Defeat never comes to any man until he admits it. – Josephus Daniels
. . . when you give up.
When you stop learning and trying.
When you decide that (the illusion of) safety and stagnation is better than intelligent risks and action.
Losing is not defeat.
“Failure” is not defeat.
Not-getting-what-you-want is not defeat.
Just keep going.
Learn from what happens.
That’s how you win regardless of the “score.”
Some people have to do things. They “have to go to work.” They “have to pick their kids up.” They “have to [insert the onerous, terrible task].” There’s two levels of dysfunction here: 1) What about people who don’t have jobs? What about people that would love to have kids? Does anyone think they would say…
Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity. – Pema Chodron Isn’t it great that no one is perfect? Well, we…
I have found that if you love life, life will love you back. – Arthur Rubinstein But you must go first. An amazing life will not come find you. It won’t yank you off the couch and give you the interest, skills and energy to do great, fun, amazing, important things. It will meet you…
Whatever it is you have, or don’t have, in your life is your responsibility. Your life is the way it is because of the choices you made. Most people would resist what I say in the title of this post: you chose this. it might be more palatable for me to say: your life is the…
Are you disaster-tolerant? (Do you have reserves?) This question is well-posed in Seth Godin’s blog post (here it is in its entirety): Not all disasters can be avoided. Not all disasters are fatal. If you accept these two truths, your approach to risk will change. If you build a disaster-tolerant nation or project or lifestyle,…
The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary, it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind. Failure makes people bitter and cruel. – W. Somerset Maugham So many people mis-quote the biblical passage about money and the “root of all evil.”…