10 Lessons from One Year of Daily Quotes
One year. Three-hundred and sixty-five quotes. And ten of you have come along for the ride. So, here are 10 lessons from one year of Daily Quotes!
This morning I released Daily Quote #365 marking one complete year of Daily Quotes. Ten of you are now subscribed to A Diary of Self-Improvement, some of you joined early on, and others more recently. So, in this post, I will recap my ten favourite quotes along with the lessons and mindsets I have developed in the past year.
Reader Feedback Survey
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10. Why are you after so much?
“Is it not madness and the worst form of derangement to want so much though you can hold so little?”
Seneca, Consolation to Helvia
Back where it all began. The very first daily quote is one I still love - it is one of my favourite quotes from Seneca.
Since the end of World War II, Western society has trended towards, and widely adopted, Consumerism - the basic premise being that the attainment and consumption of material goods will lead to happiness. But from my own experience, I cannot say I have ever achieved more than an influx of joy upon the purchase of something. I have certainly never had sustained happiness from a material item. The new phone or piece of technology is exciting initially, but it is the law of the universe that you habituate and become accustomed to the item.
Stop thinking that getting that extra possession is the (or a) missing piece to make your life happy. You can only experience and enjoy so much at one time anyway. I bet that the majority of items you own, you do not interact with on a daily basis, maybe not even on a monthly or on an annual basis - so why do you need so much?
“Is it not madness and the worst form of derangement to want so much though you can hold so little?”
Check out the original post below (There was not much going on in this first post, as it is simply the quote!):
9. Romantic Spirituality
“Since the dawn of time, roughly a hundred billion human beings have walked the planet Earth. Now this is an interesting number, for by a curious coincidence there are approximately a hundred billion stars in our local universe, the Milky Way. So for every man who has ever lived, in this Universe there shines a star.”
Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey
I am not a religious person, nor am I a particularly spiritual person, but this quote is filled with such a romantic perception that I just love.
The night sky is the most awe-inspiring and beautiful wonder in existence. You drown in the vastness, but are filled up by the potential of what is out there. To me, the humility you gain from realising how small you are is so refreshing.
What a beautiful notion it is to think that once our time in the mortal realm comes to an end, we re-join the universe as a star in the night sky from which we came*.
*I should state that we are scientifically comprised out of atoms forged in the heart of stars, not that I think we came from a spacefaring alien species or something!
Check out the original post below:
8. Stop Holding On
“Most problems fade when you expand your time horizon. And if you’re not gonna care eventually, might as well not care today.”
Alex Hormozi
I love this reframe of problems. It allows you to let go so much quicker once you realise that given enough time you just aren’t going to care. Alex Hormozi puts it so succinctly: if you’re not going to care eventually, might as well not care today. When you zoom out, it allows you to see that in comparison to the big picture, this setback does not matter. Learn from it and move on. Why hold on to the emotional weight and baggage, and let it drag you down? Let go, today.
Check out the original post below:
7. Be Your Own Person
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you’ll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”
Rudyard Kipling
Who or what are you a slave to? It can be incredibly difficult to go against the grain - to go your own way. Have I achieved this yet? No. But I am working on it. The suffocation you can feel from being dragged down a path you do not actually want to go is too great a cost.
What do you want most in life? This quote from Epictetus comes to mind:
“Whenever externals are more important to you than your own integrity, then be prepared to serve them the remainder of your life.”
Daily Quote #297: Epictetus, Discourses (Book II, 2: On tranquillity)
You have to decide between people-pleasing and doing what is best for you. This life is yours, not anyone else’s.
Be sure to act in accordance with your morals, ethics, and values - never compromise on these fronts.
Check out the original post below:
6. Be a Sensible Optimist
“Optimism is usually defined as a belief that things will go well. But that's incomplete. Sensible optimism is a belief that the odds are in your favor, and over time things will balance out to a good outcome even if what happens in between is filled with misery. And in fact you know it will be filled with misery. You can be optimistic that the long-term growth trajectory is up and to the right, but equally sure that the road between now and then is filled with landmines, and always will be.”
Morgan Housel, The Psychology of Money
This is the healthy mentality to adopt in life: things will be difficult, but in the end everything will work out. There will be good times and there will be bad times - that is life. The attitude of the Sensible Optimist helps to keep your head up regardless of what life throughs at you. This moment in time will pass, and you will be all the stronger for it - as well as more grateful for the good times, when they come.
Check out the original post below:
5. Change, Don’t Complain.
“See if you can catch yourself complaining, in either speech or thought, about a situation you find yourself in, what other people do or say, your surroundings, your life situation, even the weather. To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.”
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
There is always something you can do to change the situation - in every situation. You can speak out, take action, or leave if needed. You are not helpless. If, for instance, you were in a jail cell and you literally could not leave, there would still be things you could do. Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption (1994) is a perfect example. Andy made small steps to improve life in prison over years of relentless perseverance. He took the Stoic mindset of making his mind his sanctum, regardless of what horrible situations he had to face:
“There are places in this world that aren't made out of stone . . . there's something inside they can’t get to, they can’t touch. It’s yours.”
Daily Quote #327: Andy Dufresne, The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Complaining is an attempt to deny reality; but, it will never work. Complaining and bemoaning your situation does not alter anything. When you complain, the Chimp is in control. Wear it out. Then, get the Human part of you to take action (sometimes that has to be an acceptance of reality) so that when the Chimp recovers you do not end up in a cycle of complaint.
Check out the original post below:
4. Gratitude is the Cure
“Gratitude is the cure for resentment.”
Jimmy Carr, The Joe Rogan Experience #2045
This is something which truly hit me the other day: I am truly privileged, out of anywhere in the world I could have been born into, I was born in the UK. It has it’s challenges for sure, but the opportunities available to me are staggering when compared to those in countries where political forces act to keep classes divided, voices are suppressed, and there is not a chance for you to live out your dreams. (North Korea for example.)
If you have even below average wealth in the UK you are still in the top 30% of the wealthiest people in the world. That makes you wealthier than 5.7 Billion people currently alive. When it is put into such large numbers as to how you have it far better than literally billions of people currently alive, yet alone the hundred billion people who lived before you, how can you not be incredibly grateful for your lot in life?
No matter your circumstance, there is always someone somewhere who is in a worse situation than you.
This is not necessarily the starting place of the solution for everyone to their problems. If you are having a hard time and not coping with what is going on in your life, other things may need to come first before this gratitude mentality helps you. You need to develop the skills to sit with and start to overcome those challenges in your life. Once you get to that place though: gratitude is the investment which gives exponential returns.
Once you are grateful for all you have, how can you be resentful?
Check out the original post below:
3. Life Shapes Us
“Look, bad things are gonna happen, and that’s okay. It makes us who we are. But good things happen too.”
Peter B. Parker, Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse (2023)
We are made by the challenges we face. If life were easy we would become entitled and narcissistic, like how Jesper is at the start of the Christmas movie Klaus (2019). When Jesper’s father has had enough, he sends him to do an improbable task in an incredibly remote location. This hardship and need for Jesper to adopt responsibility if he wants his life to improve turns him into a great caring person - this is one of the best-written and well-executed character arcs in cinema history.
Just like Jesper, bad things will happen to us too. These things can cause us to act and adopt responsibility for our circumstances. If we want something to change we have to do it. This brings about a change in our character - it makes us who we are. When we change ourselves, we can bring an enormous benefit to our friends, family, and community too - again, just like Jesper did.
Life is not all bad, even in the darkest of times, moments of joy are never far away. Good things happen too. Life is full of ups and downs. If it wasn’t we’d become bored and numb to the effects of the good in our life. When we go through hard things, not only does it shape us, it makes us notice, appreciate, and be more grateful for those good moments and periods of our life.
“Look, bad things are gonna happen, and that’s okay. It makes us who we are. But good things happen too.”
Check out the original post below:
2. Your Life’s Task
“Happiness is having a clear sense of the path that you are on, not being distracted by the paths that crisscross yours. Especially the footprints of those that are hopelessly lost.”
Seneca
From personal experience, it is difficult to be happy when you are filled with uncertainty about your future. For years from the age of 19, I wondered in varying directions, flitting back and forth, not having a clear sense of where I was actually going. When you are young, I think it helps to learn to be okay with this feeling of uncertainty. This stuff takes time. It is better to have properly explored before deciding where to settle, rather than storming off down the wrong path towards a miserable life.
We Humans need to feel meaning in our lives - that they have purpose. The dark side of the modern world (particularly in Western society) is that we can pretty much do anything.
“The dark side of all this freedom and endless choice is the crippling fear that we'll screw up our lifelong pursuit of happiness.”
Daily Quote #256: Logan Ury, How to Not Die Alone
Not only that, we are constantly seeing all the things other people are doing with their lives - far more than Seneca would ever have been exposed to in his lifetime; but, his advice holds steadfast: don’t be distracted by what other’s are doing - especially by those who are hopelessly lost. They could be in pursuit of things you have no interest in.
Advice from Robert Greene’s book, ‘Mastery’, finally put into words what I had been honing in on: your Life’s Task is the thing which you keep returning to - the thing which keeps cropping up.
I have been working on ‘A Diary of Self-Improvement’ for about two years - there have been periods where I have ignored it, but I keep coming back. Now that I have managed a year of Daily Quotes, the persistence has turned into a desire to keep this going. There truly is credence in the idea that you just have to do it in order to end up loving it. This will likely remain a hobby for me, but in my main career I have applied the same logic: what keeps popping up? What do I keep returning to? There is evidently something about it which attracts me again and again.
Reflect on your own life: what keeps rearing it’s head? Don’t ignore it, that could very well be your Life’s Task.
Check out the original post below:
1. Life’s a Gift
“I got everything I need right here with me. I got air in my lungs, a few blank sheets of paper. I mean, I love waking up in the morning not knowing what's gonna happen or, who I'm gonna meet, where I'm gonna wind up. Just the other night I was sleeping under a bridge and now here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people. I figure life's a gift and I don't intend on wasting it. You don't know what hand you're gonna get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you... to make each day count.”
Jack Dawson, Titanic (1997)
You can live everyday as if it is one big adventure. Go forth into the world with curiosity and excitement to discover as much as life has to offer. Living in complacency is the biggest waste of opportunity and potential.
Stop wasting your time. You don’t know what hand you’re gonna get dealt next. You should live each day to the fullest because this ride could be over tomorrow due to circumstances out of your control. Be a sensible optimist though: it is unlikely to happen, but be aware of how life can be taken away in an instant - as Jack fell victim to just a day after uttering these words.
Do not put off having the biggest adventure of your life. Who knows what could happen, who you could meet, or where you could end up? All of these things could result in a life better than you have ever known or could have dreamed of; and/or at worst it could build your character far more than anything in your life previously.
The reality of your existence is not one to be squandered. Make the most of this incredible opportunity whilst you have the chance.
Life’s a gift. I don’t intend on wasting it.
Check out the original post below:
Do you agree with my top daily quotes? Are there any you remember over the past year which stick out to you? Let me know in the comments what your favourite quote is!
Honourable Mentions
Below is a list of 20 additional quotes on a variety of topics from productivity, love, anxiety, life, and minimalism…but first, a quick reminder of the quick survey about what you enjoy about ‘A Diary of Self-Improvement’. If you could please partake, I would be incredibly grateful for your input. Thank you!
“Your emotional commitment to what you are doing will be translated directly into your work.”
Daily Quote #340: Robert Greene, Mastery
“Love does not consist of gazing into each other’s eyes, but looking together in the same direction.”
Daily Quote #323: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Airman’s Odyssey
“I know it may seem small and insignificant, but it's not about what it is, it's about what it can become.“
Daily Quote #320: The Once-ler, The Lorax (2012)
“We’re all going to die, every single one of us, and nobody looks back and says ‘Shit. I wish I collected more stuff.’”
Daily Quote #309: Michael Bublé, The Diary of a CEO Podcast
“The greatest things you’ll ever know are invisible.”
Daily Quote #308: Justin Tranter, Inivisible
“It’s not about your stupid little passion. It’s about connecting your passion to something higher than yourself.”
Daily Quote #291: Walter Isaacson, The Diary of a CEO Podcast
“Regret is an irrational desire to change the past.”
Daily Quote #281: Nate, Author of ADOSI
“Those who think they have no time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.”
Daily Quote #220: Edward Stanley
“The only thing that gave peace of mind…is knowing what your values are, and knowing at the end of the day you’ve lived by your values.”
Daily Quote #195: Dr Steve Peters, Modern Wisdom Podcast (Episode 671)
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.”
Daily Quote #169: H. Jackson Brown, P.S. I Love You
“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”
Daily Quote #162: Mark Twain
“Natural desires are limited; those which spring from false opinions have nowhere to stop.”
Daily Quote #155: Seneca, Letter XVI
“For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use to be anything else.”
Daily Quote #146: Winston Churchill
“Whenever anyone criticises you or wrongs you, remember that they are only doing or saying what they think is right.”
Daily Quote #132: Epictetus, Enchiridion
“You too are going to die one day; but that’s because you were fortunate enough to have lived.”
Daily Quote #100: Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (2023)
“Personal converse, though, and daily intimacy with someone will be of more benefit to you than any discourse.”
Daily Quote #97: Seneca, Letter VI
“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love…”
Daily Quote #86: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“Sometimes there’s bullshit that don’t work now…but please tell me what there is to complain about.”
Daily Quote #49: OneRepublic, Good Life
“You can’t go back and make a brand new beginning, but you can start now and make a brand new ending.”
Daily Quote #36: Prince Ea, ‘Everybody Dies, But Not Everybody Lives’
“Well, my philosophy is that worrying means you suffer twice.”
Daily Quote #4: Newt Scamander, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)
Thank you for reading this post, and other works from the past year. I love sharing and developing philosophical thoughts, and quotes from various people. I do this for myself, to keep myself on track, as much as I hope other people derive value out of it too.
I think a large part of the problems society faces today are due to a blind faith in the status-quo, and a subsequent disconnect from our true innate desires of what we want in our lives. We all have the potential to lead more meaningful and happier lives, but we have been lead astray.
It’s not easy, and it takes work; but to not strive towards becoming the best version of ourselves is selling ourselves, our potential, and the whole world, short.
Self-improvement is the task and adventure of a lifetime.
Nate
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