do it on purpose and find out who you are

There’s no immediate return. In fact, it’s achingly slow. Coherence takes practice. So does any form of love or devotion. You wake up and you choose it and the next day you gladly do it all over again.

As I said, to put our faith in tangible goals would seem to be, at best, unwise. So we do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. WE STRIVE TO BE OURSELVES.

But don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that we can’t BE firemen, bankers, or doctors— but that we must make the goal conform to the individual, ra

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Compulsion. I think about that word a lot. I believe that all of us, carelessly walking about planet earth, are intrinsically compelled to do something . It’s in our nature, in the shape of our soul. To excel, to truly be the best, I think it’s crucial to spend time thinking about what that is. Because if you do something other than that, you’re no... See more

Being a creative means embracing the urge to put more of yourself—your identity, personality, and unique way of seeing—into the world, whether it be the way you make your breakfast in the morning or your trick for getting through your morning commute, or the themes that keep coming up among the thousands of photos in your camera roll. When we confo... See more

Self-knowledge is obviously a process, not an end in itself; and to know oneself, one must be aware of oneself in action, which is relationship. You discover yourself, not in isolation, not in withdrawal, but in relationship—in relationship to society, to your wife, your husband, your brother, to man; but to discover how you react, what your respon

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There is always two things.

1. The work you are trying to make


2. The work that you are actually making

Number two doesn’t reveal itself until you’ve forgotten about number one.

Be micro-ambitious. Put your head down and work with pride on whatever is in front of you. You never know where you might end up. Just be aware that the next worthy pursuit will probably appear in your periphery which is why you should be careful of long-term dreams. If you focus too far in front of you, you won’t see the shiny thing out of the cor... See more

In choosing how we are in the world, we shape our experience of that world, our contribution to it. We shape our world, our inner world, our outer world, which is really the only one we’ll ever know. And to me, that’s the substance of the spiritual journey. That’s not an exasperating idea but an infinitely emboldening one.