The world is a stage where everyone is role playing. I don’t care about being good, I want to be perfect. Life is stranger than fiction, so why not treat it like a story? The powdering of time softens all angularities into curves. You can wake up in the morning and be the person you want to be. The best things in life are free but the second best are very expensive. How long can you dance on the edge of sincerity without toppling into it? Everyone wants to be important to someone, the soft underbelly of a beast. You don’t have to dig very deep to find something dearly tragic in someone’s life. God made us the right amount of stupid to protect us from the sharp pain of tragedy. It’s better that we’re dull to certain sensations we would otherwise not be able to bear. The austerity and asceticism of that quiet place in my mind can turn anything into a story. Our capacity for appreciating material things is limited by how much beauty we can find in them. Being a sensitive young woman is a game rigged just enough to make you feel clever for playing. To be a sensitive young woman is to have a soul so observant that no experience escapes it, it’s to be so discerning that knowledge instantly processes into feelings and feelings into words.
Sherry NingYou are not made out of glass, you can take punches and keep moving. Exploit (comfort) and explore (innovation). All it takes in one person to disrupt a market. A life spent coasting instead of getting better is less satisfying. View things as hypothesis to be tested rather than truth to be proved. Overthink one part of the whole and watch it all crumble because you have overlooked the rest. Have a growth mindset to every event, how can you improve and become the best that you can be? You can't have growth without the willingness to defer gratification both as an individual and as a society. The journey of trying to best that you can be, even if it doesn't mean that you're the best in the world, is fascinating. Before considering moving somewhere you liked during a trip, go there on holidays at the shittiest season. Some people are so afraid of failing that they create the circumstances for disaster, they self-handicap, so they can have an excuse. Despite what social media portraits, life isn't about appearing perfect. Never failing means living so cautiously you haven't lived at all. Business tackles things more complex than sport, hence athletes have more to learn from business than business has to learn from athletes. An experiment to which the end result is already known is a waste of time. Innovation implies risks, test in tough rather than perfect conditions. Don't bother spending 10k hours to be the number one, the best at something, if you don't have the natural talent and genes. If everyone gets 10% better each year through hard work, the relative ranking remains the same.
Matthew SyedYou can shoot for the stars, or you can aim for something a bit more within reach like the troposphere. It’s all about the gradual climb towards greatness. Big, important, and impressive achievements take time, they don’t happen overnight. The right strategy for goal-setting ultimately hinges on your individual traits, inclinations, and, naturally, your habits and routines. Each little win adds up, making you stronger, more confident, and ready to tackle bigger challenges instead of feeling overwhelmed. Setting the bar too high can serve to de-motivate and discourage you from ever getting started. Commit to regular, bite-sized goals and be okay with that: run a mile daily five days a week, visit one new state per month, keep one plant alive for three months.
Robin Copple