Focus on the moment, not the monsters that may or may not be up ahead.
Ryan HolidayRead
There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means.
Interpretation
Perception shapes our understanding of events, rather than the events themselves being inherently good or bad.
This quote emphasizes that morality and judgment are subjective and influenced by individual perspectives. It suggests that events have no intrinsic value or meaning; instead, it is our interpretation and the narratives we create around these events that dictate their significance in our lives. Thus, understanding this can lead to greater awareness of how we perceive our experiences and the meanings we attach to them.
In practice
During a motivational speech about overcoming adversity.
Focus on the moment, not the monsters that may or may not be up ahead.
Being criticized in the media is a good problem to have - most of the time. It means you're doing something that is at least interesting or cool or crazy enough to be noticed. It might not always feel good, but it's usually better than the alternative of obscurity.
The idea that only the swaggering, all-knowing, and ruthlessly ambitious succeed is a lie. One that has discouraged so many people with so much potential - and worse, encouraged many more to crash and burn.
Virality, at its core, is asking someone to spend their social capital recommending or linking or posting about you for free.
Ordinary people shy away form negative situations, just as they do with failure. They do their best to avoid trouble. What great people do is the opposite. They are their best in these situations. They turn personal tragedy or misfortune - really anything, everything - to their advantage.
Virality is not an accident. It is engineered. And that's why growth hackers beat traditional marketers.
We are swimming on the face of time and all else has drowned, is drowning, or will drown.
Swans live wherever there is water, and leave the place where water dries up; let not a man act so - and comes and goes as he pleases.
Just as we might take Darwin as an example of the normal extraverted thinking type, the normal introverted thinking type could be represented by Kant. The one speaks with facts, the other relies on the subjective factor. Darwin ranges over the wide field of objective reality, Kant restricts himself to a critique of knowledge.
Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.
Charity is great, but the moment you say it is all, you run the risk of running into materialism.
Rationalism belongs to the cool observer. But because of the stupidity of the average person, they follow not reason, but faith. This naΓ―ve faith, requires necessary illusions and emotionally potent oversimplifications, which are provided by the myth maker to keep the ordinary person on course.
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