William Morris was an English textile designer, poet, novelist, and socialist activist who was associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. Here are some of his most famous quotes:
“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
“The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.”
“History has remembered the kings and warriors, because they destroyed; art has remembered the people, because they created.”
“The past is not dead, it is living in us, and will be alive in the future which we are now helping to make.”
“The true test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of the cities, nor the crops – no, but the kind of man the country turns out.”
“The reward of labour is life. Is that not enough?”
“The beauty of life is in the small details, not in the big events.”
“The true function of art is to inspire.”
“The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain.”
“The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.”
“The greatest wealth is to live content with little.”
“The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”
“The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal; and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.”
“The true aim of art is not to imitate nature, but to express it.”
“The true value of a civilization is not in its monuments, but in the quality of life that it creates.”
“The true beauty of a work of art lies in its ability to inspire and uplift the human spirit.”
“The true purpose of art is to awaken the soul to the beauty and wonder of the world.”
“The true measure of a man’s worth is not in what he has, but in what he gives.”
“The true meaning of life is to find your own path and follow it.”
“The true essence of beauty is not in the external form, but in the inner
Overthinking is the process of dwelling on negative thoughts and worries, often to the point of causing anxiety, stress, and even physical symptoms such as headaches or insomnia. Overthinking can involve analyzing past events, worrying about the future, or obsessing over small details. It can be a result of anxiety, depression, or other mental health conditions, or it can be a habit that develops over time. Overthinking can be detrimental to mental health and can interfere with daily life, making it difficult to focus on tasks or enjoy activities. It is important to recognize when overthinking is becoming a problem and to seek help if needed.
Embody this 27 ways and free your mind from overthinking.
Practice mindfulness meditation
Write down your thoughts and worries
Challenge your negative thoughts
Focus on the present moment
Take a break from social media and technology
Practice deep breathing exercises
Exercise regularly
Get enough sleep
Practice self-care activities such as taking a bath or reading a book
Talk to a trusted friend or family member
Seek professional help if needed
Practice gratitude
Set realistic goals and priorities
Learn to say no and set boundaries
Practice positive self-talk
Take a break from work or other stressors
Practice visualization techniques
Listen to calming music or sounds
Spend time in nature
Practice yoga or other relaxation techniques
Identify and challenge your cognitive distortions
Practice self-compassion
Focus on what you can control
Practice problem-solving techniques
Practice acceptance and letting go of things you cannot control
Seek support from a therapist or counselor
Practice forgiveness, both for yourself and others.
Which one will it be for you today? Remember that each prompt is a gateway to focus and deep dive on. You have the power and all you need to do is show up.
is a book written by Admiral William H. McRaven, a retired United States Navy admiral. The book is based on a commencement speech he gave at the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. Some of the key points from the book include:
1. The importance of taking small, everyday actions to achieve larger goals. Admiral McRaven argues that making your bed every morning is a simple task that can set the tone for the rest of the day and help you feel more in control of your life.
2. The value of discipline and perseverance in achieving success. Admiral McRaven draws on his experiences as a Navy SEAL to illustrate the importance of pushing through difficult challenges and never giving up.
3. The power of teamwork and collaboration in achieving shared goals. Admiral McRaven emphasizes the importance of working together and supporting one another in order to achieve success.
4. The need to embrace failure and learn from mistakes. Admiral McRaven argues that failure is an inevitable part of life, but that it can also be a valuable learning experience that helps us grow and improve.
5. The importance of maintaining a positive attitude and finding joy in life’s simple pleasures. Admiral McRaven encourages readers to focus on the good things in life and to appreciate the beauty of the world around them.
Overall, “Make Your Bed” is a motivational book that encourages readers to take action, persevere through challenges, and find joy in life’s simple pleasures.
“Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence”
is a book written by Daniel Goleman, a psychologist and science journalist. The book explores the concept of focus and its role in achieving excellence in various areas of life. Some of the key points from the book include:
1. The importance of attention and focus in achieving success. Goleman argues that the ability to focus one’s attention is a key driver of excellence in any field, from sports to business to the arts.
2. The different types of focus, including inner focus (such as mindfulness and self-awareness) and outer focus (such as paying attention to others and the environment).
3. The role of emotions in focus and attention. Goleman argues that emotions can either help or hinder our ability to focus, and that emotional intelligence is a key factor in achieving excellence.
4. The impact of technology on our ability to focus. Goleman explores the ways in which technology can distract us and disrupt our ability to focus, and provides strategies for managing these distractions.
5. The importance of deliberate practice in developing focus and achieving excellence. Goleman argues that deliberate practice, which involves focused and intentional effort to improve one’s skills, is essential for achieving mastery in any field.
Overall, “Focus” is a thought-provoking book that explores the role of attention and focus in achieving excellence. It provides practical strategies for developing focus and managing distractions, and emphasizes the importance of emotional intelligence and deliberate practice in achieving success.
“Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience”
is a book written by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a psychologist who has studied the concept of flow for many years. The book explores the idea of flow, which is a state of complete absorption and engagement in an activity. Some of the key points from the book include:
1. The definition of flow and its characteristics. Csikszentmihalyi describes flow as a state of complete immersion in an activity, where one’s attention is fully focused and time seems to pass quickly. Flow is characterized by a sense of control, a loss of self-consciousness, and a feeling of enjoyment and fulfillment.
2. The benefits of flow. Csikszentmihalyi argues that flow is not only enjoyable, but also has many benefits, including increased creativity, improved performance, and a sense of meaning and purpose in life.
3. The conditions necessary for flow to occur. Csikszentmihalyi identifies several conditions that are necessary for flow to occur, including clear goals, immediate feedback, a balance between challenge and skill, and a sense of control over the activity.
4. The role of personality in flow. Csikszentmihalyi argues that certain personality traits, such as openness to experience and a willingness to take risks, are associated with a greater likelihood of experiencing flow.
5. The application of flow to various areas of life. Csikszentmihalyi explores how the concept of flow can be applied to various areas of life, including work, leisure, and relationships.
Overall, “Flow” is a fascinating book that explores the concept of flow and its many benefits. It provides practical strategies for achieving flow in various areas of life, and emphasizes the importance of finding activities that are challenging, meaningful, and enjoyable.
“Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World”
is a book written by Cal Newport, a computer science professor and productivity expert. The book explores the concept of deep work, which is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. Some of the key points from the book include:
1. The importance of deep work in achieving success. Newport argues that deep work is becoming increasingly rare in today’s world of constant distraction, but that it is essential for achieving high levels of productivity and creativity.
2. The different types of deep work, including monastic deep work (where one completely isolates oneself from distractions) and bimodal deep work (where one alternates between periods of deep work and periods of rest and relaxation).
3. The benefits of deep work, including improved productivity, creativity, and job satisfaction.
4. The obstacles to deep work, including social media, email, and other forms of distraction. Newport provides strategies for overcoming these obstacles, such as setting strict boundaries on technology use and creating a distraction-free work environment.
5. The importance of deliberate practice in developing deep work skills. Newport argues that deep work is a skill that can be developed through deliberate practice, and provides practical strategies for improving one’s ability to focus and concentrate.
Overall, “Deep Work” is a thought-provoking book that explores the importance of deep work in achieving success and provides practical strategies for developing this skill. It emphasizes the need to create a distraction-free work environment and to prioritize deep work over shallow work (such as email and social media).
“Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action”
is a book written by Simon Sinek, a motivational speaker and leadership expert. The book explores the idea that great leaders and organizations start with a clear sense of purpose or “why.” Some of the key points from the book include:
1. The importance of starting with why. Sinek argues that great leaders and organizations start with a clear sense of purpose or “why,” which inspires and motivates others to take action.
2. The difference between “what” and “why.” Sinek explains that most organizations focus on what they do (such as selling products or providing services), but that the most successful organizations focus on why they do what they do (such as making a positive impact on the world).
3. The power of the “golden circle.” Sinek introduces the concept of the “golden circle,” which consists of three concentric circles: why, how, and what. He argues that starting with why (the innermost circle) is the key to inspiring others and achieving success.
4. The importance of authenticity and consistency. Sinek emphasizes the need for leaders and organizations to be authentic and consistent in their messaging and actions, in order to build trust and inspire others.
5. The role of storytelling in inspiring others. Sinek argues that storytelling is a powerful tool for communicating one’s purpose or “why,” and provides examples of how great leaders and organizations have used storytelling to inspire others.
Overall, “Start with Why” is a thought-provoking book that emphasizes the importance of starting with a clear sense of purpose or “why” in order to inspire and motivate others. It provides practical strategies for communicating one’s purpose and building trust and authenticity, and emphasizes the power of storytelling in achieving these goals.
1. “Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.”
2. “If you aren’t moving forward in your life there is some idea, mode of action, or habit you’re so in love with you won’t let go of it.”
3. “The better ambitions have to do with the development of character and ability, rather than status and power. Status you can lose. You carry character with you wherever you go, and it allows you to prevail against adversity.”
4. “You’re not everything you could be, and you know it.”
5. “Self-love is the only antidote to the chaos of existence. And if you don’t love and care for yourself and your own needs, you will cause unnecessary suffering both for yourself and others.”
6. “Perhaps you are overvaluing what you don’t have and undervaluing what you do.”
7. “You must determine where you are going in your life, because you cannot get there unless you move in that direction. Random wandering will not move you forward. It will instead disappoint and frustrate you and make you anxious and unhappy and hard to get along with (and then resentful, and then vengeful, and then worse).”
8. “Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient).”
9. “You should be better than you are, but it’s not because you’re worse than other people. It’s because you’re not everything you should be.”
10. “To learn is to die voluntarily and be born again, in great ways and small.”
11. “Don’t be a slave to stupid rules.”
12. “When you are visited by chaos and swallowed up; when nature curses you or someone you love with illness; or when tyranny rends asunder something of value that you have built, it is salutary to know the rest of the story. All of that misfortune is only the bitter half of the tale of existence, without taking note of the heroic element of redemption or the nobility of the human spirit requiring a certain responsibility to shoulder. We ignore that addition to the story at our peril, because life is so difficult that losing sight of the heroic part of existence could cost us everything.”
13. “Don’t underestimate the power of vision and direction. These are irresistible forces, able to transform what might appear to be unconquerable obstacles into traversable pathways and expanding opportunities. Strengthen the individual. Start with yourself. Take care with yourself. Define who you are. Refine your personality. Choose your destination and articulate your Being. As the great nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche so brilliantly noted, ‘He whose life has a why can bear almost any how.’”
14. “Face the demands of life voluntarily. Respond to a challenge, instead of bracing for catastrophe.”
15. “You can do an awful lot by writing down what happened to you and thinking it through.”
16. “If you don’t stand your ground, then all that happens is people push you backwards. And they will push you, and push you, and push you, until you fall off a cliff.”
17. “If you fulfill your obligations every day you don’t need to worry about the future.”
18. “Truth, virtue, and courage are not necessarily enough, but they are our best bet.”
19. “So, listen, to yourself and to those with whom you are speaking. Your wisdom then consists not of the knowledge you already have, but the continual search for knowledge, which is the highest form of wisdom.”
20. “You need to consider the future And think, ‘What might my life look like if I were caring for myself properly?’”
21. “To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open. It means deciding to voluntarily transform the chaos of potential into the realities of habitable order. It means adopting the burden of self-conscious vulnerability, and accepting the end of the unconscious paradise of childhood, where finitude and mortality are only dimly comprehended. It means willingly undertaking the sacrifices necessary to generate a productive and meaningful reality (it means acting to please God, in the ancient language).”
22. “The successful among us delay gratification and bargain with the future.”
23. “You cannot be protected from the things that frighten you and hurt you, but if you identify with the part of your being that is responsible for transformation, then you are always the equal, or more than the equal of the things that frighten you.”
24. “It took untold generations to get you where you are. A little gratitude might be in order. If you’re going to insist on bending the world to your way, you better have your reasons.”
25. “Can you imagine yourself in 10 years if instead of avoiding the things you know you should do, you actually did them every single day—that’s powerful.”
26. “The light that you discover in your life is proportionate to the amount of the darkness you are willing to forthrightly confront.”
27. “The way that you make people resilient is by voluntarily exposing them to things that they are afraid of and that makes them uncomfortable.”
28. “It is much better to make friends with what you do not know than with what you do know, as there is an infinite supply of the former but a finite stock of the latter.”
29. “When you have something to say, silence is a lie.”
30. “Once someone has spent enough time cultivating bad habits and biding their time, they are much diminished. Much of what they could have been has dissipated.”
31. “And if you think tough men are dangerous, wait until you see what weak men are capable of.”
32. “Adopt responsibility for your own well-being, try to put your family together, try to serve your community, try to seek for eternal truth. That’s the sort of thing that can ground you in your life, enough so that you can withstand the difficulty of life.”
33. “The secret to your existence is right in front of you. And it manifests itself as all those things you know you should do but you’re avoiding.”
34. “Truth is the handmaiden of love.”
35. “If your life is not what it could be, try telling the truth. If you cling desperately to an ideology or wallow in nihilism, try telling the truth. If you feel weak and rejected, and desperate, and confused, try telling the truth. In Paradise, everyone speaks the truth. That is what makes it Paradise. Tell the truth. Or, at least, don’t lie.”
36. “It’s better to do something badly than to not do it at all.”
37. “Always place your becoming above your current being.”
38. “It’s in responsibility that most people find the meaning that sustains them through life. It’s not in happiness. It’s not in impulsive pleasure.”
39. “You should be careful, therefore, to live your life fully, and marriage and children and grandchildren, and all the trouble and heartbreak that accompanies all of that, is much of what life has to offer. Miss it at your great peril.”
40. “The truth is something that burns, it burns off deadwood and people don’t like having their deadwood burnt off often because they’re 95 percent deadwood.”
41. “If you can’t understand why someone is doing something, look at the consequences of their actions, whatever they might be, and then infer the motivations from their consequences.”
42. “When you have something to say, silence is a lie.”
43. “I believe that the good that people do, small though it may appear, has more to do with the good that manifests broadly in the world than people think, and I believe the same about evil. We are each more responsible for the state of the world than we believe, or would feel comfortable believing.”
44. “Love is the desire to see unnecessary suffering ameliorated.”
45. “You can only find out what you actually believe (rather than what you think you believe) by watching how you act. You simply don’t know what you believe, before that. You are too complex to understand yourself.”
46. “You should take care of, help, and be good to yourself the same way you would take care of, help, and be good to someone you loved and valued.”
47. “Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and see what happens.”
48. “If you’re going to be successful you need to be smart, conscientious, and tough.”
49. “The purpose of life is finding the largest burden that you can bear and bearing it.”
50. “Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated.”
51. “Ideologies are substitutes for true knowledge, and ideologues are always dangerous when they come to power, because a simple-minded I-know-it-all approach is no match for the complexity of existence.”
52. “To suffer terribly and to know yourself as the cause: that is Hell.”
53. “If you are not willing to be a fool, you can’t become a master.”
54. “In order to be able to think, you have to risk being offensive.”
55. “If you cannot bring peace to your own household, how dare you try and rule a city?”
Adyashanti is a spiritual teacher and author who is known for his teachings on nondualism and awakening. He was born Steven Gray in 1962 in California, and began his spiritual journey in his late teens. Adyashanti spent many years studying various spiritual traditions, including Zen Buddhism, before experiencing a profound awakening in 1996. Since then, he has been teaching and writing about spiritual awakening and the nature of consciousness. Adyashanti’s teachings emphasize the importance of direct experience and self-inquiry, and he encourages his students to question their beliefs and assumptions in order to discover their true nature. He has written several books, including “The End of Your World”, “Falling into Grace”, and “The Most Important Thing”. Adyashanti is also the founder of Open Gate Sangha, a nonprofit organization that supports his teachings and provides resources for spiritual seekers.
“Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretense. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.” ― Adyashanti
“What would happen if you were to realize there’s nothing to forgive anyone for?” – Adyashanti
“As soon as you believe that a label you’ve put on yourself is true, you’ve limited something that is literally limitless, you’ve limited who you are into nothing but a thought.” – Adyashanti
“The truth is that you already are what you are seeking.” ― Adyashanti
“What if there was no such thing as true thought?” – Adyashanti
“Thoughts are just moving through consciousness. They have no power. Nothing has reality until you reach it, grab it, and somehow impregnate it with the power of belief.” – Adyashanti
“All that is necessary to awaken to yourself as the radiant emptiness of spirit is to stop seeking something more or better or different, and to turn your attention inward to the awake silence that you are.” ― Adyashanti
“Our potential lies beyond the known, beyond the structures of the past, beyond anything that humanity has established.” – Adyashanti
“Really listen inside for the way things are inclined to go. Where does your internal intuitive compass tell you to go?” – Adyashanti
“Stop being who you think you are, and be who you are.” – Adyashanti
“The Truth is the only thing you’ll ever run into that has no agenda.” ― Adyashanti
“The deepest feeling of a compassion that does not seek to alter anything, paradoxically, alters everything.” – Adyashanti
“If you want to escape the confines of your inner world, you have to open to the unknown.” – Adyashanti
“Fall into the space of abiding in the hundreds of small moments during the day.” – Adyashanti
“Meditation is a dress rehearsal for death.” – Adyashanti
“The mind cannot tell you what is real.” – Adyashanti
“What the universe will manifest when you are in alignment with it is a lot more interesting than what you try to manifest.” – Adyashanti
“We realize–often quite suddenly–that our sense of self, which has been formed and constructed out of our ideas, beliefs and images, is not really who we are. It doesn’t define us; it has no center.” ― Adyashanti
“Everybody has their difficulty. Nobody gets out unscathed.” – Adyashanti
“What feels unworthy in you is young and small. Don’t try to correct it. Meet this feeling in its own domain.” – Adyashanti
“Eternity knows no history. Eternity is the eternal presence.” – Adyashanti
“If we would only see that all limitations are self-imposed and chosen out of fear we would leap at once.” – Adyashanti
“Love was never meant to be contained.” – Adyashanti
“Let go of all ideas and images in your mind, they come and go and aren’t even generated by you. So why pay so much attention to your imagination when reality is for the realizing right now?” ― Adyashanti
“So let us understand that reality transcends all of our notions about reality. Reality is neither Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Advaita Vedanta, nor Buddhist. It is neither dualistic nor nondualistic, neither spiritual nor nonspiritual. We should come to know that there is more reality and sacredness in a blade of grass than in all of our thoughts and ideas about reality.” – Adyashanti
“Life seems to operate best when we see that everything is perfectly okay and nothing matters, and simultaneously, see that everything matters.” – Adyashanti
“Don’t think you need to lead a big life. Sometimes a small life is a big life.” – Adyashanti
“True love is a non-personal miracle. It is the nature of reality itself. It is the natural and spontaneous expression of the undivided divine self.” – Adyashanti
“When someone tells you, ‘I Love you,’ and then you feel, ‘Oh, I must be worthy after all,’ that’s an illusion. That’s not true. Or someone says, ‘I hate you,’ and you think, ‘Oh, God, I knew it’ I’m not very worthy,’ that’s not true either. Neither one of these thoughts hold any intrinsic reality. They are an overlay. When someone says, ‘I love you,’ he is telling you about himself, not you. When someone says, ‘I hate you,’ she is telling you about herself, not you. World views are self-views-literally.” – Adyashanti
“Within you, as you, is an infinity of pure potential, now appearing as a body, and all bodies in the universe and beyond.” – Adyashanti
“When you’ve accepted yourself as a human being you’ve accepted the whole universe.” – Adyashanti
“Love is a flame that burns everything other than itself. It is the destruction of all that is false and the fulfillment of all that is true.” ― Adyashanti
“There is a profound paradox: You are not in the world of form, and yet you are.” – Adyashanti
“We human beings can only call on our deepest capacities when we have some connection with the interconnectedness of all of life. Things become possible for us that could not be possible before.” – Adyashanti
“Anything you push away keeps occurring over and over, year after year.” – Adyashanti
“What do you really care about? What pulls you into here and now, this minute?” – Adyashanti
“An ordinary man seeks freedom through enlightenment. An enlightened man expresses freedom through being ordinary.” – Adyashanti
“What’s happening right here and right now? Is it possible to let go of trying to make anything happen?” – Adyashanti
“Silence is good food for the spirit.” – Adyashanti
“The particulars of each life are unique, but the underlying currents are universal.” – Adyashanti
“The truth is you can’t try to let go. Trying is the opposite of letting go. To let go is to relinquish trying. To let go, is much more like to let be.” – Adyashanti
“In the end it’s all very simple. Either we give ourselves to Silence or we don’t.” ― Adyashanti
“Just sit back and enjoy it. What it is. The real you is quite entertained by whatever is happening.” – Adyashanti
“Just for a moment, let yourself just be here. Let yourself stop becoming more, or better, or different.” – Adyashanti
“May all beings realize the nature of the ground upon which they stand, and who it is that stands upon it.” – Adyashanti
“How do I integrate spirituality into my everyday life? Throw out the concepts of “spiritual life” and “everyday life.” There is only life undivided and whole.” – Adyashanti
“When you go inside, you are going into your aloneness. Nobody can go there with you.” – Adyashanti
“In true meditation, we start from the foundation of letting everything be as it is.” – Adyashanti
“You must get all of your attention and awareness into now. Then the recognition starts to flower. IT starts to come alive.” – Adyashanti
“Enlightenment is nothing more than the complete absence of resistance to what is. End of story.” ― Adyashanti
“All existence is sacred. The only thing that that makes something not seem sacred is your idea about it.” – Adyashanti
“Before awakening, there’s theory. After awakening you know.” – Adyashanti
“The silence inside of you is the sound of your knowledge collapsing. Remember, it is you who said I want to be free.” – Adyashanti
“The irony is, the more you try to control life and others, the more out of control you feel.” – Adyashanti
“As I often tell my students, the person you’ll have the hardest time opening to and truly loving without reserve is yourself. Once you can do that, you can love the whole universe unconditionally.” ― Adyashanti
“Everything that’s in suffering wants to be free and is drawn towards the light for its own freedom.” – Adyashanti
“Do you need a story? Does it really explain anything beyond the mind’s need for satisfaction?” – Adyashanti
“There’s a great space in which this moment takes place. There’s a great silence that’s listening to the thoughts.” – Adyashanti
“The mind cannot tell you what is real.” – Adyashanti
“Meditation shows you that the only viable option is to let go.” – Adyashanti
“What is it that’s looking out through your eyes right now?” – Adyashanti
“The ego is not a thing; the ego is a circular pattern of thinking.” – Adyashanti
“All delusions begin in the mind. All delusions are based on various ways we’re talking to ourselves and then believing what we are saying.” ― Adyashanti
“What would it be like to shine the light of truth into every aspect of your life?” – Adyashanti
“There is a deeper world of what is, and an intuitive capacity to sense into the underlying beauty of existence.” – Adyashanti
“When you stop resisting, you see that what seems frightening is actually the absolute beauty of reality.” – Adyashanti
“What would it be like to step out of resistance?” – Adyashanti
“A total acceptance of yourself brings about a total transcendence of yourself.” – Adyashanti
“The answer is not that important. It’s where the question brings you that matters. – Adyashanti
“We’re always held in the divine presence always.” – Adyashanti
“The door to liberation is seeing there isn’t some entity that’s aware — awareness itself is aware.” – Adyashanti
“What would it be like to no longer be bound by emotions.” – Adyashanti
“The substance of everything is the divine. This is not something you believe, it’s something you realize.” – Adyashanti
“We are but imperfect manifestations of an absolute perfection. In an absolute sense, no manifestation can manifest the entirety of the perfection. Yet each being has an infinite capacity to embody what they realize in their humanity. If our awakening is genuine, we realize that what we are is what everything is.” – Adyashanti
“Orient toward the vividness of Awareness. It’s like popping yourself out of a small trance. Get the feel of that vividness, that spontaneous luminosity. When mind gets dreamy in meditation, you’re actually resting in mind. Come back to the vividness of awareness.” – Adyashanti
“Enlightenment is not an altered state of consciousness. -It’s coming out of an altered state of consciousness.” – Adyashanti
“As soon as you believe that a label you’ve put on yourself is true, you’ve limited something that is literally limitless, you’ve limited who you are into nothing but a thought.” – Adyashanti
“True spiritual insight is a blossoming into inner silence. You start to connect with a deeper dimension of being. It’s a different intelligence, a different dimension of love.” – Adyashanti
“We are no doubt at a very critical point in time. Our world hangs in the balance, and a precarious balance it is. Awakening to reality is no longer a possibility; it is an imperative. We have sailed the ship of delusion about as far as she can carry us.” – Adyashanti
“In the heart of a human being, emptiness becomes love. When we touch that source, instantly the love is present. Literally, the divine becomes human and the human becomes divine.” – Adyashanti
“What do you know for certain? How much do you know with absolute unequivocal certainty?” – Adyashanti
“How do we respond to this deep yearning of the human spirit for peace, freedom, happiness, the end of suffering?” – Adyashanti
“When you shift from thinking to direct experience-it makes all the difference in the world.” – Adyashanti
“It’s from the depth of your being that the true answers spring spontaneously forth.” – Adyashanti
“Part of being that spark of spirit for each of us is that we’re also a link or a portal through which that light shines.” – Adyashanti
“When we believe what we think, when we take our thinking to be reality, we will suffer.”― Adyashanti
“Where is peace and well-being right now, in this moment?” – Adyashanti
“You are the son or daughter of God born as his being and his nature.” – Adyashanti
“We are not separate from the world around us. WE are not separate from this existence. With this realization, life stops being such a frightening event.” – Adyashanti
“What is it like to know know-and not try to know?” – Adyashanti
“Meditation is the act of being in constant renewal.” – Adyashanti
“No illusion can withstand unconditional love.” – Adyashanti
“Is there a deeper reality than the one I perceive?” – Adyashanti
“At the very heart and core of our being, there exists and overwhelming yes to existence. This yes is discovered by those who have the courage to open their hearts to the totality of life.” – Adyashanti
“Sit from your heart, not from your head. That’s the secret of a beautiful meditation.” – Adyashanti
“Don’t expect some line in the ground that says ‘Finish’. If you ever think you’ve discovered it all then you just deluded yourself again.” – Adyashanti
“Although they can seem numberless and at times overwhelming, dysfunctional emotional patterns are in the end illusions that we have been taught. And whatever we can learn, we can unlearn.” – Adyashanti
“The path to truth is seeing what is untrue in every moment.” – Adyashanti
“And so we come full circle, like breathing in and breathing out-no separation between our absolute nature and the human life.” – Adyashanti
“What is responsibility’s relationship with freedom?” – Adyashanti
“With all of your sense wide open, just listen. You’re not controlling anything. You can feel that there is a stopping in it. You’ve shifted your attention into a very open state of listening.” – Adyashanti
“This is a time when we who seek to be more conscious, loving, and wise get to see exactly how deep our wisdom and love really are.” – Adyashanti
“The point is for all of us to come back to that primordial state of being, innocence, intelligence, and love. WE can know it by being it, but we can’t know it by thinking about it.” – Adyashanti
“Peace and love underlie all of our emotional responses, even if we’re angry. You wouldn’t feel angry about something if you didn’t care about it. Peace, love, and clarity is our natural condition.” – Adyashanti
“Any moment of transcendence is a mortal blow to the ego. It begins the ego’s demise.” – Adyashanti
“All is always well even when it seems unbelievably unwell.” – Adyashanti
“Just for a moment, take your hands off the steering wheel.” – Adyashanti
“When our identity is no longer housed within that which is manifest-within a thought, or a sight or a feeling or self-image of an idea, this is the beginning of real freedom.” – Adyashanti
“True peace isn’t the absence of a certain kind of experience; peace is there in the middle of it.” – Adyashanti
“A deep and profound curiosity lies at the heart of the spiritual impulse.” – Adyashanti
“We end up putting so much attention onto our image that we remain in a continuous state of protecting or improving our image in order to control how others see us.” ― Adyashanti
“What would it be like to not resist the present moment?” – Adyashanti
“True meditation is sitting open to whatever is happening-pleasant or unpleasant.” – Adyashanti
“Silence and stillness are not dependent on the mind being silent. There’s a deeper silence and stillness in you.” – Adyashanti
“Let yourself be quiet and intuition will incline in one direction or another.” – Adyashanti
“The absolute letting go is letting go of the one who is letting go.” – Adyashanti
“It takes great faith in the unknown to investigate the dark places in our own being.” – Adyashanti
“In any moment, are you experiencing and acting from division, or are you experiencing, and acting from oneness?” – Adyashanti
“There is a presence that is unnamable which thought cannot touch. It is not your possession; it is what you are.” – Adyashanti
“Anything you avoid in life will come back, over and over again, until you’re willing to face it – to look deeply into its true nature.” – Adyashanti
“Thought is an amazing creative force, and double-edged sword. If you’re not careful, it starts to use you rather than you using it.” – Adyashanti
“Live with your deepest question and value that more than the answer.” – Adyashanti
“When the mind ceases all imagination there arises a crystalline truth so real and concrete that all the world seems dreamlike in comparison.” – Adyashanti
“Many sages have said, “Your world is a dream. You’re living in an illusion.” They’re referring to this world of the mind and the way we believe our thoughts about reality. When we see the world through our thoughts, we stop experiencing life as it really is and others as they really are.” – Adyashanti
“Wisdom without love is like having lungs but no air to breathe. Do not seek wisdom in order to acquire knowledge but in order to live and love more fully.” – Adyashanti
“How do I get to now?” – Adyashanti
“When you realize you don’t know who’s living your life, breathing your breath or thinking your thoughts, it’s a shocking moment.” – Adyashanti
“As long as you mistakenly look to the mind for truth, it will continue to haunt you to no end. The best course of action is to look and see for yourself that nothing in the mind is ultimately true, real or existing.” – Adyashanti
“Am I awake to the truth right now-not only in my mind, but in the entirety of my being?” – Adyashanti
“When we start to suffer, it tells us something very valuable. it means that we are not seeing the truth, and we are not relating from the truth. It’s a beautiful pointer. It never fails.” – Adyashanti
“A single thought about it obscures its essence. The perfume of true life is right in your nose. This is nothing you can do to perceive it and yet you must do something. ” -Adyashanti
“Our potential lies beyond the known, beyond the structures of the past, beyond anything that humanity has established.” – Adyashanti
“Our capacity for insight depends on the quality of our listening.” – Adyashanti
“Whenever you have a choice to see things through the eyes of fear, or love, choose love.” – Adyashanti
“Just imagine a world where everyone is plugged into their vitality and acting on it with great sincerity.” – Adyashanti
“You will let go when you let go-usually when nothing else works.” – Adyashanti
“It’s useful and important to have a sense inside yourself of moving through chaos with absolute truthfulness, integrity, and honesty. These are the energies that keep you from losing balance.” – Adyashanti
“We must want the actual truth more than we want the truth that we imagine.” – Adyashanti
“Embrace the full measure of your life at any cost. Bare your heart to the unknown and never look back.” – Adyashanti
“Spirituality involved finding the resource of inner stability-the resource that is beyond the emotional or psychological content of the moment.” – Adyashanti
“Just stop all dreaming. Stop all doing. Stop all excuses. Just stop and be still. Effortlessly be still. Grace will do the rest.” – Adyashanti
“There’s only one thing that’s better than getting what you want: it’s to know that you can be happy whether you get it or not.” – Adyashanti
“Because of an innocent misunderstanding you think that you are a human being in the relative world seeking the experience of oneness, but actually you are the One expressing itself as the experience of being a human being.” ― Adyashanti
“When the will of the whole or the will of God starts to come alive in you, wisdom and love begin to move in very subtle, very ordinary ways.” – Adyashanti
“Reality is unconstrainable. It’s uncontainable. It laughs at all of our mind’s attempts to pull it into a manageable framework.” – Adyashanti
“What you are is never born, never lives and never dies. Birth, life, and death happen within what you are.” – Adyashanti
“The still and quiet voice of truth presents itself without argument.” – Adyashanti
“Life beyond ego becomes something that’s very simple. It matures into a kind of ordinariness because it’s simply the way things are.” – Adyashanti
“What’s continuously present? Let that intuitive regard grow in you and grow in you and grow in you. All of the sudden that intuitive regard lights up through your entire being.” – Adyashanti
Real awakening comes with an inherent sense of integrity. Something innate in us knows if we’re on or off the mark. – Adyashanti
“Can we see without judgement, without blame, without guilt?” – Adyashanti
“You are here to redeem all that is separate.” – Adyashanti
“Allow yourself to feel the spaciousness and openness of awareness.” – Adyashanti
“What is awake right now as you read this?” – Adyashanti
“The tiny seed knew that in order to grow, it needed to be dropped in dirt, covered in darkness, and struggle to reach the light.” – Adyashanti
“Trust that a thread of love operates in everything and listen deeply for this love.” – Adyashanti
“Beyond the known, as opposed to prior to it, lies a realm of being that pulls suffering out by its very roots and opens the door to a whole new way of experiencing life.” – Adyashanti
“Awareness isn’t something we own; awareness isn’t something we possess. Awareness is actually what we are.” ― Adyashanti
“What would it be to rest deeply in your being, more deeply than you’ve ever rested?” – Adyashanti
“Reality, life, the infinite, God, has a way of leading us in just the perfect way, if we will only just listen to it.” – Adyashanti
“What does it feel like to be outside of thought?” – Adyashanti
“This light that I am is no ordinary light. It does not light up anything or illuminate darkness. It is a pure and formless knowingness.” – Adyashanti
“Can you be totally sincere with yourself?” – Adyashanti
“Beingness, nothingness, and form is just one long continuum, now appearing as body, mind, and the world.” – Adyashanti
“All of your thinking doesn’t add one iota to the reality of anything.” – Adyashanti
“Truth comes to an innocent mind as a blessing and a sacrament. Truth is a holy thing because it liberates thought from itself and illumines the human heart from the inside out.” – Adyashanti
“the natural radiance of spirit is always looking through your eyes.” – Adyashanti
“Inquiry is meant to bring you to the frontier between the known and the unknown.” – Adyashanti
“The natural radiance of spirit is always looking through your eyes.” – Adyashanti
“When you realize what you are now, the issue of death will solve itself.” – Adyashanti
“What’s animating you?” – Adyashanti
“What’s it like when you let yourself experience that state called “not knowing.”? – Adyashanti
“Look at the moment of wanting with wonderment, and it falls in upon itself.” – Adyashanti
“When you let go of the egoic self what you’re getting in exchange is the whole universe.” – Adyashanti
“In this moment, there is always freedom and there is always peace. This moment in which you experience stillness is every moment. Don’t let the mind seduce you into the past or future. Stay in the moment, and dare to consider that you can be free now.” – Adyashanti
“Grace is always available. it is just our availability to it that changes.” – Adyashanti
“Anything you avoid in life will come back, over and over again, until you’re willing to face it—to look deeply into its true nature.” ― Adyashanti
“What would it be like to come from unconditional love right here, right now?” – Adyashanti
“Go to the pure I AM. Not I am this or I am that, but simply I AM. Then throw out the I, so that there is only AM. This is the stateless state, the ultimate principle, the absolute self. Everything, in essence, is this absolute principle called the self.” – Adyashanti
“It takes great faith in the unknown to investigate the dark places in our own being.” – Adyashanti
“When you die before you die, it’s extraordinarily free and liberating. From that point on, there’s no more fear of death or anything at all. You see that birth and death are actually happening every instant.” – Adyashanti
“Is this what you are, or is this an experience that you’re having.” – Adyashanti
“When you’ve discovered the truth in a single drop of rain, you’ve touched upon the same fundamental reality as in an entire ocean.” – Adyashanti
“The true heart of all human beings is the lover of what is.” – Adyashanti
“What’s important is the capacity to listen, to be quiet, to be patient so we can intuit the way that God or life wants to reveal itself to us.” – Adyashanti
“The more honest and authentic we are, the more deeply we go into the mystery of our own being.” – Adyashanti
“Nothing about you has to change.” – Adyashanti
“Everything is simultaneously creating itself right now.” – Adyashanti
“If we do not live and manifest in our lives what we realize in our deepest moments of revelation, then we are living a split life.” ― Adyashanti
“There’s something of you that life can’t break. The most difficult moment in your life cannot destroy it.” – Adyashanti
“What would your life be like if you actually were to love it?” – Adyashanti
“You can’t create inner stillness; you just notice it.” – Adyashanti
“Just sit back and enjoy it. Whatever it is. The real you are quite entertained by whatever is happening.” – Adyashanti
“If you are going to do battle with your illusions, the well-formed question is your best sword.” – Adyashanti
“The true beginning of the healing of mind is to turn the attention to what’s looking at mind.” – Adyashanti
“As long as you are trying to become, trying to get somewhere, trying to attain something, you are quite literally moving away from the Truth itself.” ― Adyashanti
“Enlightenment is just seeing things the way they really are.” – Adyashanti
“Life, the essence, totally transcends any of its forms. And yet, in the absolute transcendence of its forms, life also totally embraces all of its forms? That’s the beauty of transcendence. The embrace is so full and rich.” – Adyashanti
“No matter how far astray or deluded you become, you can never get a single step away from the infinite’s embrace.” – Adyashanti
“When you come upon a true prayer, you come upon something with great power, and you know it.” – Adyashanti
“The most profound experiences of openheartedness happen when our minds are overwhelmed by beauty or intimacy, and there’s an extraordinarily heartful availability.” – Adyashanti
“What’s your sense of being? Not being this or being that, but being itself?” – Adyashanti
“When I’m not thinking about me, what am I?” – Adyashanti
“The more honest and authentic we are, the more deeply we go into the mystery of our own being.” – Adyashanti
“The only way you can engage in any inquiry is first to admit that you don’t know.” – Adyashanti
“Religion’s primary function is to awaken within us the experience of the sublime and to connect us with the mystery of existence.” ― Adyashanti
“Do you love enough to really let go of the objects of your love?” – Adyashanti
“As long as you are trying to become, trying to get somewhere, trying to attain something, you are quite literally moving away from truth itself.” – Adyashanti
“What in your experience is not measurable or describable?” – Adyashanti
“What’s it like when the truth of your being is just here, meeting itself?” – Adyashanti
“The radiance is everywhere. We can’t get away from it.” – Adyashanti
“Can you imagine if you really let it in that you are not a problem to be solved in any way? Imagine you knew that anything that would tell you otherwise is just a movement of thought in the mind that says, ‘Whatever is, isn’t the way it is supposed to be.’ So the biggest act of compassion starts within. And when the self is no longer seen as a problem, this is called, the peace that passes all understanding.” – Adyashanti
“The changeless is what knows the change, the changeless is unconditioned” ― Adyashanti
“Can you go to that place that is beyond blame, beyond judgement, beyond should and shouldn’t.” – Adyashanti
“Even though it’s beyond your body and feelings and emotions, the more you recognize awareness and bring more awareness to awareness, the more you’ll feel it in your body as a sense of presence, peacefulness, calmness, and silence.” – Adyashanti
“The wind, the sun and the water are not elements within the world around us; they are really like our blood and bones.” – Adyashanti
“The energetic investment of your inquiry can create a ripple through your quietude that sparks your quietude into revelation.” – Adyashanti
“The Spiritual journey is over and over and over finding out that we were wrong.” – Adyashanti
“You must choose between your attachments and happiness.” – Adyashanti
“The deep satisfaction you’ve sought through everything you ever desired, you already have, you already are.” – Adyashanti
“When you rest in quietness and your image of yourself fades, and your image of the world fades, and your ideas of others fade, what’s left? A brightness, a radiant emptiness that is simply what you are” ― Adyashanti
“In the end, our intention is more important than anything we do.” – Adyashanti
“There is a simple secret to being happy. Just let go of your demand on this moment.” – Adyashanti
“The great, shining light of divinity is not a light you can see; it’s a light that sees.” – Adyashanti
“The Buddha’s teachings can be boiled down to this: No Self-no problem.” – Adyashanti
“True intelligence does not derive from thought. True intelligence uses thought.” – Adyashanti
“True freedom comes when every speck of the known collapses into the unknown, not just for a moment but continually.” – Adyashanti
“What would it be like to meet this moment with unconditional acceptance?” – Adyashanti
“Begin by acknowledging the presence of awareness. It’s functioning whether you understand it or not.” – Adyashanti
“The door to God is the insecurity of not knowing anything. Bear the grace of that insecurity, and all wisdom will be yours.” ― Adyashanti
“Am I ready to let go of what’s not real?” – Adyashanti
“In an absolute sense, everything happens quite spontaneously. You don’t need to think about it. When you’re in a deep state of realization, the reason life seems to flow for you is because you’re not resisting it.” – Adyashanti
“Enlightenment means there is nothing to hold on to. Not even enlightenment.” – Adyashanti
“What if there was no waiting.” – Adyashanti
“The great, shining light of divinity is not a light you can see; it’s a light that sees.” – Adyashanti
“You are an incredible mystery that you will never figure out. To be this mystery consciously is the greatest joy.” ― Adyashanti
“Allow the great unknown dimensions of life to find you.” – Adyashanti
“Within each of our forms lies the existential mystery of being.” – Adyashanti
“The most intimate question we can ask, and the one that has the most spiritual power is this: What or who am I?” – Adyashanti
“Are you engaging in your experience from fear or from love?” – Adyashanti
“Every moment of your life belongs to the infinite.” – Adyashanti
“Our attempt to control life is the only cause of bondage. – Adyashanti
“How does it feel to be the space in which your thought happens?” – Adyashanti
“Whatever the image of yourself, it’s a mask and it’s hiding emptiness.” ― Adyashanti
“It is one thing to realize the self; it is something else altogether to embody that realization to the extent that there is no gap between inner revelation and its outer expression.” – Adyashanti
“The universe’s desire to awaken to itself is what you feel as your personal desire to awaken.” – Adyashanti
“Every moment of your life belongs to the infinite.” – Adyashanti
“To be intimate is to feel the silence, the space that everything is happening in.” ― Adyashanti
“Absolute completeness surrounds you wherever you go.” – Adyashanti
“It is not the pursuit of greater and greater states of happiness and bliss that leads to enlightenment, but the yearning for reality and the rabid dissatisfaction with living anything less than a fully authentic life.” – Adyashanti
“All life begins and ends in silence.” – Adyashanti
“Only something as insane as human being would ever ask themselves if I’m good. You don’t find oak trees having existential crisis. ‘I feel so rotten about myself. I don’t produce as much acorns as the one next to me.” – Adyashanti
“Again, the only way to know that we’ve seen into the true nature of something is that the story we’re telling ourselves releases.”― Adyashanti
“That which you are is totally in love with seeing itself everywhere.”- Adyashanti
“It is love that leads us beyond all fear and into the solitude of our being.” – Adyashanti
“What if you let go of every bit of control and every urge that you have, right down to the most infinitesimal urge to control anything, anywhere, including anything that may be happening with you at this moment? If you were able to give up control absolutely, totally, and completely, then you would be a spiritually free being.” – Adyashanti
“You can’t go back and change your past; what you can do, however, is to change the way that your mind is creating your experience in the present moment.” – Adyashanti
“The most sublime part of every experience is the awareness happening in the light of being.” – Adyashanti
“If life is asking anything of us, it’s asking us to live life authentically.” – Adyashanti
“There is no outside of you. It’s all an inside game.” – Adyashanti
“In this moment, are you experiencing and acting from division, or are you experiencing and acting from oneness?” – Adyashanti
“Beingness, nothingness, and form is just one long continuum, now appearing as body, mind and world.” – Adyashanti
“To bear witness to the presence of being is to bring light to this world.” – Adyashanti
“Real freedom is the freedom from the demand to feel good all the time.” – Adyashanti
“Listen to the universe inside of you.” – Adyashanti
“The Egoic mind can look through a teaching and it can be very cunning in the way it can twist things to its own advantage, and especially the teachings about freedom.” – Adyashanti
“What is this whole world without your story about it?” – Adyashanti
“True meditation has not direction or goal. It is pure wordless surrender, pure silent prayer.” – Adyashanti
“When you touch into the One within you, you’ve touched into the One within all things. It’s the same infinity.” – Adyashanti
“All barriers are conceptual — made of ideas, beliefs, and opinions. Outside of concepts and beliefs, there is no barrier. Belief is what the mind does to fill up emptiness, to give it something to look at, to play with, to hide behind.” – Adyashanti
“The spiritual heart is what fills the emptiness with radiance and allows us to see this life as it really is, truly no other than God.” – Adyashanti
“Sincerity and trust are not given to you on a platter. They are won through the crucible of experience, and a willingness to throw yourself into your own experience.” – Adyashanti
“Is my life an expression of the deepest thing I know to be true?” – Adyashanti
“Where is the one who is attached to this identity?” – Adyashanti
“Whatever you resist you become.
If you resist anger, you are always angry.
If you resist sadness, you are always sad.
If you resist suffering, you are always suffering.
“Becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end.” – Michelle Obama, from Becoming
“Play by the rules, but be ferocious.” – Phil Knight, founder, Nike
“Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.” – Sigmund Freud, neurologist
“Motivation is the catalyzing ingredient for every successful innovation.” – Clayton Christensen, economist and Harvard professor
“Every problem is a gift — without problems we would not grow.” – Anthony Robbins, motivational speaker and writer
“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” – John F. Kennedy, 35th president of the United States of America
“Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.” – Napoleon Hill, author
“Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.” – Andy Rooney, journalist
“Mistakes are the growing pains of wisdom.” – William George Jordan, writer/editor
“The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, writer/statesman
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” – Anaïs Nin, writer
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” – T.S. Eliot, author
“The only way you are going to have success is to have lots of failures first.” – Sergey Brin, co-founder, Google
“If you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs.” – Dhirubhai Ambani, founder, Reliance Industries
“I do not know the word ‘quit.’ Either I never did, or I have abolished it.” – Susan Butcher, sled dog racer
“To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business, and your business in your heart.” – Thomas Watson, Sr., former CEO, IBM
“It’s very easy to be different but very difficult to be better.” – Jonathan Ive, Chief Design Officer, Apple
“Almost everything worthwhile carries with it some sort of risk, whether it’s starting a new business, whether it’s leaving home, whether it’s getting married, or whether it’s flying in space.” – Chris Hadfield, astronaut
“Happy employees lead to happy customers, which leads to more profits.” – Vaughn Aust, EVP of Integrated Solutions, MarketStar
“Employees want to feel inspired by their leaders…hire individuals who will lead by example.” – Jody Kohner, VP of Employee Marketing & Engagement, Salesforce
“Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it.” – William Durant, co-founder, General Motors
“Many companies get trapped by the paradox of hitting numbers ‘now’ versus improving sales for future quarters or years ahead.” – Tiffani Bova, Salesforce Global Customer Growth and Innovation Evangelist
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao Tzu
Learning through struggle is a process of acquiring knowledge and skills by willingly facing challenges, obstacles, or difficulties. It is a natural part of the learning process, and it is a powerful tool for personal growth and development.
Step out of the history that is holding you back. Step into the new story you are willing to create.”
~ Oprah Winfrey
When we struggle to learn something, we are forced to engage with the material in a deeper way. We have to think critically, problem-solve, and persevere through setbacks. This process can be frustrating and uncomfortable, but it is the only way to create the version of ourselves that is more skill full and confident.
Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.
-Napoleon Hill
Research has shown that willingness to learn can actually improve our memory and retention of information. When we have to work hard to understand something, our brains create stronger connections between neurons, which can help us remember the information better in the long run.
The struggle of life is one of our greatest blessings. It makes us patient, sensitive, and Godlike. It teaches us that although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.“
Helen Keller
Additionally, learning through struggle can help us develop important life skills, such as resilience, perseverance, and grit. These skills can be valuable in all areas of our lives, from our careers to our personal relationships.
Of course, it’s important to note that not all struggle is productive. If we are constantly overwhelmed or frustrated, we may need to seek additional support or resources to help us learn more effectively. However, when we approach learning with a growth mindset and embrace the challenges that come with it, we can experience significant personal growth and development.
Here are some quotes on struggle.
“When life knocks you down, try to land on your back. Because if you can look up, you can get up.” – Les Brown
“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.” – Kenji Miyazawa
“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.” – Louisa May Alcott
“The triumph can’t be had without the struggle.” – Wilma Rudolph
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” – Albert Einstein
“Life is a circle of happiness, sadness, hard times, and good times. If you are going through hard times, have faith that good times are on the way.” – Unknown
“Everyone has inside them a piece of good news. The good news is you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is.” – Anne Frank
“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” – Stephen King
“It’s funny how, when things seem the darkest, moments of beauty present themselves in the most unexpected places.” – Karen Marie Moning
“Hard times always lead to something great.” – Betsey Johnson
“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” – Albert Einstein
“Life keeps throwing me stones. And I keep finding the diamonds…” – Ana Claudia Antunes
“When hardships keep coming back, do not take it personal. It’s just life.” – Naide P Obiang
“Hard times don’t create heroes. It is during the hard times when the ‘hero’ within us is revealed.” – Bob Riley
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“If you are going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill
“If someone is strong enough to bring you down, show them you are strong enough to get back up.” – A. Josland
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
“In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein
“The greatest glory in living lies not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail.” – Nelson Mandela
“Press on – nothing can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Perseverance and determination alone are omnipotent.” – Calvin Coolidge
“I’ll tell you something about tough times. They just about kill you, but if you decide to keep working at them, you’ll find your way through.” – Joan Bauer
“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” – Lao Tzu
“Why should you continue going after your dreams? Because seeing the look on the faces of the people who said you couldn’t… will be priceless.” – Kevin Ngo
“Never regret something that once made you smile.” – Amber Deckers
“Let perseverance be your engine and hope your fuel.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
“The first step to greatness is believing that greatness exists within you.” – Channique Nathan
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” – Joseph Kennedy
“A problem is a chance for you to do your best.” – Duke Ellington
“I have no regrets in my life. I think that everything happens to you for a reason. The hard times that you go through build character, making you a much stronger person.” – Rita Mero
“Life is at its best when everything has fallen out of place, and you decide that you’re going to fight to get them right, not when everything is going your way and everyone is praising you.” – Thisuri Wanniarachchi
“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” – Dale Carnegie
“I decided, very early on, just to accept life unconditionally; I never expected it to do anything special for me, yet I seemed to accomplish far more than I had ever hoped. Most of the time it just happened to me without my ever seeking it.” – Audrey Hepburn
“Difficult times will come. It’s a fact of life, isn’t it? There are good times and bad times in everybody’s life.” – Raj Kosaraju
“This too shall pass.” – Persian Sufi Poets
“Never give up on something that you can’t go a day without thinking about.” – Sir Winston Churchill
“When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” – Franklin D Roosevelt
“It is a blessing to experience hardship. Not because we suffer, but because we learn to endure.” – Saim .A. Cheeda
“Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent.” – Steve Martin
“Seeds of faith are always within us; sometimes it takes a crisis to nourish and encourage their growth.” – Susan Taylor
“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” – Hellen Keller
“Struggle happens when you do something which you don’t love.” – Kubra Sait
“Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else.” – Les Brown
“Hard times lifts the seeking souls to higher spiritual realms.” – Lailah Gifty Akita
“I think that little by little I’ll be able to solve my problems and survive.” – Frida Kahlo
“To be tested is good. The challenged life may be the best therapist.” – Gail Sheehy
“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.” – Seneca
“You need to spend time crawling alone through shadows to truly appreciate what it is to stand in the sun.” – Shaun Hick
“Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” – Bernice Johnson Reagon
“All of life is a test and we all have our challenges to meet.” – Marjory Sheba
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” – Thomas Edison
“Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.” – Bruce Lee
“Never give up. Things may be hard, but if you quit trying they’ll never get better. Stop worrying and start trusting God. It will be worth it.” – Germany Kent
“Somehow I can’t believe that there are any heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four C s. They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of all is confidence. When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.” – Walt Disney
“Hard times are like thunder. They make a lot of noise but do little harm. Don’t fear hard times.” – Debasish Mridha
“Our biggest struggle as human beings is to project ourselves as something that society has deemed admirable or likable instead of being honest.” – Matthew Shultz
“Tough times never last, but tough people do.” – Robert H. Schuller
“No matter how bad things are, you can always make things worse.” – Randy Pausch
Making the right choices and being more decisive can be challenging, but here are some tips to help:
Clarify your values: Knowing your values can help you make decisions that align with your beliefs and priorities. Take some time to reflect on what is most important to you.
Set clear goals: Having clear goals can help you make decisions that move you closer to what you want to achieve. Write down your goals and break them down into smaller, actionable steps.
Gather information: Before making a decision, gather as much information as possible. This can help you make an informed choice and reduce feelings of uncertainty.
Consider the pros and cons: Make a list of the pros and cons of each option. This can help you weigh the potential benefits and drawbacks of each choice.
Trust your intuition: Sometimes, our gut instinct can guide us towards the right decision. Trust your intuition and listen to your inner voice.
Practice decision-making: The more you practice making decisions, the easier it becomes. Start with small decisions and work your way up to bigger ones.
Embrace uncertainty: Sometimes, there is no clear right or wrong choice. Embrace uncertainty and trust that you will make the best decision you can with the information you have.
Remember, making the right choices and being more decisive takes time and practice. By incorporating these tips into your decision-making process, you can become more confident in your ability to make choices that align with your values and goals.
Being intentional with your personal growth with gentleness and ease. Finding that center where all life and energy spings from voluntarily. Moving from this center so that our decisions are guided by a power greater than our thinking. Through virtues and practice of humility and trust, we may go through our days with persistent power.
Two opposing thoughts are going on that you might find familiar:
1. “You are ok just the way you are and you will grow as nature intended you to.”
2. “You are motivated to be the version of yourself you desire to be and consciously trekking toward its attainment.”
Number one is acceptance and number two is motivation. Leaning towards either side causes imbalance. Too much acceptance, you will be stagnant, too much motivation you will lose out of touch with what is truly important.
Much like climbing the stairs and riding the bicycle. Sitting still will get you nowhere, moving too fast you’ll end up falling. The key is to find the middle way. In Buddhism the middle way is the understanding f practical life, avoiding the extremes of self denial and self indulgence.
Suzuki expressed it best
Each one of you is perfect the way you are … and you can use a little improvement.
– Shinryu Suzuki
Know your healthy pace
Identify your goals and daily actions towards it. All worthwhile journeys are made of simple specific actions directed to a noble cause. How many of these specific actions can you perform daily without burning out? The beautiful and liberating thing here is you will be the one designing this commitment to forming a certain habit. A healthy pace would be feeling good as you undergo the task. With the right amount of challenge keeping you on the edge but not falling off. Another key aspect of a healthy pace is you feel good about it and at the same time you also have time and attention to listen and learn from others. Key things to remember in knowing your healthy pace;
You feel good about your progress
You feel good as you engage in the activity
You can’t do traditional work at a modern pace. Traditional work has traditional rhythms. You need calm. You can be busy, but you must remain calm.
Dig deeper to find the cause of what motivates you
Knowing what motivates you gets you through when initial motivation runs out. Motivation easily wears off and our pursuit turns dull and boring and we end up quitting. If we constantly remind ourselves with “why” we are motivated, then we will runs n energy greater than us. It is the nobility of our goal and the grander scheme will then move through us. So tap into that “why”. You maybe on the verge of resenting the pursuit of an organized countertop, but if you go back to your “why”; “I’m doing this because I am committed to the type of person who has an organized and clean countertop and this is a starting point of how my day will be and my days are what make my months and my months will make my year” So with just a slight shift in perspective you will have then created the direction of your future simply by reminding yourself of your why.
two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it.”
Use motivation to ignite, use persistence to be consistent
Motivation is key to get you up and running, but that excitement dies down easily. Remember when you were excited on taking up a craft, then after a couple of sessions, you have grown tired of it? Take a deeper look into your intentions on why you decided to take up this activity? Maybe it is not that you are not into pottery; maybe you are into using your hands. Knowing this fact about you will be helpful in committing to your next steps. Use motivation to show up, stay persistent on searching until you hit that spot where you can say to yourself “ahhh, this feels right”. Keep on showing up, collect knowledge, pivot as needed, subtract the non essentials.
“As long as we are persistent in our pursuit of our deepest destiny, we will continue to grow. We cannot choose the day or time when we will fully bloom. It happens in its own time.”
– Denis Waitley
You are still on track even if you stop doing
I bet you have heard of the phrase “doing by non doing” and “effortless effort”. These aphorisms may seem contradictory but they stood the test of time because they are true. Be ok with stopping, this is the time to asses and reflect on your energy expenditure. Are you getting results you wanted? Are you just running on inertia and experiencing diminishing returns.
Always remember that goalposts move and change as you gain experience. What served you yesterday might not serve you today. Stop, reflect, plan and deploy.
Getting complacent with a routine is a trap. Stop and think of ways on how to improve your systems and frameworks if things get too easy and you tend to drift from being engaged in what you are doing.
There is no perfectly correct way of doing things. Stop strictly fitting yourself in a mold, only you know what works for you. In stopping, you get to continuously design your path fit for the ever changing you.
In stopping, you take a break from deep focus and shift to expanded focus. Notice things and concepts outside of your plans and aspirations and become aware of the bigger existence of all humans and the planet. How aligned or miss aligned are your perceptions.
The highest virtue does nothing. Yet, nothing needs to be done. The lowest virtue does everything. Yet, much remains to be done.“
– The Dao
Build and sustain centeredness
Stay centered through habitual morning practice. Prime yourself and visualize optimal performance. Make your commitments and agreements with self in your morning practice. An example would be “Today I won’t judge and criticize”, “Today I will remain in this tranquil space despite unfavorable circumstances knowing that it being unfavorable is only my opinion”, “I will have a good relationship with the thoughts that my mind produces for I know they are ever changing”. With these in the center of your being, may you stay undisturbed and at peace. Sustain this peace as you move through segments of your day. It’s all just slight effort moving from this to that and here to there. Imagine people in the park in China town doing Tai chi, that’s you going about your day. Gentle, centered, alert and prepared.
THE secret of life, of abundant life, with its strength, its felicity, and its unbroken peace is to find the Divine Centre within oneself, and to live in and from that, instead of in that outer circumference of disturbances — the clamours, cravings, and argumentations which make up the animal and intellectual man. These selfish elements constitute the mere husks of life, and must be thrown away by him who would penetrate to the Central Heart of things — to Life itself.
– James Allen
Keypoints
We both need to be accepting of what we are right now and motivated in developing in certain ways.
Maintain centeredness so we don’t break down as we pursue our goals. We often times get obsessed with our goals and forget that it is inner nobility that counts rather than outward glory.
Stopping to re-evaluate our causes and effects. Adjusting our efforts and day to day key actions that yield desired results.
Ask what things am I accepting and what things am I working towards.
Hope you found value in today’s entry
Center through breathing
Strengthen through grounding
Refine aim in silence and in communication with the most high
Diligence, watch fulness, energy and effort may be upon you today
Unwavering rectitude, Unselfish Performance of Duty, Unlimited Forgiveness
