After seven years of writing - and working many jobs to support my family - I finally got published.
We think we see the world as it is, when in fact we see the world as we are.
I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.
Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. They're either speaking or preparing to speak. They're filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people's lives.
Habit 1: Be Proactive Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind Habit 3: Put First Things First Habit 4: Think WinWin Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood Habit 6: Synergize Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
To achieve goals you've never achieved before, you need to start doing things you've never done before.
Be a light, not a judge, be a model not a critic. Little by little, your circle of influence will explode and you will avoid the emotional metastasizing cancers of complaining, criticizing, competing, comparing and cynicism, all which reflect victimization, all of which are the opposite of being proactive.
Blessed the man and woman who is able to serve cheerfully in the second rank - a big test.
After all the time we [people] spent saying look, war is a stupid way to solve stuff - oh, you're not trying to solve stuff. You're trying to make money.
When desire is still in this pure state, the man and the woman fall in love with life, they live each moment reverently, consciously, always ready to celebrate the next blessing. When people feel like this, they are not in a hurry, they do not precipitate events with unthinking actions. They know that the inevitable will happen, that what is real always finds a way of revealing itself. When the moment comes, they do not hesitate, they do not miss an opportunity, they do not let slip a single magic moment, because they respect the importance of each second.
It was like death by a thousand paper cuts.