Free will and responsibility
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.
The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?
If we see someone who needs help, do we stop? There is so much suffering and poverty, and a great need for good Samaritans.
People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Between life’s stimuli and our habitual responses exists choice.
God gives some more than others because some accept more than others.
In essence, you make your choices, and then your choices make you.
If it’s important enough, I’ll make the time. If not, I’ll make an excuse.
Always meet your commitments. Do more than is expected of you. Do things faster than expected. Achieve better results than expected. Do all of the above with integrity and with little fanfare.
You move totally away from reality when you believe that there is a legitimate reason to suffer.
Will – that is the name of the liberator and joy-bringer.
Good or bad, everything we do is our best choice at that moment.
One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.
The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That's the day we truly grow up.
Choose success over mediocrity.
Choose learning instead of entertainment.
Choose personal growth instead of jealousy.
Choose what you want, not what anyone else wants.
The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.
We are exactly where we have chosen to be.
Talk, talk, talk. How often it is used to back away from reality.
You don’t have to be the victim of your environment. You can also be the architect of it.
God does not want to control you, or stifle you, or manipulate you, or force you to do anything you don't want to do. Quite the opposite. God will let you do whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it, with whomever you want to do it, and as often as you want to do it. When was the last time God stopped you from doing anything?
To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open. It means deciding to voluntarily transform the chaos of potential into the realities of habitable order. It means adopting the burden of self-conscious vulnerability, and accepting the end of the unconscious paradise of childhood, where finitude and mortality are only dimly comprehended. It means willingly undertaking the sacrifices necessary to generate a productive and meaningful reality (it means acting to please God, in the ancient language).
When you have something to say, silence is a lie.
“Fuck “try.” Trying is an open invitation to failure, just another way of saying, “If I fail, it’s not my fault, I tried.”
Every choice we make in life is an experiment.
To you God gave the greatest gift God could ever bestow. It is the gift of creative thought.
In life man commits himself and draws his own portrait, outside of which there is nothing. No doubt this thought may seem harsh to someone who has not made a success of his life. But on the other hand, it helps people to understand that reality alone counts, and that dreams, expectations and hopes only serve to define a man as a broken dream, aborted hopes, and futile expectations.
Extreme Ownership. Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.
Excuses are the antithesis of accountability.
Your highest obligation to other people is to be your highest self.
We can all make powerful choices. We can all take back control by not blaming chance, fate, or anyone else for our outcomes. It’s within our ability to cause everything to change. Rather than letting past hurtful experiences sap our energy and sabotage our success, we can use them to fuel positive, constructive change.
The first step to building resilience is to take responsibility for who you are and for your life. If you’re not willing to do that, stop wasting your time reading this letter. The essence of responsibility is the acceptance of the consequences—good and bad—of your actions.
You can make excuses or you can make progress. You choose.
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.
We can let circumstances rule us, or we can take charge and rule our lives from within.
The fault… is not in the stars, but in ourselves.
Most men fail, not through lack of education or agreeable personal qualities, but from lack of dogged determination, from lack of dauntless will.
For the sharing to be useful and good, you have to be prepared to say something like, “I have made mistakes. I have thought, spoken, and acted in ways that have harmed our happiness and damaged our connection.
The world doesn’t care whether you choose to stop here or to go on. So you have to care.
Freedom to choose has what might be called expressive value. Choice is what enables us to tell the world who we are and what we care about.
It is easy to blame your lot in life on some outside force, to stop trying because you believe fate is against you. It is easy to think that where you were raised, how your parents treated you, or what school you went to is all that determines your future. Nothing could be further from the truth. The common people and the great men and women are all defined by how they deal with life’s unfairness.
Denial is the ultimate comfort zone.
If you don’t like something change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.
Virtue lies in our power, and similarly so does vice; because where it is in our power to act, it is also in our power not to act...
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