“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” — Leonardo da Vinci
In the shower I really had a whole article I was going to write inspired by this quote, but I forgot it…haha, I guess it will come back if it’s meant to.
Do you ever get carried away in thinking about what other people are doing?
I don’t do that, but! – I’ve found out that a lot of people actually spend their entire lives watching & talking about other people, while never living their own life.
What a life!! haha…
But I’m not actually laughing…
This article is a reminder to myself to — Although others are living their lives watching & talking about other people, To NOT be one of them on the sidelines watching & chatting, but to actually BE in the game.
Be Live. Be in the Action & Create while everyone else is on the sidelines watching & talking about you & I, The Creators. The ones who choose to live & live fully.
So, let people talk. It’s what people do best! Let them watch us as we continue taking action, creating, playing, living.
“…That’s what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.” —Paulo Coelho
Life can be a mysterious experience, and yet, in one way that life is not mysterious is that when we become better versions of ourselves, everything around us improves.
After reading these quotes, let me know, comment about what the thought of death inspires within you.
“Of all the footprints, that of the elephant is supreme. Similarly, of all mindfulness meditation, that on death is supreme.” -Buddha
“Every third thought shall be my grave.” -William Shakespeare
“To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.” -Michel de Montaigne
“So this is how a thoughtful person should await death: not with indifference, not with impatience, not with disdain, but simply viewing it as one of the things that happens to us. Now you anticipate the child’s emergence from its mother’s womb; that’s how you should await the hour when your soul will emerge from its compartment.” -Marcus Aurelius
“Do external things distract you? Then make time for yourself to learn something worthwhile; stop letting yourself be pulled in all directions. But make sure you guard against the other kind of confusion. People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time—even when hard at work.” —Marcus Aurelius
1) “Don’t pay attention to other people’s minds. Look straight ahead, where nature is leading you, through the things that happen to you through your own actions.”
2) “When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and unfriendly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil.”
3) “Welcoming wholeheartedly whatever comes- whatever were assigned—not worrying too often, or with any selfish motive, about what other people say. Or do, or think.”
4) “Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people—unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You’ll be too preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what they’re saying, and what they’re thinking, and what they’re up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from focusing on your own mind.”
5) “God did not intend my happiness to rest with someone else.”
6) “You want praise from people who kick themselves every 15 minutes, the approval of people who despise themselves…..why do you want approval from people who don’t know where or who they are on this planet?”
7) “The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do. Asking yourself: Is this fair? Is this the right thing to do?”
8) “So other people hurt me? That’s their problem. Their character and actions are not mine.”
9) “So remember this principle when someone threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.”
10) “That to expect bad people not to injure others is crazy. It’s to ask the impossible. And to let them behave like that to other people but expect them to exempt you is arrogant—the act of a tyrant.”
11) “If they’ve injured you, then they’re the ones who suffer for it.”
12) “Other people’s mistakes? Leave them to their makers.”
13) “If anyone can refute me-show me I’m making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective— I’ll gladly change. It’s the truth I’m after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.”
14) “Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?”
15) “Don’t be put off by other people’s comments and criticism.”
16) “Not to be distracted by their darkness. To run straight for the finish line, unswerving.”
17) A straightforward honest person should be like someone who stinks: when you’re in the same room with him, you know it. But false straightforwardness is like a knife in the back. False friendship is the worst. Avoid it at all costs. If you’re honest and straightforward and mean well, it should show in your eyes. It should be unmistakable.”
With Ken Thompson 