I really do know what it is that I should be doing. I can tell you that it often feels like it will be soul-crushing work. Which really doesn’t make sense when I take the time to think about it. As I turn over each ‘should’ in my mind, they’re all things I want to do. And yet.

For me, fully internalizing this one powerful piece of inspiring profanity has been transformative. But I still find that returning regularly to the well makes all this work even better. So I downloaded both of the Goggins’s audiobooks and worked through them in little chunks on my morning walks over the period of a month. Then I moved on to Peter Attia’s Outlive, and Jocko Willink’s, Extreme Ownership.

~ Peter Adeney, from The Ultimate Life Coach

I’ve not read any of the books above (although Outlive is sitting in my to-read pile) but one thing I should be doing is not adding more books to my to-read pile. It’s bad enough that I added a podcast episode with Goggins to my to-listen pile.

The genuine love for reading itself, when cultivated, is a superpower. We live in the age of Alexandria, when every book and every piece of knowledge ever written down is a fingertip away. The means of learning are abundant—it’s the desire to learn that’s scarce. Cultivate that desire by reading what you want, not what you’re “supposed to.”

~ Naval Ravikant

Sure, it’s a superpower, but when I am overloaded, overworked, and burnt-out, my one love of reading becomes yet another burden. Too often I wonder just how far off into the weed I really am with all of the things I’m doing. Sometimes I despair of ever finishing, but I usually manage to check myself: Finishing isn’t the point. It’s the doing that counts. And doing it well counts more.

All expectation is a story of the possible. Every person lives inside a story of who they are, what they are worth, and what is possible for their life, and suffers in proportion to how conscious they are of the story, how much credence they give those inner voices over the raw input of reality. It is often when life blindsides us with a bright counternarrative to a limiting inner story that we suffer the most, because we are suddenly forced to revise our entire personal mythos, to relinquish our familiar ways of keeping ourselves small, to exceed our own expectations of the possible.

~ Maria Popova, from John Quincy Adams on Impostor Syndrome and the True Measure of Success

Oof. Those last two phrases have stuck with me. Daily—more or less—I survey the cornucopia stuffed with creative ideas which I have clutched in my arms. Why am I clutching? These ideas are an embarassment of riches. I should simply bring them to fruition as best I can.

When Odysseus was shipwrecked and cast ashore … what did he trust in? Not in reputation, or riches, or office, but in his own strength, that is to say, in his judgements about what things are in our power and what are not. For these judgements alone are what make us free, make us immune from hinderance, raise the head of the humiliated, and make them look into the faces of the rich with unaverted eyes, and into the faces of tyrants.

~ Epictetus

I just searched through 1,470 quotes and liked how that one fit there. I’ve long thought my collection of quotes was impressive and I’ve long worked to share the quotes. But only just in that moment there—after reading Popova’s words, searching for, and selecting a simple quote from Epictetus—have I realized how freakin’ awesome it is to be able to do that with a few flicks of my fingers.

It isn’t all terrible! Some of it is, but I won’t complain about it because of the good things. But really, the problems that I have are the same problems that everyone else has: consistency, integrity and character, am I really showing up, am I someone, am I who I think I am? No, I’m not. So you are not who you think you are, you have created this illusion. And when you first look in the mirror, and you’re going, “Who the hell is that? I don’t look like that, do I?”

~ Bill Murray, from Bill Murray

Consistency, integrity and character, am I really showing up, am I someone, am I who I think I am? Those are the questions. I’ve found that all the knowledge in the world about what imposter syndrome is, has still not fully inoculated me. Over and over I continue to convince myself that asking those questions of myself and agreeing that the true answer really is ‘yes’— that’s the only booster shot available.

Operatics, combat and confusion. Sloth and servility. Every day they blot out those sacred principles of yours—which you day-dream thoughtlessly about, or just let slide. Your actions and perceptions need to aim: at accomplishing practical ends; at the exercise of thought; at maintaining a confidence founded on understanding. An unobtrusive confidence—hidden in plain sight.

~ Marcus Aurelius

Nearly 3,000 years separate Aurelius and Murray (and me). I feel I’m in pretty good company.

Laziness is not something we need to fix or overcome with caffeine or longer hours, but a sign that you need to slow down.

~ Teodora Stoica, from Slow down, it’s what your brain has been begging for

To be clear, Stoica means that literally. I’ve become convinced that’s true for me.

I know what to do: Relax more. And slow down.

Until next time, thanks for reading.

ɕ