In your life, you will be evaluated on your output. Your boss will evaluate you on your output. If you’re a writer like me, the audience will evaluate you on your output.
But your input is just as important. If you don’t have good input, you cannot maintain good output.
The problem is no one manages your input. The boss never cares about your input. The boss doesn’t care about what books you read. Your boss doesn’t ask you what newspapers you read. The boss doesn’t ask you what movies you saw or what TV shows or what ideas you consume.
But I know for a fact I could not do what I do if I was not zealous in managing high-quality inputs into my mind every day of my life. That’s why I spend maybe two hours a day writing. I’m a writer. I spend two hours a day writing, but I spend three to four hours a day reading and two to three hours a day listening to music.
People think that that’s creating a problem in my schedule, but in fact, I say, “No, no, this is the reason why I’m able to do this. Because I have constant good-quality input.” That is the only reason why I can maintain the output.
—Ted Gioia
Your output depends on your input
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Home is not where you are born; home is where all your attempts to escape cease.
— Naguib Mahfouz -
You are always trying to “be something” or to be noticed for your spirituality. There are a lot of people who have an outward spirituality, but inwardly they still think too much of themselves. People who think they are lowering themselves have a lot of conceit. They think they are doing others a favor in “getting down to their level.”
True humility is not like this. A truly humble person is content in all situations. He doesn’t notice if he is being praised or blamed, and isn’t always weighing if what is being said to him or about him is to his advantage.
François Fénelon, The Seeking Heart -
I tend not to think of myself as a writer primarily. It’s something that I do from time to time—well, I hate writing. I hate, hate, hate writing. The only thing I enjoy about the writing process is being done with it.
Brandy Jensen, On writing, giving advice, and understanding yourself -
Where do you do most of your writing? Do you have a space in your home?
Yeah. There’s a room that would be too cruel to be anyone’s bedroom, but it’s the perfect size for a desk. I’m a ridiculously self-disciplined person, so I’m not tempted to do other things. I actually get dressed to go to work every day—that makes me feel like I’m getting ready to work—and then I don’t leave the house all day.
Myla Goldberg on inviting criticism, redefining success, and how parenting enhances your art -
“It is shameful for the gnostic to be involved in a lawsuit, whether as plaintiff or defendant: if as plaintiff, [it is shameful] because he will not have endured patiently; if as defendant, because he will have acted unjustly.”
—Evagrius Ponticus -
When those who have acquired moral stability and contemplative knowledge employ these for the sake of human glory, merely conveying an outward impression of the virtues, and uttering words of wisdom and knowledge without performing the corresponding actions; and when in addition they display to others their vanity because of this supposed virtue and knowledge, then they are rightly handed over to commensurate hardships, in order to learn through suffering that humility which was unknown to them before because of their empty conceit.
—St Maximos the Confessor -
This exceedingly simple outer life reflected a far more severe inner life. It was well known that Kyrillos slept little. But just how little is for the most part unknown. Each day he would awake at three in the morning for psalmody and Liturgy that would finish some five hours later. The entire day, until late, would be spent in meetings and visits, only to be interrupted by “his work” of Vespers at six in the evening. Most nights he would retire to his patriarchal cell just before midnight. This would allow for three to four hours of sleep at most. Yet even this is called into question. An examination of his letters (unpublished and thus unknown until now) reveals that if a time of writing as specific, then it was consistently between the hours of one to two in the morning. Even the few hours of sleep, it appears, would be regularly sacrificed.
A Silent Patriarch: Kyrillos VI (1902 -1971), Life and Legacy
Fr. Daniel Fanous
SO GOOD QUOTES 