2010.01.18 Give 100% To Really Learn
Those who have strong passions, create strong self-destructions. – Tara K. Harper
And it is out of fear of that self-destruction and what that might mean that prevents people from living passionately. Do not fear the future, do not hold the past to be ultimate truth–for the future is not the past, no two people are the same, and with every minute your life is changing.
Live passionately! Live fully! Give one hundred percent, surrender yourself to the world, to life, to love. Only then will you learn anything about yourself.
“But who can say what’s best? That’s why you need to grab whatever chance you have at happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a life time, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives.” – Murakami
2010.01 On Speaking Your Mind, Standing Up For Your Ideas, and Communicating Your Needs
“I found that when you start thinking and saying what you really want then your mind automatically shifts and pulls you in that direction. And sometimes it can be that simple, just a little twist in vocabulary that illustrates your attitude and philosophy.” — Jim Rohn
If there is one thing most people fail to learn it is the ability to disagree, to stand up for your own opinion, and to stand up for what you believe in. Once you learn how to speak your mind, strategically, and without fear, you will find that you will come to know yourself.
“Many philosophers are among those who say one thing and do another, and the philosophy that a man professes is often quite other than the one he lives by. Philosophy, therefore, is in danger of becoming more nad more only something professed.” – Bruce Lee
The Body, Soul, and the Break Down Over The Years
I’m beginning to believe in the immortality of the soul, not on any religious grounds at all, but simply because it seems quite clear as you get older that the soul and the body start drifting apart.
And I suddenly had a vision of going to a counter, which might be described as a Hertz–Rent–a–Body counter, and asking the girl,
‘Excuse me, do you have anything with a slightly more powerful engine? Ooh, and with a sliding roof, I’d really like that!’
and she says, ‘No, I’m afraid we’re all out. Either take what we’ve given you or that’s it.’
‘Oh, I’ll take it, I’ll take it.’
So you’re stuck with a body which you may not necessarily feel entirely in concert with. You live with this body throughout your whole life, accommodating it, and of course adapting to it, and then it begins to creak and you hear noises from the back axle, and towards the end you begin to think, ‘My God, I hope I’ll have the strength to bring this body back to the counter with dignity and not have to leave it out in the countryside with a red triangle behind it.’
It’s for that reason I say we’re prisoners in our own shells and the main thing is to furnish them properly.
-Peter Ustinov
“Emptiness is the starting point. Drop all of your preconceived fixed ideas and be neutral. Do you know why this cup is so useful? Because it is empty.” – Bruce Lee
Patience, Dreariness, and Love
You can only wait so long
before the dreariness of the waiting
overcomes you.
personal poetry – caitlin pontrella