The books don’t lie. I could kind of guess what some of my desires were 17 years ago when I took this photo of books from the library. But the books capture it. I wanted to be jacked, tan, and to have a sweet sweet jumper. Since then, I’ve achieved tan on and off with incredible consistency year over year.
Okay just writing this out here to make it a little more permanent. Otherwise I do think this idea would just get lost in my stack of notes.
There’s the whole “hold two opposing ideas in your head at the same time” thing. I really enjoy both Anthony de Mello (mostly about loving yourself and others) and an older Cracked article I read recently: 6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person (mostly about how the world doesn’t love you).
My hunch, and something I’ll need to dig into when lurking further, is that they’re actually not that opposed to each other. The world doesn’t care about you, which is why it’s so important to learn to love yourself and what you currently have.
For now I’ll just cherry pick a couple quotes before heading off to bed.
A harsh truth: what you do matters a lot more than to the world than who you think you are inside.
Let’s say that the person you love the most has just been shot. He or she is lying in the street, bleeding and screaming. A guy rushes up and says, “Step aside.” He looks over your loved one’s bullet wound and pulls out a pocket knife — he’s going to operate right there in the street.
The guy can be a vile person 99% of the time but if he happens to know how to and does save your loved one, that 1% is all that matters.
What you do is who you are.
And now one from Anthony de Mello. From Stop Fixing Yourself:
The villager took the diamond and went to sit under a tree on the outskirts of the village. He held the diamond close to his heart, and he experienced great joy. Now, this is the kind of joy most people feel the day they get something they really want. Have you ever stopped to ask how long that kind of joy lasts? You got the girl you wanted, right? You got the boy you wanted. You got that car. You got the degree. You were at the top of your class. You got what you thought was your dream job, right? How long does that joy last? How many seconds? How many minutes?
One of the happiest moments of my life was getting the Newegg packages for all the parts for the first PC I built the summer before heading to college.
Higher FPS, taken for granted so quickly.
Okay off to bed. I’ll do this as a Notepod episode sometime.