🤔 Morning thoughts (March 4 - 10)
Every Sunday I share a quote and a reflection on it for each day of the week.
Themes of the week: Purpose, Intuition, Mindfulness, Presence, Loyalty, Balance, Discipline, Principles
Sunday - March 10, 2024
"Most men think they are simply here on earth to kill time—and it’s killing them. But the truth is precisely the opposite. The secret longing of your heart, whether it’s to build a boat and sail it, to write a symphony and play it, to plant a field and care for it—those are the things you were made to do. That’s what you’re here for."
John Eldredge, Wild at Heart
Your intuition is your heart whispering what the next step is. It’s not apparently clear because it doesn’t reveal the whole roadmap, just the most immediate milestone. But you can still listen and trust it.
Saturday - March 9, 2024
It is not so much what you are doing as how you are doing it. When we properly understand and live by this principle, while difficulties will arise—for they are part of the divine order too—inner peace will still be possible.
Epictetus, The art of living
When you are intentional about the quality you put into your most mundane tasks, you open up to the opportunity of being more mindful.
Friday - March 8, 2024
"Stand resolute and your reward is not the pursuit of happiness, but happiness in your pursuits."
MJ DeMarco, Unscripted
On your route to happiness it’s easy to forget that the actual pursuit is supposed to make you happy along the way. Be present.
Thursday - March 7, 2024
“A samurai who opts only for the duties he likes, or gauges the mood of his lord or unit captain to serve his own best interests, will get his comeuppance in the most unbecoming way after a single failure, even if his designs had been successful ten times before. This is because he lacks a sense of unyielding loyalty, and is motivated only by selfish and evil desires.”
Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure
Loyalty is commitment and dedication. Don’t only think of it in terms of something you do for others. You should first be loyal to yourself, selflessly seeking to serve your highest needs and guarding yourself from your lowest desires.
Wednesday - March 6, 2024
"Both in fighting and in everyday life you should be determined though calm. Meet the situation without tenseness yet not recklessly, your spirit settled yet unbiased. Even when your spirit is calm do not let your body relax, and when your body is relaxed do not let your spirit slacken. Do not let your spirit be influenced by your body, or your body be influenced by your spirit. Be neither insufficiently spirited nor over spirited. An elevated spirit is weak and a low spirit is weak. Do not let the enemy see your spirit."
Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings
Learn to embrace both your inner and outer realities. Managing your state takes practice and the discipline to know which you need to work on at all times.
Tuesday - March 5, 2024
“The most difficult action to take is often non-action. Not stillness out of laziness, but out of self-discipline”
Kyle Eschenroeder, The Pocket Guide to Action
It takes energy not to act in the face of strong desires or aversions. Learn to recognize the demands that inaction has on you. View inaction as an opportunity.
Monday - March 4, 2024
"If you do the job in a principled way, with diligence, energy and patience, if you keep yourself free of distractions, and keep the spirit inside you undamaged, as if you might have to give it back at any moment—If you can embrace this without fear or expectation—can find fulfillment in what you’re doing now, as Nature intended, and in superhuman truthfulness (every word, every utterance)—then your life will be happy."
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Doing your job means being true to yourself and patiently, diligently working on your character to become better, without expectations.