Seek Mastery of Life

A happy life consists not in the absence,
but in the mastery of hardships.
- Helen Keller

Only one who devotes himself to a cause
with his whole strength and soul
can be a true master.
For this reason mastery demands all of a person.
- Albert Einstein

Self-disciplined begins with the mastery of your thoughts.
If you don't control what you think,
you can't control what you do.
Simply, self-discipline enables you
to think first and act afterward.
- Napoleon Hill

How different our lives are when we
really know what is deeply important to us,
and keeping that picture in mind,
we manage ourselves each day
to be and to do what really matters most.
- Stephen Covey

Further reading: How to Choose Your Life Purpose

Master of My Emotions

Live Your Inspired Life

Master of My Fate

Laugh at Life
           

First, Understand What IS

First, Understand What IS!
You can't improve the world until you understand how it functions today.
Especially regarding human nature, understand what is baked-in and what is malleable.
Study psychology; study history of the world.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

What I recognized is that you can't put it together.
It's already together, and what you have to do
is experience it being together.
- Werner Erhard

If you want reality to be different than it is,
you might as well try to teach a cat to bark.
- Byron Katie

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.
- Henry David Thoreau

We don't live in the world of reality,
we live in the world of how we perceive reality.
- Bryan Singer

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious
privilege it is to be alive -
to breathe,
to think, to enjoy, to love.
- Marcus Aurelius

Not what we experience,
but how we perceive what we experience,
determines our fate.
- Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

Further reading: Seeking

Solitary Cell

Perspective
             

Set Your Own Course

I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.
- William Ernest Henley

Having a personal opinion is great.
Believing that one's personal opinion is absolute truth
leads to most of the world's troubles.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Steve Jobs' Three Rules of Life ...

1. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.

2. Don't be trapped by dogma -
which is living with the results of other people's thinking.
Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.

3. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition -
they somehow already know what you truly want to become.
- Steve Jobs

Take time to contemplate -
away from the opinions and influence of others -
what you really want
and what you believe to be important in your life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today's affirmation:
I set my own course through the ocean of life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Life and Death: Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005 (video)

Big Dream - Big Adventure

Create Your Masterwork

Fun and Success
      

To be Courageous is to Face Your Fears

 

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.
- Edmund Hillary

It is better to conquer yourself
than to win a thousand battles.
Then the victory is yours.
It cannot be taken from you,
not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.
- The Buddha

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear,
but the triumph over it.
The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid,
but he who conquers that fear.
- Nelson Mandela

I believe that anyone can conquer fear
by doing the things he fears to do,
provided he keeps doing them until he gets
a record of successful experience behind him.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Further reading:  Balance Caution With Courage

Don't Try to Please Everyone

Play to win, but be a good loser
     

Find Something Joyful, TODAY

Find something to be joyful about, TODAY.

It is good to have an end to journey towards;
but it is the journey that matters in the end.
- Ursula K. Le Guin

Happiness isn't at the end of the rainbow.
Happiness is at the beginning of the rainbow.
Following the rainbow is happiness,
not getting to the end of it.
- Werner Erhard

To live only for some future goal is shallow.
It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.
- Robert M. Pirsig

Come dress yourself in love, let the journey begin.
- Francesca da Rimini

Further reading: Stay Adaptable

The Secret of Happiness

Be Flexible

Choosing to Love Life
       

Taking Oneself Lightly, Forgiveness, and Acceptance

Keys to a great life... taking oneself lightly, forgiveness, and acceptance.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If we could all just laugh at ourselves,
in hard times or good times, it would be an incredible world.
- Jena Malone

Life's burdens are lighter when I laugh at myself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There is no defense against adverse fortune which is
so effectual as an habitual sense of humor.
- Thomas W. Higginson

Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.
- Mark Twain

Life is not a tragedy, it is a comedy.
To be alive means to have a sense of humor.
- Osho

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.
- Mark Twain

Further reading: Power of Laughter

Cherish the Whimsey

Having a Sense of Humor

As a Child Again 
   

Human Nature is Life's Greatest Riddle

Life is a riddle.
We cannot expect to understand life's twists and turns as they occur each day,
and we greatly frustrate ourselves in the futile attempt.
Be content to appreciate that there is an overarching purpose,
though that purpose be known only to God, and to history.
Choose service. Choose joy. Accept the unknowing.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand.
- Jose Ortega Y Gasset

We learn more by looking for the answer
to a question and not finding it
than we do from learning the answer itself.
- Lloyd Alexander

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize
how little we understand about life,
ourselves, and the world around us.
- Socrates

Half of everything you were ever taught is wrong;
the question is which half.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The book of life is filled with incoherent riddles.
(and human nature is perhaps life's greatest riddle.)
Life's true lessons are inscribed in a corner of the margin.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Read more about The Book of Life

Further reading:  The Nature of Learning

Lessons from Life

Beyond Understanding