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Flashes of Insight – 2020 edition

For a few years now I’ve been documenting what I call “flashes of insight” in my notes app. Re-reading them just now made me think I should share them. So.. I present you with my a list of insights and quotes from 2020.

Some of these are self-explanatory, while others may confuse you out of context. I’ve notated the source where possible, and the dates reflect the day I recorded the insight.

12/26/2019

There is no past and no future; no one has ever entered those two imaginary kingdoms. There is only the present.

Tolestoy

12/22/19

The most courageous decision that you can make each day is to be in a good mood.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Voltaire and Rilke, respectively

12/20/19

And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.

― Kurt Vonnegut From A Man Without a Country

12/17/19

Give up the War

Sam Harris

12/11/19

Poker face. Accept. Be.

Get rid of shit you don’t need.

Let go. completely.

This egolessness, which is the key to being authentic is a battle.

Garry Shandling

11/26/19

You can’t teach tenacity

Sam Hollander 

11/14/19

There are two ways to live your life. One is as if nothing is a miracle. And the other is as if everything is a miracle.  

Einstein – Neri Oxman’s favorite quote – from Abstract on Netflix

10/29/19

A well-flowing life is when we wish for what is going to happen not what we want to happen  

Epictetus

10/16/19

The Straightforward and good person should be like a smelly goat — you know when they are in the room with you

Marcus Aurelius

10/1/19

While pain is inevitable, suffering is a choice – everything is fucked.

Mark Manson

9/21/19

That being so, so what

Jerry Colonna – Reboot

9/21/19

What makes all of life complicated, and not just hard, is this unwillingness to do the work that’s ours to do her unwillingness to live the examined life.

Jerry Colonna – Reboot

9/18/19

What if being lost is part of the path? Reboot

Jerry Colonna – Reboot

9/16/19

Don’t mistake motion for meaning

Jerry Colonna – Reboot

6/21 

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.

Anne Lamott

6/15/19

Three pillars of happiness: regular exercise, mediation, and constant pursuit of purpose.

Bob Weir – GQ article

6/2/19

Life ultimately means taking responsibility to find the right answers to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for the individual

Viktor Frankl – Man’s search for Meaning.

5/28/19

There is only one thing i dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings

Dostoevski

2/17/19

Comparison is death

Liz Gilbert Magic Lessons Podcast 

2/6/19

It just doesn’t matter

Tripper from Meatballs (Bill Murray)

1/28/19

The vitality in life is staying a verb

Mark Rohn? Poet on magic lessons podcast  – unsure

1/16/19

If we don’t discipline ourselves, the world will do it for us.

William Feather

1/10/19

Any talent you do not use becomes a burden

Liz Gilbert 

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