And where does getting laid fall into these three categories?
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Everyday? Can’t you just read?
What’s the difference between learning and studying? Between learning how to swim and studying how to swim, I’d choose learning.
An interesting development for me in recent months is that I often combine the physical with the spiritual. My mountain runs and mountain cycling have always been about getting close to nature so that spiritual side has always been there.
But lately, I’ve been talking a lot to God during my swims. I’m never bored during my swims so I’m not doing this to get rid of boredom (there are at least 10 things I can think of related to my form when I swim). Now I’m kind of voicing whatever issues I’m going through during my swims, and I’m quite enjoying it.
My swims have always been therapeutic. Now they’re also spiritual.
Today’s swim. Mondays are usually my rest days. But I needed the therapy. I really wasn’t feeling it (tired, sore body, got in a disagreement with the wife this morning), but I forced myself to suck it up and go anyway. It hurt today, but I’m so glad I went.
Together with some Mandarin studying I did today, I guess I experienced my 3 daily wins- two at the same time.
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Ok, and if you don’t have access to swimmable water?
I’ve studied how to surf way more than I’ve learned how to do it.
I hear that. I practice a kind of mediation when I run now.
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Yeats put it more poetically.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
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Yeats tended to exaggerate things. But that’s what happens to everyone all the time forever throughout human history.
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What about self-service? Nine times per day.
The center cannot hold!
That’s not a win. No one gets medals for winning at solitaire. Neither is going to a prostitute. A trophy you bought is not the same as one you earned.
In the game of life, you must win the race in a crowded field full of stiff competition. Very stiff.
It gets less stiff once you pass 60-- I HEAR. Not quite there yet.
I have a single definition of success: you look in the mirror every evening, and wonder if you disappoint the person you were at 18, right before the age when people start getting corrupted by life. Let him or her be the only judge; not your reputation, not your wealth, not your standing in the community, not the decorations on your lapel. If you do not feel ashamed, you are successful. All other definitions of success are modern constructions; fragile modern constructions. ~Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Book: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
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Nope. I like who I am now. 18 year old Bree needed to get over herself.
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I was an idiot at 18. All except for my growing love of Led Zeppelin, a complete idiot. But woulf that guy like who he sees now? I think that’s an interesting way to view success.
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No. When you are 18 you should have have dreams to change the world, do some great thing, make some achievement- doesn’t always work out. If you’re old (like me) and you can look back at your 18-year-old self and say “I had some crazy ideas, but I guess things didn’t turn out so bad”, that’s enough.
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I just wanted to change myself at 18. I find the problem with young people is that they’re being fed this bs that they can change the world without even experiencing it.
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I was confused and scared at 18. I had dreams to change the world much earlier, but at 18, the world was starting to scare me, as I started on my college journey. But I guess the sentiment of that quote I shared is whether when you’re at a young age before you are corrupted by the world’s view of success, would you view your current situation as successful.
I don’t really know the answer to that. Or at least need to ponder this a bit more.
But your point of whether, knowing what you know now, with all the wisdom you gained over the years (I’m also not young), you are satisfied is a good one. Perhaps that IS the better question. I think I am mostly satisfied. I made a few bad decisions in my twenties that I’m still paying for, but mostly satisfied with how I turned out.