Category: quotations

Independence everyday

Eric Johnson1 Comment

It is Independence Day here in the U.S.A. We celebrate our founders’ revolt against tyranny and their fight for freedom to determine their own way, to allow our fellow citizens to live as they choose.

Regardless of our heroically won Constitutional rights, we regularly yield to the tyranny of conformity, of fitting in, of bowing to the imagined opinions of others.

Declare your independence everyday. Fight to follow your own way, to travel the path you choose, to be true to the voice inside you calling you to be the person you imagine you can be. And never stop fighting.

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Memento mori

Eric Johnson1 Comment

How amazing that you, yes you, are in the exact geographic center of the universe.

At least that’s what your brain sort of tells you. All of reality exists for you, spins in orbit around you.

That is what we all feel to some extent. Our perception of reality is self-centered, centered on the world as we experience it.

All humans have experienced life this way. We each are living in a bubble of our own creation and filtering life through this perspective of a me-centered universe. It’s easy to ignore that every human around you is experiencing reality separately, oblivious, somehow, to the fact that you are the actual center of the universe.

It’s worth attempting to regularly shift that perspective and see yourself as the short-lived speck of a being you are. Here for a moment, fleeting. Not here as the reason for all that is. But a part, an astoundingly conscious part, of all that is.

It was Romans who reminded the high and the mighty, “Memento mori.” Remember you are mortal.

Your death may not be the thought you are eager to reflect on regularly. Most of us can relate to this sentiment instead:

I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment. ― Woody Allen

But we’re all goners, it’s just a matter of when and how. And reflecting on the brevity of your own life can unburden you from feeling the weight of the me-centric world you create for yourself. It can embolden you to make something of that ripple in the pond that is your existence, your time under the sun.

A hundred years from now, you may have left a legacy worth talking about still, but you won’t be around for the conversation. The universe will go on, spinning into infinity without you. What you’ve got right now, the experience of being alive in the universe, is precious and finite. Live now, and live well, while you can.

Mid-year crisis, anyone?

Eric Johnson

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So, it’s July. The halfway point of 2014 is here. (I say twenty-fourteen. You? I reverted to my twentieth century ways once we reached 2010, and now it seems cumbersome to hear people say two-thousand-whatever.)

My recent birthday reminded me I’m well past midlife (unless I end up a centenarian), and any funk I may happen to find myself in from here on out cannot be explained away as a midlife crisis.

But can you have a mid-year crisis? All those January hopes and dreams? Where do they stand now? Wilting in the summer heat? Evaporated by now?

I don’t look in the mirror on this July 2nd and see a man six months better than the man I was on January 1st. I’m not exactly a goal-setter, but I haven’t had any systems in place (remember, go for systems over goals) throughout the previous six months that have led to making this year my best ever.

I have upped my reading, and I’ve been consistently writing and posting recently. I have had quality time and fun adventures with my family, and my work life is rolling along just fine.

I know the long game should be my focus. Six months is just six months. I have no regrets. I’ve enjoyed a happy half-year.

I just know with a bit more intention and a more consistent commitment to worthwhile systems and habits, even small ones, I could be further along towards a more excellent life.

I am not facing a mid-year crisis or even a mid-year bad mood. But it is a great time to assess where I stand. What good have I done this year, and what good remains to be done in the half year ahead? Examine your life regularly. Face it squarely. Change what you can. Accept what you can’t. Spend your days wisely.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. -Annie Dillard

“Teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea”

Eric Johnson

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Before what and how should come why. If you want to bring people along with you and bring out their best, first tell a story. Why are we here? Imagine journeying together on a grand adventure? Imagine what could be?

Tolstoy said “Art is infection.” An artist has a feeling she wants to share, and if she makes good art, effective art, the audience catches that very same feeling.

Lead others with rules and procedures and how-tos and you might end up with a seaworthy ship. Lead, though, with vision, with artfulness, with a compelling why, and you have a chance at an excellent journey, a shared life-worthy adventure worth talking about and remembering.

Lukewarm is no good

Eric Johnson

I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. -Roald Dahl

via Maxistentialism

Those things that make you come alive? Abandon your restraint and caution and give them all you’ve got.

Shoreline of wonder

Eric Johnson

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Want a wonderful, wonder-filled life? Don’t stop learning. Keep searching. Keep growing. More knowledge will make you more uncertain and more humble. And more in awe of the mystery of being alive in the universe.

If you keep pushing out into the sea of mystery, expect discomfort and disillusion and maybe long periods of feeling lost. The alternative, though, is a safe, secure, and numb sleepwalk of a journey to nowhere.

The only competition that matters

Eric Johnson

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How much better are you today than you were a year ago? Not better off. Better as a human, regardless of any change in circumstances beyond your control. I should be embarrassed to be virtually the same man I was even a few months ago. Principles should remain. Performance should improve.

Don’t look with envy at what others are doing. Don’t let the pace others set determine your pace. Don’t try to win some competition that doesn’t even exist. Live your life as excellently as you can.

As I said previously:

The only competition that matters is the one between who you want to become and who you are. Comparison with others will distract or discourage and put you off course. The you of one year from now should be able to kick the ass (in overall awesomeness and, maybe, physically as well) of the you from today.

“Wish the things which happen to be as they are”

Eric Johnson

Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life. –Epictetus

This is some serious mental jujitsu. There’s a fine line between passiveness and acceptance. One is weak. The other is strong.

Take action to make your plan happen, but accept whatever does happen as though it’s part of the plan.

Internal armor

Eric Johnson1 Comment

Wanting to reform the world without discovering one’s true self is like trying to cover the world with leather to avoid the pain of walking on stones and thorns. It is much simpler to wear shoes. -Ramana Maharshi

A very Stoic-like thought from an Eastern sage. There is much overlap in the wisdom of the East and the insights of Stoicism.

It’s nice to want the world to be better and to work to fix its problems, but you’re only truly in control of your actions and your responses. Instead of complaining about external problems, make sure your internal armor, your “Inner Citadel” as the Stoics would say, is in place.

Rule over yourself

Eric Johnson

Would you have a great empire? Rule over yourself.
—Publius Syrus

The hardest challenge you face.

Be who you imagine yourself to be. Do what needs to be done. Every day take the measure of the man you are and are becoming.

This day not so stellar? Do better tomorrow.

Note to self

Eric Johnson2 Comments

I’m rereading Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. It’s the kind of book that you can open anywhere and find something worthwhile to ponder. My copy is filled with yellow highlights, and I marvel at his prolifically quote-worthy (and tweet-worthy) insights into the challenges of living an excellent human life.

What makes this book so remarkable, I think, is that he was not writing it for anyone but himself. He had no intent to publish what was the private diary of the most powerful man in the world. Instead of filling this journal, though, with the people and events of his life, which certainly would have been of great historical value, he instead wrote of his efforts to master his own mind and live in a virtuous, excellent way. The philosophical value more than makes up for what was lost to history.

Meditations is a sort of extended “note to self” wherein he is clearly talking only to Marcus Aurelius and chiding and encouraging and reminding himself of what should be his focus. There are sentence fragments galore. Some make no sense to me, and others are as starkly profound as anything I’ve read.

Uninhibited by what others might think, Aurelius was free to write with a remarkable rawness and candor that would be unlikely if he were writing for an audience.

This site is my attempt to somehow publicly share a sort of note-to-self journal. I keep a private journal (using Day One), and I find my writing there is not nearly as well thought out as what I post here. Being aware that someone else might read this (hello, lone reader) forces me to craft my thoughts with more care and intention.

Just as inviting people over forces you to clean up your apartment, writing something that other people will read forces you to think well. -Paul Graham

But I don’t want to come across as some pretentious expert with answers and solutions for all. I’m far from it. Yet I want the kind of candor and directness that Marcus has in writing to himself.

How to balance the authenticity a note-to-self approach with the benefits of writing for others? It’s a worthwhile challenge to attempt. Squelch the self-consciousness of being observed yet write with enough awareness of an audience to focus my thinking more sharply.

My imperative sentences are addressed to myself. “Do this…” “Think in this way…” Those are directed at me, and if a reader finds some value as well, excellent. But if I am the only person who derives any benefit from sharing my notes-to-self online, if this effort moves me just a little further along the path toward living a better life, that is excellent, too.

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screenshot from my copy of Meditations

Get the right people and the right chemistry

Eric Johnson

I have been reading Ed Catmull’s excellent book, Creativity, Inc. Catmull is one of Pixar’s founders and now leads both Pixar and Disney Animation. He knows plenty about running a successful organization, and his book is refreshingly unlike the typical business book. It’s humble and candid and authentic in ways most business insider books are not.

I will post later with more that I gleaned from Catmull’s compelling stories and heartfelt advice, but I completely connect with this insight about centering your priorities around people:

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This is in sync with all I’ve experienced about strong organizations and great teams. Find people who fit the vision and the culture, and then tend the culture gently, get the heck out of the way, and allow your people the freedom to be awesome.

Enthusiasm

Eric Johnson

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All the chasing we do after stuff and to please others and to build what we think is security for a comfortable life…

What if the greatest comfort, though, is the deep, satisfying happiness that comes from getting lost in something you love just for the thing itself? What generates genuine enthusiasm in you, not for any extrinsic rewards but for the simple joy of the pursuit, for the intrinsic rewards?

Enthusiasm in some people can seem trivial or insincere or even silly, especially when it comes across as contrived emotion worked up artificially on command like a salesman trying to make his quota or a manager in a dysfunctional bureaucracy trying vainly to rally her demoralized charges. But the real thing, genuine enthusiasm, delightful absorption, is an obvious marker that someone embarking on an excellent journey should heed. Go in that direction.

Culture is destiny

Eric Johnson3 Comments

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Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO, is a visionary business leader and a crusader for the primacy of organizational culture. His excellent book, Delivering Happiness, tells the story of the creation of Zappos, a company with one of the most lauded customer service operations anywhere. Zappos has a reputation for being one of the happiest places to work, and Hsieh’s books goes into great detail about how they have cultivated the unique culture responsible for their public success and their rewarding work environment.

How would you describe the culture of your organization? Most organizations have some official mission statement posted on a corner of their web site and maybe even a statement of values, but the true culture of a place defies artificial attempts to mandate it from a PR document.

Effective leaders know that culture should be their primary focus. Create and nurture an environment that provides vision and frees each person to unleash their best work. Create a climate of possibility.

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The imagined opinions of others

Eric Johnson

“It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own. If a god appeared to us—or a wise human being, even—and prohibited us from concealing our thoughts or imagining anything without immediately shouting it out, we wouldn’t make it through a single day. That’s how much we value other people’s opinions—instead of our own.” -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

We all are a bit crazy. Our minds are so occupied with what others may think of us, how something we do or how we look is being judged by other people. Of course, the reality is others aren’t thinking of us much at all. They are thinking of themselves and how they are being perceived by others. What a ridiculous cycle and what a waste of mental and emotional energy.

The freest people are those who have enough control of their own minds to either block out or be relatively unphased by the imagined opinions of others. Imagine what would be possible if we could free up all that space in our minds that is otherwise occupied by our concern for what other people think.

Wonder-ful life

Eric Johnson

May your world be rocked every day by a moment or two of wonder, when you catch yourself fully in the present moment in awe of the beauty and mystery we all are swimming in.

A life full of wonder makes for a wonderful life.

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Stoic Optimism: Ryan Holiday’s TEDx Talk

Eric Johnson

Following up on my post last week about Ryan Holiday’s wise little book, The Obstacle is the Way, here’s Holiday’s recent TEDx talk on Stoic Optimism:

There are some good stories in this talk. I loved the anecdote about Edison’s factory burning down and the inventor summoning the family to come because they would never likely see such a spectacle of a fire ever again. Find the good even in the really, really bad.

Some quotations from the talk:

Nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. –Shakespeare

 

There is good in everything if only we look for it. –Laura Ingalls Wilder

 

Objective judgment, now at this very moment. Unselfish action, now at this very moment. Willing acceptance – now at this very moment – of all external events. That’s all you need. –Marcus Aurelius

Real freedom

Eric Johnson1 Comment

The late David Foster Wallace on real freedom, overcoming our default settings and responding to life, or the “real world”, wholeheartedly and authentically:

The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. -David Foster Wallace

https://vimeo.com/75422173

Video by Max Temkin

Wonder why

Eric Johnson

“Learn to ask of all actions, ‘Why are they doing that?’
Starting with your own.” -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Reading those lines this morning reminded me of some great Stephen Covey insights I wish I was more inclined to consistently apply in my life.

I’m paraphrasing, but Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, suggested when you’re inclined to judge, stop yourself and attempt, instead, to try to understand.

“Why?” is the king of questions. And if you ask “I wonder why…?” on a regular basis, you will open yourself to possibilities and to compassion, for others and for yourself.

Asking “I wonder why that driver is driving so recklessly?” can transform you from an angry observer to a curious one. What if the driver was on the way to the hospital for an emergency? Unlikely? Sure. But just framing the question can give you pause and defuse an unhelpful emotion.

Got some bad habits or frustrating tendencies in your own life? Wonder why and you just might go a little easier on yourself while sparking the possibility for genuine understanding and possibly a breakthrough.

Instead of labeling or judging or reacting, use the gap between stimulus and response to try to understand.

Want to spark more meaningful conversations? Ask “Why?” often, not in a pestering way, but with the intent to truly understand the other.

Want a clear vision for your family or your organization or your work? Ask “Why?” and pursue the answers relentlessly.

Why not make “Why?” your go-to question, the spark for possibilities that otherwise would remain undiscovered.

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