Many paths up the mountain...

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: "I have to go to work - as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I'm going to do what I was born for - the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?"

- But it's nicer here...

So you were born to feel "nice"? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don't you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you're not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren't you running to do what your nature demands?”

~ Marcus Aeurelius

Fulfillment - wouldn't that be nice?

You'll never be truly satisfied with where you are It's life - there's always another level

That's why putting off your happiness until you reach "X" goal is dangerous

It's about falling in love with the process, growth and pursuit of your goals

That's where fulfillment lies

~ Mackenzie Smith

Good advice...

The Gell-Mann Razor:

Assume every media article contains a non-zero percentage of false information.

Sandbox the article from your worldview until you've:

Seen primary sources
Spoken to 3 domain experts

One of JFK's favorite sayings - still applies to many of today's situations

Chesterton's fence

Do not remove a fence until you know why it was put up in the first place.

leaving the other problems unresolved...

Money can only solve money problems.

~ found on the internet

And that was many years ago!

You go talk to kindergartners or first grade kids, you find a class full of science enthusiasts. They ask deep questions. They ask, "What is a dream, why do we have toes, why is the moon round, what it the birthday of the world. why is grass green?" These are profound, important questions! They just bubble right out of them.

Then you go talk to 12th graders and there's none of that. They've become incurious. Something terrible has happened between kindergarten and 12th grade.

~ Carl Sagan

Also agreed

It is not that we have too little time, but that we waste too much of it.

~ Seneca

Agreed

No one ever grew wise by chance.

~ Seneca

Yikes!

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

~ Albert Einstein

Indeed...

A fit body, a calm mind, a house full of love. These things cannot be bought — they must be earned.

~ Naval Ravikant

New concepts I will apply

Amy Poehler’s Nine Rules for Improv (and life)

Keep saying yes
Be a good listener
Find your team
Find the game (what is the purpose of this situation)
Take up space (believing you belong here, advocate for yourself, don’t shrink, be fearless). But ask yourself, “does the scene need you?”
Can’t be halfway in (life is a parade, you can watch from the sidelines, waiting to join the perfect float, or you can jump in and rock out!).
Don’t bail on your partners. Everyone remembers, when things are at their worst, the people who scram. Conversely, you are closest to the people that go down with the ship with you.
Don’t worry about being cool.
Playing with status. Being aware of status (Who you are in relation to other people) in social or professional situations can be entertaining or elucidating.

Let’s dance!

Somewhere, there is the ideal soil for growing mangoes. Or the best possible wave for surfing. Or the most romantic sunset for a proposal.

But it’s not right here and it’s not right now.

Our success has a lot to do with how we dance with conditions that aren’t quite perfect.

~ Seth Godwin

They don't write 'em like they used to...

Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind.

With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck.

~ Thomas Jefferson (1822)

Seems reasonable enough

Be stronger than those that hate you, so that they cannot destroy you. Then forgive them.

~ Elon Musk

Indeed

Science is like sex. Sometimes something useful comes out of it, but that's not why we are doing it.

~ Richard Feynman

Terrifying!

Compulsive liars shouldn't frighten you. They can harm no one, if no one listens to them.
Compulsive believers, on the other hand - they should terrify you.
Believers are the liars' enablers.

~ Nick Cohen

Good plan!

Bop ‘till you drop.

~ Danny DeVito

Do not use your energy to worry. Use your energy to believe, to create, to learn, to think and to grow.

~ Richard Feynman

Been there, done that...

She was the super destructive cruel beautiful dark-haired woman that I eternally write about.

~ Philip K. Dick, author of Blade Runner, describing actress Sean Young, who played the replicant Rachael

Yep

The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.

~ Neil deGrasse Tyson

Decent advice

When your opponent tells you that they will kill you, believe them.

~ Golda Meir

Yep

There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river.
We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.

~ Bishop Desmond Tutu.

Spicy!

"Wokeness" gives people a shield to be mean and cruel, armored in false virtue.

~ Elon Musk

Everybody needs a good plan!

A Good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.

~ General George Patton

Fear

We often fear what we don't understand.
Our best defense is knowledge.

~ Tuvok, on Star Trek: Discovery

Self awareness

Love yourself. But also analyze and be critical of how you think, act & behave.

Self love without self awareness is useless.

Be accountable.

~ Richard Feynman

How to improve your standing...

Most people will tell you it starts in the mind, but I'm a big believer that everything starts with the body,

My first piece of advice to anyone trying to improve their standing: Wake up early and work out.

There's no such thing as a loser who wakes up at 5am and works out.

~ Sahil Bloom

Education

The ultimate purpose of education is to change an empty mind into an open one.

If you wanna be a good teacher, teach open-mindedness, teach enthusiasm, inquisitiveness, heuristics, and values.

~ Richard Feynman

Never gets old...

Softly the evening came with the sunset.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.

~ Suzy Kassem

Fear is the path to the dark side.

Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.

~ Yoda

The comfort of the rich depends on an abundant supply of the poor.

~ Voltaire

We sow the seeds of our future hells or happiness by the way we open or close our minds right now.

~ Pema Chodron

You should sit in nature for 20 minutes a day...
...unless you're busy.

Then you should sit for an hour.

~ Zen saying

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do...
...is relax.

~ Mark Black

Discipline is choosing between what you want now...

and what you want most.

~ found on the inter webs

Simplicity, patience, compassion.

These three are your greatest treasures.

~ Lao Tzu

Money is a dopamine storage system.

~ Scott Adams

I'm trying!

Be humble. Be teachable.

The universe is bigger than your view of the universe. There's always room for a new idea.

~ Richard Feynman

It's agonizing!

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

~ Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

Tale as old as time...

Sgt. Milton Warden (Burt Lancaster): I've never been so miserable in my life as I have since I met you

Karen Holmes (Deborah Kerr): Neither have I

Milton: I wouldn't trade a minute of it

Karen: Neither would I

~ in From Here to Eternity

Wrinkles only go where the smiles have been.

~ Jimmy Buffett

Do we do science any more?

Science:

If you don't make mistakes, you're doing it wrong.

If you don't correct those mistakes, you're doing it really wrong

If you can't accept that you're mistaken, you're not doing it at all.

~ Richard Feynman

Seeing is the secret

Danny: What happened to you?

Sheila: This is who I've always been, Danny. I just never let you see it before.

~ divorced couple on Physical

Play it where it lies...

You are responsible for exactly who, what, and where you are in life. That will be just as true this time next year. Situations aren't important. How you react to them is. You have to play it where it lies.

~ David Kekich

Working out is a metaphor for success in life:

You show up.
Do the work.
You make incremental improvements.
Your body gets better as a result of doing these consistently.

Happened to me once

Princess Leia: I love you!

Han Solo: I know...

~ Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back

Every Sunday in the fall...

Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt

~ Juvenal

Sports offers people something to pay attention to that is of no importance which keeps them from worrying about things that might matter in their lives - things that they could otherwise do something about.

~ Noam Chomsky

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

~ Noam Chomsky

Prescient...

An evil man will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over the ashes.

~ Sun Tsu

More V.P. Word Salad

I feel very strongly about the importance as a general matter of engaging in U.S. policy as it relates to foreign affairs in a way that we pay attention, of course, to the immediate concerns and threats if they exist, but that we also pay attention to 10, 20, 30 years down the line and what we are developing now that will be to the benefit of our country then.

~ Vice President Kamala Harris

Yep

The fear of loss is a path to the dark side

~ Sabine in Ahsoka (Star Wars)

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.

~ Aristotle