bits of wisdom
“The main thing is this—when you get up in the morning you must take your heart in your two hands. You must do this every morning.... Say anything, but be respectful. Say—maybe say, Heart, little heart, beat softly but never forget your job, the blood. You can whisper also, Remember, remember." ~ Grace Paley’s "My Father Addresses Me on the Facts o... See more
"The main thing is this—when you get up in the morning you must take your heart in your two hands. You must do this every morning" ~Grace Paley
It begins to feel as though you’re failing at life, in some indistinct way, if you’re not treating your time off as an investment in your future. Sometimes this pressure takes the form of the explicit argument that you ought to think of your leisure hours as an opportunity to become a better worker (“Relax! You’ll Be More Productive,” reads the hea... See more
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
We will benefit from giving ourselves and others the benefit of the doubt as we navigate our understanding of ourselves and of others. We need to reach for grace as we weave in and out of what is me and what is you, and what is us.
Notes & Highlights for How We Show Up by Mia Birdsong
• About 99% of the time, the right time is right now.
• No one is as impressed with your possessions as you are.
• Dont ever work for someone you dont want to become.
• Cultivate 12 people who love you, because they are worth more than 12 million people who like you.
• Dont keep making the same mistakes; try to make new mistakes.
• If you stop to listen
The Technium • 103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known
When you look back at the most fruitful moments of your life years from now, you’ll be surprised to discover how many of them unfolded amid a big loss or a crisis or in the face of a giant unknown.
Heather Havrilesky • Tolerating Unknowns Will Make You Stronger
I find myself slowing changing from an agent of change to an agent of care. I’m less confident in the impact my activism might have on policy than I am about the impact my care may have on other human beings, as well as how they might trickle up to the systems that need changing.
Everything is In-Between
I think in a lot of these Eastern systems, the delusion is that we’re trapped inside this little machine that thinks it’s central, and permanent, and all-important and is always thinking it’s about its little victory narrative. But when you step out of it for a second, you see that it’s just a temporary construction of neurology, or karma, or whate... See more
Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews George Saunders (Published 2021)
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves…
— “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver
Jerry Seinfeld:
"You must master waiting. 'Show's gonna be delayed a half hour.' Fine. Plane's gonna be delayed two hours. Fine. Career's gonna be delayed five years, Fine."