Quotes About Fulfillment

Just because you wander in the desert, it does not mean there is a promised land.

He knew that his wings could ignite at any moment, but the closer he came to touching the fire, the more he sensed that he was fulfilling his destiny. As he put it in his journal that night: If I mean to save my life, then I have to come within an inch of destroying it.

You must get used to doing with as little as you can. By wanting less, you are content with less, and the less you need, the better off you are.

That was the real difference, Ferguson concluded. Not too little money or too much money, not what a person did or failed to do, not buying a larger house or a more expensive car, but ambition. That explained why Brownstein and Solomon managed to float through their lives in relative peace—because they weren't tormented by the curse of ambition.

That's how it is with want. As long as you lack something, you yearn for it without cease. If only I could have that one thing, you tell yourself, all my problems would be solved. But once you get it, once the object of your desires is thrust into your hands, it begins to lose its charm. Other wants assert themselves, other desires make themselves felt, and bit by bit you discover that you're right back where you started.

Half the people I know want to be writers. Why do you say want? If you're already doing it, then it's not about the future. It already exists in the present.

He was not trying to buy happiness, but simply an absence of unhappiness.

Me parece que siempre seré feliz allí donde no estoy

Non parlo tanto del desiderio, quanto della consapevolezza, della scoperta che due persone, tramite il desiderio, possono creare una realtà più potente di quella che ciascuna potrebbe creare da sola.

A meal was no more than a fragile defense against the inevitability of the next meal. Food itself could never answer the question of food; it only delayed the moment when the question would have to be asked in earnest.

No es que escribir me produzca un gran placer, pero es mucho peor si no lo hago.

But that is how it is with want. As long as you lack something, you yearn for it without cease. If only I could have that one thing, you tell yourself, all my problems would be solved. But once you get it, once the object of your desires is thrust into your hands, it begins to lose its charm.

those men worked in order to live, whereas his father seemed to live in order to work, which meant that his parents' friends were defined more by their enthusiasms than their burdens or responsibilities,

Children are a consolation for everthing - except having children.

A steady fuck is good for you.

I am an ardent believer in universal happiness. I would like everyone in the world to have satisfying, fulfilling work, for everyone to earn enough to escape the menace of poverty, but I have no idea how to achieve such worthy goals. Therefore, I will pass over these matters in silence.

If you suffer for something that gives delight, soon the suffering itself can give joy.

Blaise Pascal was even blunter: "All men seek happiness. This is without exception." And, to make clear how serious he is, he later adds: "This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.

the conclusion is even stronger—it's not merely that there exist some people who are both happy and have lives with meaning. It's that there is a correlation: happy people are more likely to say that their lives are meaningful, and people who say that their lives are meaningful are more likely to say that they're happy.

turns out that one can screw up being happy by trying to be happy—or at least by trying to be happy in the wrong way.

It turns out that pursuing extrinsic goals related to praise and reward—looking attractive, making money, and building up social status—makes you less happy and less fulfilled, and is linked with more depression, anxiety, and mental illness.

Only 13 percent said they were engaged, 63 percent said that they were disengaged, and 24 percent saw themselves as actively disengaged. Put simply, many people think their jobs suck. There are all sorts of reasons why this is so. Many jobs have degrading conditions, perceived unfairness, and lack of autonomy.

Some people engage in meaningful pursuits, and this, I argue, makes their lives better. But people don't have to think about meaning for this to work. People who mountain-climb, for instance, might have an entirely mistaken theory of what climbing does for them, just as someone who exercises might have an entirely wrong theory of the benefits of exercise.

Money does make you happy; it's the trying to make money that makes you sad. The trick is to get money in the course of other, meaningful, pursuits