Rob Tourtelot
We often disapprove of parts of our lives without really examining them—it’s like never going into certain rooms of your house. But meditation allows all the voices and all the images into the room. When we open the invisible doors, we can come to rest in the life we have; we can love it as it is instead of waiting for a shinier version. Every day
... See morefrom Enlightenment Is Something We Do Together by John Tarrant
This is how to tell a success story: Rather than telling a story of your full and complete accomplishment, tell the story of a small part of the success. Tell about a small step. Feel free to allude to the better days that may lie ahead, but don’t try to tell everything. Small steps only.
from Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling by Matthew Dicks
- Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived. My number one criteria in evaluating a piece of writing is not whether it solved my problems, but whether it opened me up to dive deeper into the mystery.
from Why I Write by Luke Burgis
- Nothing, not one thing, hurts us more — or causes us to hurt others more — than our certainties. The stories we tell ourselves about the world and the foregone conclusions with which we cork the fount of possibility are the supreme downfall of our consciousness. They are also the inevitable cost of survival, of navigating a vast and complex reality... See more
from The Things Themselves, Alive With Metaphor by Jeannine Ouellette
-Maria Popova
So we stumbled through our loving, difficult readings and tiny speeches; then the button was pushed, and as the coffin advanced solemnly into the furnace, dysfunctional squawks came like a shower of arrows out of the sound system. The tape kept trying to play and its clicks and grindings were amplified very efficiently into the overhead speakers. T
... See morefrom Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life by John Tarrant
sometimes the answer to the question reveals something much deeper — a hidden truth that often makes for a great story. Bruce Springsteen once said in an interview: “Most people’s stage personas are created out of the flotsam and jetsam of their internal geography and they’re trying to create something that solves a series of very complex problems
... See morefrom Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling by Matthew Dicks
I’m going to settle for small, random stabs of extreme interestingness – moments of intense awareness of the things I’m about to lose, and of gladness that they exist
from Helen Garner on Happiness: ‘It’s Taken Me 80 Years to Figure Out It’s Not a Tranquil, Sunlit Realm’ by Helen Garner
- intimacy with others necessarily includes facing yourself, reckoning with what you truly desire, humbling yourself, noticing your bad habits, and observing your defense mechanisms. You have to be able to admit the many, many ways you fuck up and blame others and distance yourself every day in order to be a good friend to another flawed human being.... See more
from Talking about friendship with Heather Havrilesky
- Maybe “what have you done for the world” isn’t even the right question. It assumes an acting upon, separate from-ness. What if the good stuff happens less when you act upon the world and more when you become one with it? Part of it.
from What does your stupid art even do for the world? by Alex Dobrenko`