Julie Zhuo • The Looking Glass: Prioritize until it hurts

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. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race"-the constant gnawin... See more

This sort of self-denial is paradoxically the only thing that expands real freedom in life. The pain of regular physical exercise ultimately enhances your physical freedom—your strength, mobility, endurance, and stamina. The sacrifice of a strong work ethic gives you the freedom to pursue more job opportunities, to steer your own career trajectory,

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The marvel can only be described as the peculiar sensation of freedom in action which arises when the world is no longer felt to be some sort of obstacle standing over against one. This is not freedom in the crude sense of “kicking over the traces” and behaving in wild caprice. It is the discovery of freedom in the most ordinary tasks, for when the

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‘I used to think freedom meant doing whatever you want. It is knowing who you are, what you are supposed to be doing on this earth and then simply doing it.’ ⁃ Natalie Goldberg, ‘Writing Down The Bones’

people seem to be surprisingly bad at using their freedom to feel good, and especially at using it to feel deeply good.

The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.