Category: VOCATION

  • “It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

    —Wendell Berry, “Poetry and Marriage: The Use of Old Forms”

  • …listen to the cause: for a small gain they travel far; for eternal life many will scarcely lift a foot from the ground. They seek a petty reward, and sometimes fight shamefully in law courts for a single piece of money. They are not afraid to work day and night for a trifle or an empty promise. But, for an unchanging good, for a reward beyond estimate, for the greatest honor and for glory everlasting, it must be said to their shame that men begrudge even the least fatigue. Be ashamed, then, lazy and complaining servant, that they should be found more eager for perdition than you are for life, that they rejoice more in vanity than you in truth.

    —Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

  • My own definition of success is “leaving your corner of the world better than you found it.” Your “corner” may be focused on a single town or a neighborhood within a city, or it may carry you to dozens of countries. Whatever your sphere of influence, when you are seeking to enrich the lives of others through relationships, you will find the most satisfying form of success.

    Love as a Way of Life
    Gary Chapman

  • “Instead of asking ourselves what we got done on a given day, perhaps we should be asking if our time was well spent.”

    —Srinivas Rao

  • “The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”

    ―Mary Oliver

  • “Your mood can affect your level of motivation, but never let it affect your discipline. Successful people know what they need to do and do it, regardless of how they feel. Don’t miss out on possible opportunities just because you have chosen to be overpowered by temporary feelings.”

    —@emma_vogt

  • Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either.

    —Mike Jeffries, Former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch

  • And here’s David McCullough:

    There’s an awful temptation to just keep on researching. There comes a point where you just have to stop, and start writing. When I began, I thought that the way one should work was to do all the research and then write the book. In time I began to understand that it’s when you start writing that you really find out what you don’t know and need to know.

    START BEFORE YOU THINK YOU’RE READY

  • Quiet your thoughts and listen to your feelings instead. Decision fatigue is exhausting because it’s a side effect of living inside your thoughts. Circular thoughts are caused by the deep-seated belief that there is ONE RIGHT ANSWER. You want to know the correct course of action. Naps, good or bad? Exercise, good or bad? Food, good or bad? Booze, good or bad? Every action is a binary moral toggle.

    Feel your way forward instead. Sometimes a nap is delicious. Other times, a nap is a way to avoid exercise or work. Sometimes work is delicious. Sometimes not working is not only necessary but sublime. If you work too much when you’re really, truly not feeling it, that can slow your productivity down a lot. You rebel against your own edict.

    Yesterday, I woke up at 2 am and walked 7 miles on my treadmill desk while writing a new chapter of my book. I took at nap at 11 am. The day before that, I walked 8 miles, worked 12 hours, and finished the draft of huge chapter of my book. I don’t think I’ve ever tried to write for that long before, but it just kept coming. The week before that, I had been struggling to even look at either my treadmill or my book, but my writing (and my entire body maybe?) fell into a hallucinatory wormhole and I went with it.

    ASK MOLLY | Glory – Maybe you want some for yourself.

  • it’s easy for a depressed person to look like he’s not working when just lying in bed can feel like work for him.

    ASK MOLLY | Hungry!