Act, reflect. Act, reflect.
NEVER act and reflect at the same time.
– Steven Pressfield; Do the Work
My favourite slap-in-the-face author. If you are stuck in a rut, not making progress in a project - buy The War of Art or Do the Work. Do it now!
Communication.
Without any intentional, fancy way of adjusting yourself, to express yourself as you are is the most important thing.
– Shunryu Suzuki; Zen Mind, Beginners, Mind
Any time I find it hard to pull the trigger and publish a post, like this one or this one, I think about this post. Just be me. Easier said than done. And I hit publish.
In a nontheistic state of mind, abandoning hope is an affirmation, the beginning of the beginning. You could even put “Abandon hope” on your refrigerator door instead of more conventional aspirations like “Every day in every way I’m getting better and better.”
Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can’t simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment. We feel that someone else knows what’s going on, but that there’s something missing in us, and therefore something is lacking in our world.
– Pema Chodron; When Things Fall Apart
This sounds contrarian at first. Then, you realise the profundity of it.
The truth is no one knows what's going on and all of us are winging it. Some pretend well, some don't. Some are scoring a lot of points while winging it and that makes us assume they are experts.
Thanks for reading!