"wow-I-feel-you" quotes

It’s become clear that people sometimes become busy in order to feel important, but I mostly feel busy and guilty. I’ve tried reframing that reaction, replacing abject apologies (delays, after all, happen) with gratitude ( thank you so much for your patience ).

I was just there at The Firm as a stopover, to get the skills, I would have said at the time; this was not really me, I would have said, but it was a thin defense. How quickly I was becoming an icky person in these small, important moments. This is to say nothing of the actual impact of the work I was doing, which, I believe, was marginally useful ... See more

Can you hear it? Can you hear that sound? It’s something complicated and shifting, hungry and growing, mournful and knowing. The self in conversation with the world! And then, again, with itself! All perfectly you, in imperfect harmony. It might sound wrong. But it feels right.

Somewhere in my mainlining of these philosophies, my wires got crossed. I conflated being busy with being responsible; productive with being profitable. A sense of ambient hustle urged me forward toward an imaginary (or rather, quantified) finish line. I filled every spare moment with a podcast, newsfeed, or task, reflexively stuffing my day until ... See more

“The definition of genius is taking the complex and making it simple.”

When we accept the possibility of losing everything, we free ourselves from the paralysing fear of failure. We recognise that setbacks and obstacles are not the end of the road. Even our greatest falls from grace are opportunities to get better at what we do, to grow, learn and evolve our craft.

Over the years, as I’ve aged and made smarter friends, I’ve gradually grown dumber relative to my peers. I’ve compensated by dialing up my agency, which I think of as “manifest determination to make things happen.”