A good leader must have the wisdom to know when a pursuit is no longer worthy of being pursued - a time when the losses of the present must be accepted - and cut - to preserve the gains and providence of the future.
Like tiny gods, all that we say and do holds a power so great that any one of us in any given moment can be responsible for the birth of a new civilization or the collapse of our own.
There is immense power in an idea, because it unites people. It motivates them toward change. But the real power lies in their unity, in coming together – if enough can be rallied to a cause, no matter how ridiculous, it will be seen and heard.
Life is what you make it and legacy is what you leave it. Stop trying to be perfect, stop waiting for perfection to find you, and start making your environment a product of you instead of the other way around.
We are united by something greater and more valuable than our beliefs alone: the freedom to have those beliefs, and believe what we want without persecution - we must protect that at all costs.
Perspective alone can make an experience positive or negative, but regardless of which you let it become, it can only have as much power over your outlook on life as you give it.
Don’t let the fact you haven’t done something before convince you that you can’t do it, or that it cannot be done perfectly the first time you try your hand at it.
We live our days in the microscopic, but something within us calls us to dream in the cosmic – every one of us. And within us exists those two worlds: the world as it is and the world as we think it ought to be.
Presenting a humble façade gains trust; flattery appeals to ego; combine the two to gain an ego-based trust within someone, and you will find in your hands a judgement clouding tool second only to love.
We all need to humble ourselves from time to time and expose ourselves to new perspectives and ideas, even those of the non-experts, or else our growth potential gets weighed down with the ignorance of ego and habit.
Through meditation, difficult thoughts and emotions may well rise up. And through practice, you can meet such emotions with kindness, listen to them, explore them and then really let them go.
Trust is always a risk, but when placed in the right people after a trial period where they prove themselves worthy of it, it is a reward transcendent of all the emotional mire that bogs down a person’s potential.
If someone was going to kill someone dear to you, and you could stop that person by killing them instead, would you kill them, knowing it was an effective way to save your loved one?
Sometimes we exist long enough to lead the next generation; other times, only to plant a seed and let its resonations of our time here on Earth ripple into new waves.
And yet - and yet - one's kite will rise on the wind as far as ever one has string to let it go. It tugs and tugs and will go, and one is glad the further it goes, even if everybody else is nasty about it.
There was nothing like a Saturday - unless it was the Saturday leading up to the last week of school and into summer vacation. That of course was all the Saturdays of your life rolled into one big shiny ball.
And I bet it's harder than people think, isn't it? Everything looks so simple from a distance. Then, the more you look, the more you see. And that's when you have to rise to the challenge.
Sad, slow music in the small hours of the morning isn't just sad and slow music. It's a narration. And through the myriad of morning dew, we are the twinkling stars that fade with the rising sun.
I forgive him and like water draining from the sand after a wave, the power he held over me disappears. A slow smile rises on my face.
This is the gift and the sorrow of the Athanate; to see your loves pass before you like the days of summer while your heart still beats. To keep your vigil in the shadows and rise again with every sun.
Something real, cool, and solid, lies before you something unromantic as Monday morning, when all who have work wake with the consciousness that they must rise and betake themselves thereto.
