The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

When action is our priority, vanity falls away.

Follow the process and not the prize.

The great psychologist Viktor Frankl, survivor of three concentration camps, found presumptuousness in the age-old question: “What is the meaning of life?” As though it is someone else’s responsibility to tell you. Instead, he said, the world is asking you that question. And it’s your job to answer with your actions.

But physical looseness combined with mental restraint? That is powerful.

though our doubts (and self-doubts) feel real, they have very little bearing on what is and isn’t possible.

Psychologists call it adversarial growth and post-traumatic growth. “That which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”

It’s supposed to be hard. Your first attempts aren’t going to work. It’s going to take a lot out of you—but energy is an asset we can always find more of. It’s a renewable resource. Stop looking for an epiphany, and start looking for weak points. Stop looking for angels, and start looking for angles.

My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it . . . but love it. —NIETZSCHE

Think progress, not perfection.