Quotes About Perspective

The most important trick to be happy is to realize that happiness is a choice that you make and a skill that you develop. You choose to be happy, and then you work at it. It's just like building muscles.

Often, all that stands between you and what you want is a better set of questions.

Pacifists become militants. Freedom fighters become tyrants. Blessings become curses. Help becomes hindrance. More becomes less.

The golden years become lower-middle-class life revisited. That's a bittersweet ending.

every day, it's something to reflect on and think about 'How do I become less competitive in order that I can become more successful?

Most information is time-consuming, negative, irrelevant to your goals, and outside of your influence. I challenge you to look at whatever you read or watched today and tell me that it wasn't at least two of the four. I read the front-page headlines through

Strauss, Neil: "'The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.'—Norman Vincent Peale

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.

The Tail End" by Tim Urban on the Wait But Why blog—if you only read one article this month, make it that one. It

I'm often asked how I define "success." It's an overused term, but I fundamentally view this elusive beast as a combination of two things - achievement and appreciation. One isn't enough: Achievement without appreciation makes you ambitious but miserable. Appreciation without achievement makes you unambitious but happy.

If you don't believe in an afterlife, then you [should realize] that this is such a short and precious life, it is really important that you don't spend it being unhappy. There is no excuse for spending most of your life in misery. You've only got 70 years out of the 50 billion or however long the universe is going to be around.

Our point is, if you try to approach every problem with your moral compass, first and foremost, you're going to make a lot of mistakes. You're going to exclude a lot of possible good solutions. You're going to assume you know a lot of things, when in fact you don't, and you're not going to be a good partner in reaching a solution with other people who don't happen to see the world the way you do.

We create stress for ourselves because you feel like you have to do it. You have to. I don't feel that anymore. —OPRAH WINFREY, actress and talk-show host, The Oprah Winfrey Show

If you're confused about life, you're not alone. There are almost seven billion of us. This isn't a problem, of course, once you realize that life is neither a problem to be solved nor a game to be won. If you are too intent on making the pieces of a nonexistent puzzle fit, you miss out on all the real fun. The heaviness of success-chasing can be replaced with a serendipitous lightness when you recognize that the only rules and limits are those we set for ourselves.

The more we associate experience with cash value, the more we think that money is what we need to live. And the more we associate money with life, the more we convince ourselves that we're too poor to buy our freedom. With

We are simultaneously gods and worms."—Abraham Maslow

What will the people who don't hold you in highest regard say about you?

These individuals have riches just as we say that we 'have a fever,' when really the fever has us." –Seneca Roman Stoic philosopher, famed playwright

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

Sometimes, you think you have to figure out your life's purpose, but you really just need some macadamia nuts and a cold fucking shower.

As a builder, as an entrepreneur, how can you create something for someone else if you don't have even enough glancing familiarity with them to imagine the world through their eyes?

Must-watch documentary The Gatekeepers (2012)

I used to resent obstacles along the path, thinking, 'If only that hadn't happened life would be so good.' Then I suddenly realized, life is the obstacles. There is no underlying path." Janna Levin TW/IG: @jannalevin

everything around you that you call 'life' was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And