For me it was these.
“A focused fool can accomplish more than a distracted genius”
“Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter”
These two quotes really helped get my @** in gear.
Here in darkness, everything’s okay. Listen to the waves and let them fade away. Here comes a thought.
Here Comes a Thought from Steven Universe was genuinely life-changing for me. It’s all about mindfulness and allowing yourself to process negative thoughts without punishing yourself for having them.
This episode came when I was really struggling with anxiety, like multiple crying breakdowns a week. It finally lead me to getting therapy and I’m in a much better place now, but I still come back to it when I’m feeling overwhelmed.
Thank you for reminding me of that song and giving me a reason to think more deeply about it. It already was a gorgeous moment in the show but I didn’t dig into it too deeply until your comment. The “looking at your thoughts without judgement” part is the hardest part for me.
“Excellence is not an act, but a habit” - Aristotle teaching that good comes from the whole, not from a single step. Focus on the whole, and the steps will follow.
“So, what’s the next action for this?” - the GTD approach to task management teaching me to be specific and then go do it (or plan it, or delegate it). This really kicks me into productivity mode.
Be excellent to each other, and party on dudes.
It’s so simple but genuinely words to live by.
When I was 16 I had my first job at a shitty fast food restaurant, and on the first day my manager told me, "The difference between a good job and a great one is often just a couple minutes "
20 years later It still pops into my head whenever I’m working on a project, or work task, or even just stuff around the house. Usually it’s right when I’m about to quit or give up and call it “good enough”. And for the most part, I’ve found it to be true.
“You cannot love someone else until you love yourself.”
My dad raised me on this. If don’t see yourself worthy of love from even yourself, you’ll never be able to accept it from someone else. Healthy love is mutual. Also, this ties back into the idea that if you don’t see yourself worthy of love, it means you need to work on yourself until you do rather than trying to fill that gap with someone else.
Similarly. You cannot forgive yourself until your forgive your transgressor. Pent up anger is no god for your health.
I found that same nugget just under a decade ago. Dropped off the dating scene to work on myself. It really made me reflect. I’m still working on myself and honestly I suspect I will be for a while to come.
It took me over 6 years after my first serious relationship to really start figuring myself out and getting in tune with who I really was. I’m definitely still on the path and I realize more and more why my last relationship ended. It really was the best thing for me at the time.
When I first came across that wisdom I realized my desire in a relationship was to just pour myself into the other person, basically worship them. But not for their benefit, but to distract myself from myself. It’s fairly easy to see how that goes wrong.
I’m still learning, and I’ve found even more stuff I need to work on, but either I get there or I don’t, what matters if I never stopped trying.
Reminds me of 28 Days.
I did not kill this plant, it was sick or something. I gave it everything. I was talking to it, telling it stories. I drew a sketch of it, and put it on my refrigerator.
Did you water it?
I killed the plant.
“Erfahrung heißt gar nichts. Man kann seine Sache auch 35 Jahre lang schlecht machen.” - Kurt Tucholsky
Which DeepL translates to
“Experience means nothing. You can do a bad job for 35 years.”
Not strictly life changing, but a very valuable reminder, if you need to deal with ‘that’ kind of person.
This and the difference between decades of experience and experience that’s decades old.
Sometimes a person that’s 30 years in a field or profession just managed to avoid getting fired for 30 years.
If you won’t care in 10 years, don’t care now.
(In reference to bad things happening)
This was my approach to things even as a kid. I didn’t care who got the bigger “half” between my brother and I, because I wasn’t going to care once I’d eaten it. All I would remember is that I’d eaten it :)
Wow, that’s impressive - most kids are very tuned into jealousy
It’s usually not so much jealosy as a sense of fairness. Sometimes that judgment is skewed, maybe they don’t remember they had the largest part last time for instance, but kids tend to be ok with situations they percieve as fair and very unhappy with situations that seem unfair.
I’ve always prided myself on being empathetic and sympathetic to people no matter what. During the me too times, a lady was being interviewed about why survivors and victims don’t go to the authorities about their treatment from (men) powerful people.
She said something along the lines of “stand with us if you want things to change, but don’t you dare stand opposite to tell me how offended I’m allowed to be”. In an instant I realised I’d been guilty of minimizing the suffering of others simply because I’d not been through what they’d been through (in a sense - if I wouldn’t be offended why should they?). Changed my whole outlook on life actually
This saying in my local tounge
Which roughly translates to
“You small, I big , this thought of world is incorrect, A Thirsty man feels the the ocean is smaller than than a glass of fresh water”
Imagine above is a really Catchy rhyming.
I don’t think anyone will understand but here it is in local tounge trying to write the sound in English.
Tu nano, hu moto, e khyal jagat no koto. Tarsa ne to dariya karta loto lage moto.
Does it mean that one shouldn’t think of others as small or inferior? That one is seeing others as small because of their thirst for(or lack of access to) power or so?
Which language is this in? Some words seem familiar. Hindi(an Indian language) has the word khayal(thought).
It means no person it more valuable than other. When you need help of someone he is the most valuable to you no matter how small he is.
Overall idea is that everyone has their own place in world and no one is above anyone else
It’s Gujarati
Thank you.
Is Gujarati similar to Hindi? Script similar to Devnagiri script n all?It’s similar in sound but in written form the individual characters are different.
Some characters are identifiable by their similar shapes but many are different,
Aa - આ -
Pa - પ
Ra - ર
India - ઇન્ડિયા
Bharat - ભારત
I’m unfamiliar with it, but I imagine it’s something like this:
You are small and I am big, this is but a fantasy of the world. For thirst is larger than the vastness of the ocean.
I should add that this is likely a metaphor for how any desire (thirst) is infinite (ocean) and cannot be satiated.
But I could very well have misunderstood some part of it.
You can look it that way too but the meaning we try to say in my culture is that.
No man is above another man, when you need help than smallest of the person can be the most valuable person in the world. Hence the idea of “I am above you” is incorrect, a small person can be more helpful than a big person.
Chatgpt?
Chatgpt4, Wikipedia, Google translate, and an hour of my time.
“The magic you are seeking is in the work you are avoiding”
“Do what you can, where you are, with what you’ve got.” - Teddy Roosevelt
“There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” - Leonard Cohen
“Perfect is the enemy of good.” - unknown
“Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” - Yoda
When I started my now mostly unused school laptop with dualboot (Windows/Debian) at 3 AM in the basement to solve a router issue. This pretty cheap laptop booted in mere seconds to a completely usable state, sparing my tired self from waiting in the cold for too long.
Right there, in the middle of the night, a flash of inspiration struck me!
How could it be that my way too expensive desktop gaming PC took longer to be ready for everything than this old piece of plastic? What if I completely switched my main machine to Linux, not only for testing, but for real? How awesome would it be to have customization freedom and full control over my own device, without a company spying on me, taking away options or using me as their guinea pig for the next untested updates?
And that’s how it began. Linux Mint as a safe start, then Kubuntu for more customization with KDE Plasma. After that, EndeavourOS for the latest software, and finally Arch Linux … for the lulz (btw).
Two things, actually. “You are fired”, and “You are hired”. Also, does “I do” count?
a tumblr meme about replacing self deprecating humor with over the top self belief humor.
not even kidding, was doomscrolling, this jumped into my feed and burnt itself into my brain and 4 years of doing precisely that later, i’m better than ever and it’s also just a way to break the ice sometimes.
Can you elaborate on the over-the-top self-belief humor?
when you don’t know something, saying shit like “despite my infinite wisdom, this eludes me” instead of “sorry i just dont know”
just stuff that stands out, gets a chuckle off of people, but is so obviously exaggerated that people know you don’t actually believe that you are infinitely wise.
and the greatest thing is that after a while you also incorporate these phrases when talking about/to others, so when you need help or something, you ask for their infinite wisdom.
(sry for the late answer im not used to getting interactions on social media lol)
“Everyone you know is facing a battle you know nothing about. Be kind always.”
As someone who hasn’t had to go through anything that hard, finally accepting this one was so important
That’s why whenever someone cuts me off in traffic, I say, “wow, that guy really must have to poop.”
Whenever someone in a large truck is driving like an asshole I always think “wow he must be in a rush to go kiss his dad 😊”
