work

To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work. - Mary Oliver

Don’t do any task in order to get it over with. Resolve to do each job in a relaxed way, with all your attention. Enjoy and be one with your work.

—Thích Nhất Hạnh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation

Jim Simons: "I’m not an extremely fast thinker myself; I just work hard."

That was all I needed to do—work hard, not fast. A paper I published in '68 took me five years. But it has had 1,850 citations. For a math paper, that’s an awful lot.

There’s too much emphasis on a person’s being able to answer questions quickly."