sunshine on skin and feet on actual ground. And face-to-face conversation. And taste and smell and the delicate sounds that get lost in the wash of noise emanating from ubiquitous devices.

There’s a knowing that comes from the body that our long-ago ancestors probably were in touch with in a way we never will be.

Not that I want to quit feeding my mind. But I know I need to more fully inhabit more often my flesh and blood.

And feel as well as think.

The Journey is the Thing

Eric Johnson

“Attaining lasting happiness requires that we enjoy the journey on our way toward a destination we deem valuable. Happiness is not about making it to the peak of the mountain nor is it about climbing aimlessly around the mountain; happiness is the experience of climbing toward the peak.” Tal Ben-Shahar in Happier

It’s about pointing yourself in a direction and toward an end that matters to you, and then fully inhabiting the journey toward that end. But it’s this moment, this step in the journey that is the true destination.

President Kennedy, in one of his final press conferences, responded to a question about how he was liking being President with a reference to the ancient Greek definition of happiness as “the full use of your powers along lines of excellence.”

That resonates. Tapping the limits of your potential and employing the full use of your powers in the quest toward some noble destination. An excellent journey.

Act as if you were absolutely perfect

Eric Johnson

“Disregard whatever you think yourself to be and act as if you were absolutely perfect—whatever your idea of perfection may be. All you need is courage… Behave as best you know. Do what you think you should. Don’t be afraid of mistakes; you can always correct them. Only intentions matter. The shape things take is not within your power; the motives of your actions are.” –Sri Nisargadatta Maharam

Caution is the devil, right? Have a bias toward action, even if you don’t know if you’re doing the “right” thing.

I tend to overthink and procrastinate and often end up missing out on the chance to do something good or to make something meaningful happen.

The better course is to just take action. Do something, anything.

Have courage. Act like you are who you aspire to be.

Hard work, hardly working

Eric Johnson

“What you choose to work on, and who you choose to work with, are far more important than how hard you work.” –Naval Ravikant

Hard work overrated?

Yes, especially if the “what” and “who” are undervalued.

Hard work and efficiency are actually detrimental if you’re heading in the wrong direction with the wrong people.

Get the who, what, and why right and the work won’t seem hard at all.

(By the way, Ravikant is a great Twitter follow—@naval.)

The function and duty of a quality human being

Eric Johnson

“Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one’s potential.” –Bruce Lee

You never arrive. But keep going nonetheless.

“To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.” –Robert Louis Stevenson

Work and play

Eric Johnson

“The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.” –Arnold Toynbee

Flow states are the blissful blur that line is calling for.

“Happiness is absorption.” –T.E. Lawrence

Kurosawa on peaking at 80

Eric Johnson

I make a point in a talk I do for student groups that there’s no hurry to make your mark or to “hit it big”.

There seems to be more pressure than ever for young people to not only have their career figured out right out of college, but to be rich and famous by the time they’re, say, 30. Crazy.

I challenge these 20-year-olds to instead aim to be awesome by the time they’re 60.

This advice goes over with a resounding thud every time I share it. But I’m convinced that you will make better decisions and actually grow and improve faster by choosing the long game instead of trying to conquer the world in your youth.

Even DaVinci’s first great success, The Last Supper, didn’t come till he was almost 50 years old.

Recently I saw this letter from a then 77-year-old Akira Kurosawa, the great Japanese filmmaker, wishing a happy 70th birthday to fellow filmmaker Ingmar Bergman:

Remarkable. At 77, he was expecting his best work was still ahead of him.

You don’t have to have it figured out. You won’t ever. Do your best where you are. Be excellent in just the next five minutes. Don’t force it or rush past this moment or compare yourself to some arbitrary or pointless standard set by others.

The arc of your life, should you be fortunate to have it counted in many decades, could bend gently and satisfyingly towards a kind of excellence you can’t even imagine from your current vantage point.

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” –Henry David Thoreau

Happiness happens

Eric Johnson

“Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.” –Victor Frankl

Happiness happens.

You don’t catch it. It catches you.

Pursue, instead, a cause bigger than yourself. Focus on what you have to offer, not on what you want to receive.

Aiming to bring happiness to others is a more direct path to your own happiness than trying to get what you think you want.

The only competition that matters

Eric Johnson

“Oh my soul, do not aspire to immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible.” –Pindar

“As long as you live, keep learning how to live.” –Seneca

“To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.” –Robert Louis Stevenson

The only competition that matters is the one between who you are now and who you become.

Only you

Eric Johnson

You have to live with the notion of, “If I don’t write this, no one’s going to write it. If I die, this idea dies with me. –Lin Manuel Miranda

What potentially great idea are you keeping trapped within by your hesitation, caution, or fear?

What problem can you help solve if only you’d take action?

With no expectation of raving, Hamiltonesque success, just start.

“Who am I?” you say.

“What do I know?”

An excellent attitude, I say. Humility becomes you. Indeed, each of us has only a tiny role to play in the really big scheme of things, and we have no way of seeing ahead of time just how much good, if any, our efforts can do.

But your contribution, no matter how small, is uniquely yours. If you don’t take action, if you don’t show up, you forfeit your chance to make a dent in the universe that only you can make.

Start even if you don’t know where your idea can go, even if it seems silly or pointless or impossible. (A Broadway musical about Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton? Surely, that’s going nowhere. Getting arrested for not giving up your seat on the bus? How will that make a difference?)

Imagine a critical mass of people actively engaging with the world, offering their unique gifts and ideas, actively fulfilling their potential, doing what they can to move us all forward.

Empty yourself. Only you can make your contribution. Don’t leave the stage without playing your part.

How the world works

Eric Johnson

“What the pupil must learn, if he learns anything at all, is that the world will do most of the work for you, provided you cooperate with it by identifying how it really works and aligning with those realities. If we do not let the world teach us, it teaches us a lesson.” –Joseph Tussman

We are not strangers in a strange land. Sure, mystery is all around. But we are solidly a part of it—emerging from it, not dropped into it.

A recurring lesson from sources as far flung as Taoism and Stoicism is the notion that an excellent life is one that is in accord with nature, in harmony with the reality of the way the world works.

Observe how the natural world moves with ease, how nature unfolds without fussing and straining.

Don’t force. Don’t resist. Have a beginner’s mind. Let the world teach you.

Big picture thinking

Eric Johnson

“Without a meaningful, believable story that explains the world we actually live in, people have no idea how to think about the big picture. And without a big picture, we are very small people.” –Nancy Abrams

I need the big picture, the “Why”, the zoomed out view, before I can drill down into the “What” and the “How”.

When I feel like I’m drifting, I remind myself of what a grand story I get to be a part of.

I may be small and insignificant in the big scheme, but I am in the game. I’m alive and aware in a dazzlingly complex and overwhelming mystery of a universe.

The big picture enlarges my perspective and my possibilities if not my ego.

Making excellence a habit

Eric Johnson

“Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives —choice, not chance, determines your destiny.” –Aristotle

Plan to be excellent. Winging it only takes you so far.

Craft routines and habits that obligate you to take action regularly on your plan.

Determine what’s most important, then be determined in consistently making that your priority.

Be awesome on purpose.

Energy crisis

Eric Johnson

“To preserve hope in our world makes calls upon our intelligence and our energy. In those who despair it is frequently the energy that is lacking.” –Bertrand Rusell

The know-how may be less crucial than the want-to and the get-up-and-go. The will to action can be tough to summon. But it’s often the first step—the leap, the getting up and getting started—that stalls us.

Even if you don’t feel like it, just get started in some small way on your grand plan for making the world better or on your humble dream to be a better version of yourself.

Fake it if you have to. Act like you already are who you want to be. Forward movement builds momentum and renews energy you didn’t know was there.

Don’t wait till you’ve got it figured out to get started. You’ll never have it figured out. It’s only in the doing that the thinking can take flight.

Feeling a bit hopeless? In despair? Just start.

Change happens

Eric Johnson

“Change leads to insight more than insight leads to change.” –Milton Erickson

We overestimate, especially in January each year, how much we can, or, more accurately, will initiate change. Best intentions of a new and better you usually remain merely intentions.

But some kind of change is going to happen—likely change you can’t foresee, much less desire.

Be prepared, then, to use whatever may come as an opportunity for new insight and growth. Embrace everything—everything—that happens to you as if you had chosen it. (This approach doesn’t exactly come naturally. Some hard mental jujitsu is necessary. I’m still a white belt here.)

But resistance to what already is is futile, so it would make sense to accommodate yourself to changing circumstances rather than getting flattened by them.

Paraphrasing Darwin, it’s not the strongest or most intelligent that survive. It’s those who are most adaptable to change.

Change is inevitable, it’s relentless, and it’s coming. At least use it to propel yourself forward.