The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day…. The only thing that’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t…. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness.
People who feel they deserve success are among those most likely to fail when challenges arise, research from New Zealand has revealed.
[…]
“People who believe that they don’t need to work for good grades – that they are just entitled to them by right – are annoying, but there wasn’t any evidence before now that it’s actually a self-destructive strategy,” says study co-author Professor Jamin Halberstadt, at the University of Ontago in New Zealand.
[…]
The study also supports the notion that people who feel excessively entitled believe that others are responsible for their success or failure, and are less motivated to put in extra effort when required.
“When an entitled person encounters obstacles to achieving an outcome, they feel like they shouldn’t have to work for it,” Jamin says. “In fact, you should see a challenge as evidence that you need to work harder.”
(via explore-blog)
One who tries to stand on tiptoe cannot stand still. One who stretches his legs too far cannot walk. One who advertises himself too much is ignored. One who advertises himself too much is ignored. One who is too insistent on his own view finds few to agree with him. One who claims too much credit does not get even what he deserves. One who is too proud is soon humiliated. These are condemned as extremes of greediness and self-destructive activity. Therefore, one who acts naturally avoids such extremes.
Those who know do not speak;
Those who speak do not know.
Stop your senses: Let sharp things be blunted,
Tangles resolved, The light tempered
And turmoil subdued;
For this mystic unity in which the wise man is moved
Neither by affection,
Nor yet be estrangement
Or profit or loss
Or honor or shame.
Accordingly, by all the world,
He is held highest.
Lao Tzu in The Way of Life: Tao Te Ching
Song: “I Wasn’t Born to Follow” by Beth Orton
