🤔 Morning thoughts (May 5 - 11)
Every Sunday I share a quote and a reflection on it for each day of the week.
Themes of the week: Impermanence, Discipline, Self-awareness, Growth, Humility, Pain, Resilience
Sunday - May 11, 2025
"Develop the strength of character to feel the pain and enjoy the pleasure, but recognize the eternal truth: “This too shall pass."
Scott Galloway, The Algebra of Wealth
When everything is impermanent, your character is your only anchor and the only way to truly be detached. Because you have and are enough, you embrace the constant arising and passing. There’s no clinging.
Saturday - May 10, 2025
"Maturity and energy in our work is not granted freely to human beings but must be adventured and discovered, cultivated and earned. It is the result of application, dedication, an indispensable sense of humor, and above all a never-ending courageous conversation with ourselves, those with whom we work, and those whom we serve."
Whyte, David, Crossing the Unknown Sea
Making work your own requires energy and discipline but most people think they’re owed that energy. Nothing is owed, all is earned. Starting from the mindset you’re in when approaching work. You have to create it, patiently and persistently.
Friday - May 9, 2025
"The Warrior of the Light views life with tenderness and determination. He stands before a mystery, whose solution he will one day find. Every so often, he says to himself: “This life is absolutely insane.” He is right. In surrendering to the miracle of the everyday, he notices that he cannot always foresee the consequences of his actions... Yes, life is insane. But the great wisdom of the Warrior lies in choosing his insanity wisely."
Paulo Coelho, Warrior of the Light
You can’t directly control life but you can control your level of comfort with uncertainty. The secret lies in mastering yourself. In reaching self reliance and in constantly maintaining self respect.
Thursday - May 8, 2025
"Not-knowing is true knowledge. Presuming to know is a disease. First realize that you are sick; then you can move toward health. The Master is her own physician. She has healed herself of all knowing. Thus she is truly whole."
Tao Te Ching
Humility comes from knowing you don’t know and respecting who does, while being curious about them. Often times it also means that no matter how much you know there’s still something to learn and someone to learn from.
Wednesday - May 7, 2025
"It is a very rare person who can lie down at the end of a day with full confidence that they have done their absolute best, and an even rarer person that can do that consistently, day after day, year after year, until the days of laziness and self-pity are but a distant memory, drowned out by the years and years of action and discipline."
Joe Rogan
Discipline is a skill like any other. It just takes grit to develop it to the point where it can actually serve you as the foundation of who you are.
Tuesday - May 6, 2025
"Whatever your Comfort Zone consists of, you pay a huge price for it. Life provides endless possibilities, but along with them comes pain. If you can’t tolerate pain, you can’t be fully alive"
Phil Stutz, The Tools
A comfortable life is one of limitation unless you’re constantly doing the work required to extend that comfort zone. Pain is the price to pay, but what you find beyond it is priceless.
Monday - May 5, 2025
"“I’ve been through all this before,” he says to his heart. “Yes, you have been through all this before,” replies his heart. “But you have never been beyond it.” Then the Warrior realizes that these repeated experiences have but one aim: to teach him what he does not want to learn."
Paulo Coelho, Warrior of the Light
Learning can be painful. And it’s then when the biggest lessons leave their mark, when we learn what will take us to the next chapter. Lean into the pain when it matters.