Category: Motivation Monday
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If There’s a Solution, Why Worry? Here’s What That Actually Means
“If a problem can be solved, what reason is there to be upset? If there is no possible solution, what use is there in being sad?” — Shantideva, A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life That’s how Shantideva said it, but the version that I have always heard goes more like this: if there’s…
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How Momentum Really Builds
“When torrential water tosses boulders, it is because of its momentum.” — Sun Tzu, The Art of War A single drop of water isn’t moving a boulder. But put enough water behind it, moving in the same direction, and something that looks almost powerless on its own becomes capable of moving something enormously heavy. That’s…
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The Snake Doesn’t Hate Its Old Skin
“The snake does not hate its old skin. It simply knows it cannot grow inside it.” — Unknown I think sometimes we make moving on from something more complicated than it needs to be because we feel like we have to find something wrong with it first. If we’re going to leave a job, change…
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You Were Never in Control of That
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” — Marcus Aurelius We spend a ridiculous amount of energy trying to control things that were never ours to control. What somebody…
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Bruce Lee’s “Die to Yesterday” Quote and Why Most People Never Let Go
“To express yourself in freedom, you must die to everything of yesterday. From the ‘old’, you derive security; from the ‘new’, you gain the flow.” — Bruce Lee Most of us stay attached to the old version of ourselves because it’s familiar, it’s worked, and it’s kept us safe. We can’t build the new version…
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Master of His Soul
“A man likes to believe he is master of his soul. But as long as he is unable to control his moods and emotions, or to be conscious of the myriad secret ways in which unconscious factors insinuate themselves into his arrangements and decisions, he is certainly not his own master.” — Carl Jung We…
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He Will Win Who Knows When to Fight
“He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.” — Sun Tzu When I first read this, it made sense. Choose your battles, know what’s worth fighting for and what isn’t. Pretty straightforward, and something most of us already understand. But the more I thought about it, the more I recognized…
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Worrying and Reflecting Aren’t the Same
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” — Author unknown, often attributed to Albert Einstein We’ve all heard it, said it mid vent, nodded at it, and then gone right back to whatever we were doing. The quote about repeating patterns has become its own…
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Man Cannot Stand a Meaningless Life
Good morning UG, normally I share just one quote on Motivation Mondays, but while reading through some of Carl Jung’s work, I came across three statements that seemed to speak to the same idea. These aren’t three quotes from the same passage, they’re separate statements, but when you put them side by side, they seem…
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Grow Quietly, Build Consistently
“A weak person is found in the crowd, seeking validation and attention. A strong person is often found alone, seeking peace and quietly building themselves.” — Author unknown I don’t know who said it, but the principle behind it is one I believe in. There comes a point when we realize that our own opinion…
