Mickey Patel

I have to smile, thinking about what my former self would say. But the former self is not always right. We shouldn’t preserve our frst opinions as if they reflect our pure, untarnished, true nature. They’re often just the result of inexperience or a temporary phase. Old opinions shouldn’t defne who we are in the future.

By completely absorbing our attention for a short and magical spell, it can relieve us temporarily from the dreadful burden of being who we are. Best of all, at the end of your creative adventure, you have a souvenir—something that you made, something to remind you forever of your brief but transformative encounter with inspiration.

John Cage said, “I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.”

The child who twirls in the rain has no purpose for doing it. The child who runs through the field does not run to get somewhere. The running and the jumping and the playing is not done for meaning or purpose. It is an expression of the elation within. It is not done For joy. It is done Out Of joy.

So let’s look at some ways that advice is biased. Lottery numbers: When successful people give advice, I usually hear it like this: “Here are the lottery numbers I played: 14 29 71 33 8. They worked for me!” Success is based on so many factors. Some are luck. Some are not. It’s hard to know which are which. So which do you learn from? Underdog

Many adults are immature and rather childish, and this is a contributing cause of the confusion and misery in the world. It is the older people who are responsible for the prevailing economic and moral crisis; and one of our unfortunate weaknesses is that we want someone else to act for us and change the course of our lives.

Today, the way we think you get peace is by resolving all your external problems. But there are unlimited external problems. The only way to actually get peace on the inside is by giving up this idea of problems. [77]

‘What progress have I made? I am beginning to be my own friend.’ That is progress indeed. Such a person will never be alone, and you may be sure he is a friend of all.

Master, what about pursuits such as in sports, business, the performing arts . . . Are prescriptions equally poisonous in those domains. M: Yes. S: But there is a technique to those things, is there not. M: There are indeed some mechanical elements. Such as physical technique. And, as they apply to a mechanical element, prescriptions may be of some