bits of wisdom

There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.

-H Thurman

twitter.com • (1) Home / X

Today, success looks very different to me. For my v2 definition of success, I think about things like: Do you have a genuine sense of self and purpose? Do you have an openness to evolve? Can you be at peace alone in a quiet room? It’s a broader definition but also a higher bar. I don’t want to judge, but I think it can be tougher to be at peace wit... See more

Mario Gabriele • Modern Meditations: Kirsten Green

From Joan Didion, delightfully tart, in response to being asked by an interviewer about using the good silverware every day: “Well, every day is all there is.”

Sarah Thankam Mathews • every day is all there is

For many of us, feelings of deficiency are right around the corner. It doesn’t take much--just hearing of someone else’s accomplishments, being criticized, getting into an argument, making a mistake at work--to make us feel that we are not okay. Beginning to understand how our lives have become ensnared in this trance of unworthiness is our first s... See more

Tara Brach • Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of R.A.I.N.

That sharp turn away from blaming others happens once you finally address your shame. Shame is something everyone has, thanks to our shame-ruled, shame-dispensing culture, but some people obviously have it worse than others. I’ve always been massively ashamed and self-hating, and for a long time, even in Ask Polly, I described shame as a thing you ... See more

Talking about friendship with Heather Havrilesky

On the Sublime:

In the presence of the sublime, we are made to feel desperately small. In most of life, a sense of our smallness is experienced as a humiliation (when it happens, for example, at the hands of a professional enemy or a concierge). But the impression of smallness that unfolds in the presence of the Sublime has an oddly uplifting and pr

But I've learned that it doesn't matter what state others are in; it matters what state I'm in. Just as when two people are pulling taut a piece of string, it only takes one person to let go for the tension to end.

Tim Freke • How Long Is Now?