Some are very good at keeping it real as long as they get to redefine reality at whim. Others know how to keep it real by submitting to a reality beyond their own head.
Category: Broaden Your Horizons
All Acquaintances Are Not Allies
A true friend is more than someone who loves to hang out with you. A true friend is someone who will encourage you to pursue your goals and handle your responsibilities even if that cuts into some of your hangout sessions together.
It Takes Creativity To Love What You Do
It’s good to find pleasure in your work, but don’t expect your job to do all the work for you. Your professional occupation can’t force you to be happy in spite of yourself. If you want to love your work, you have to work at love. And yes, love takes work.
Mental Toughness Is Not an Option
There’s only one guarantee during this life: Before you leave this earth, you will know what it means to not get your way. Mental toughness is the ability to endure that fact.
Privacy Is A Funny Thing
The right to privacy refers to any situation in which you have a reasonable expectation that your thoughts and feelings are being shared in confidence. The reality of privacy is that our right to privacy isn’t always honored.
Bend Without Breaking
It doesn’t feel easy when you’re being stretched, but that’s precisely how we develop the ability to stay loose. The alternative is becoming uptight, rigid, and stiff. How’s that for having it easy?
As If It Matters (Because it Does)
Making the most out of your life even when circumstances are less than ideal is not some sort of ad-hoc consolation prize invented by motivational speakers. It’s literally the only possible way for our species to survive.
Optimism is Hard to Hear
When people say “Life stinks”, people hear “I’m in a bad mood right now.” Then they nod understandingly. When people say “Life doesn’t stink,” people hear “Everything is 100% perfect and golly gee….look at that rainbow.” Then they roll their eyes.
Read for Reconfiguration
A book is not a trophy. It’s a tool for personal transformation. For Kafka, “A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.” Education isn’t a name dropping contest. It’s a paradigm-shifting process. It’s an opportunity to have our perspectives and presuppositions challenged from every angle.
Tools are For Working, Not Worshiping
Life isn’t about how good you are at judging people who don’t understand your tools nor is it about how excited you are about the particular tools you possess. It’s about one thing: what you do with your tools when it’s time to face the inevitable battle you’ll have with your own resistance.