Home > Work > Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life
81 " Energy, curiosity, and wonder are not products of age. They’re byproducts of what we do. "
― Eric Greitens , Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life
82 " Why Resilience? Of all the virtues we can learn, no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge. —MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI Walker, "
83 " For many people in the Western world, freedom is limited not so much by what others do to us, but by what we cannot do for ourselves. Walker, "
84 " Please, dear Lord, don’t let me f*** up. —ALAN SHEPARD, first American in space, seconds before liftoff "
85 " We grow when we recover from the right pain in the right way. "
86 " Mastery lives quietly atop a mountain of mistakes. "
87 " Self-respect isn’t something a teacher or a coach or a government can hand you. Self-respect grows through self-created success: not because we’ve been told we’re good, but when we know we’re good. Not everyone gets a trophy, because not every performance merits celebration. If we want our children to have a shot at resilience, they must learn what failure means. If they don’t learn that lesson from loving parents and coaches and teachers, life will teach it to them in a far harsher way. "
88 " An unwillingness to endure the hardship of a depressed time keeps us from the possibility of capturing the wisdom and strength and joy that can exist on the other side. There is a season to be sad. Painful things hurt. Allow yourself to be hurt. "
89 " The point is to read in a way that leads to better thinking, and to think in a way that leads to better living. "
90 " What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies. —ARISTOTLE "
91 " Not what we have, but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance. "
92 " Resilience is the virtue that enables people to move through hardship and become better. "
93 " Friends challenge the flaws in our thinking and the flaws in our character. When they do that, they make us better. Good friends hold us to a higher standard when we are ready to make an excuse for ourselves. Friends sympathize with our pain, but they stop us from wallowing in it. Friends point out our blind spots, and they do so not with vindictiveness or cruelty, but out of honesty, love, and a desire that we live the fullest and best life possible. "
94 " But it’s also a human tendency—and a pronounced tendency in America—to become enamored of our tools and lose sight of their place. Think about a couple of the basic functions of any community: educating children and policing the streets. Today we spend huge effort and millions of dollars to bring more technology into the classroom, when the great majority of students in the great majority of circumstances can learn almost all of what they need to know with a supportive family, a pencil, some paper, good books, and a great teacher. The schools that produced Shakespeare and Jefferson and Darwin had some writing materials, some printed books—and that was it. "
95 " Of all the virtues we can learn, no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge. —MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI "
96 " I find myself praying more when things are harder. I also find myself drinking water more when I am thirsty, and eating more when I am hungry, and sleeping more when I am tired. And I’ve finally begun to accept that if I pray more when I am troubled, that’s just as natural. "
97 " Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city; but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart and rebuild a weakened will. "
98 " When all I thought about was my own pain and how the world had dealt me an unfair hand, I became weaker. When I thought of the needs of my team, my friends, I became stronger. We often think that our friends help us when we are weak. And they do. But it’s also true that we become strong when we have friends to be strong for. "
99 " Would you love people the same if they could never die? "
100 " The best friends support us, challenge us, inspire us. And we do the same for them. "