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
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 is it that I want to accomplish in life?” Setting aside selfish interest, it asks: What calling does it serve? What principles govern my choices? Do I want to be like everyone else or do I want to do something different?
Ryan Holiday • Ego Is the Enemy
The ability to ask this question—the question of what we ought to do with our time—is the basic condition for what I call spiritual freedom.
Martin Hägglund • This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom
The question is how we matter and evolve. Do we matter to others (who also don’t matter in the grand scope of things) or in some greater sense that we will never actually achieve? Or does it not matter if we matter so we should forget about the question and just enjoy our lives while they last?
Ray Dalio • Principles: Life and Work
what matters is our choices. What are they? How will we evaluate them? How will we make the most of them?
Stephen Hanselman • The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
"We are not here to fit in, be well balanced, or provide exempla for others. We are here to be eccentric, different, perhaps strange, perhaps merely to add our small piece … the great mosaic of being. As the gods intended, we are here to become more and more ourselves."
Another facet to bring into this inquiry is to move beyond the sense of our small, restricted lives into something broader that connects us to our shared humanity. In this way we can flip the question to see what emerges. Instead of “What do I want to do with my life?” we might ask “What does life want from me?” This addresses the trap of thinking ... See more