People think there’s no way that you could have succeeded unless you are faking it. And sometimes I want to tell them, ‘No, the ingredient you’re missing is God.’

And the minute that you understand that you can poke life, and actually something will, you know, if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it. You can mold it.

This is one of many lessons I’ve learned through birding. It’s a humbling activity, where you can go from being an expert to an amateur just by crossing a few state lines. You have to get comfortable with the not-knowing.

The parable of the second arrow is a well-known Buddhist story about dealing with suffering more skilfully. It is said the Buddha once asked a student,

‘If a person is struck by an arrow, is it painful? If the person is struck by a second arrow, is it even more painful?’

He then went on to explain,

‘In life, we can’t always control the first arrow. Ho... See more

Making things is hard and I feel like that’s the most useful thing to say about it.

“What do you want to avoid?” he asks. “Such an easy answer: sloth and unreliability. If you’re unreliable it doesn’t matter what your virtues are. You’re going to crater immediately. Doing what you have faithfully engaged to do should be an automatic part of your conduct. You want to avoid sloth and unreliability.”

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather taking action despite the fear.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

―

C.G. Jung