To ask, every day, "What matters, in the end?" is to create the possibility of differentiated choice, the potential to overthrow the tyranny of our history, so as to honour something in us that has always been there, waiting for our courage. — James Hollis

What would it mean to spend the only time you ever get in a way that truly feels as though you are making it count?

the more you focus on using time well, the more each day begins to feel like something you have to get through, en route to some calmer, better, more fulfilling point in the future, which never actually arrives.

Every decision to use a portion of time on anything represents the sacrifice of all the other ways in which you could have spent that time, but didn’t—and to willingly make that sacrifice is to take a stand, without reservation, on what matters most to you.

One thing will stay constant: our freedom of choice—both in the big picture and small picture. Ultimately, this is clarity. Whoever we are, wherever we are—what matters is our choices. What are they? How will we evaluate them? How will we make the most of them? Those are the questions life asks us, regardless of our station. How will you answer?

It was called existentialism. It argued—put roughly—that life’s only meaning is the one we bring to it, that its purpose is for us to determine, each for ourselves. And most importantly, it argued that in this absurd universe without purpose, meaning, or objective morality, in a world where nothing matters, the only principled alternative to suicid

Once you stop believing that it might somehow be possible to avoid hard choices about time, it gets easier to make better ones. You begin to grasp that when there’s too much to do, and there always will be, the only route to psychological freedom is to let go of the limit-denying fantasy of getting it all done and instead to focus on doing a few th

To stand apart is to look at the world (now) from the point of view of the world as it could be (the future), with all of the hope and sorrowful contemplation that this entails.