Life is all the things we enjoy; it’s what we choose to surround ourselves with. It’s the olive trees we may plant, it is having a cup of coffee with an old friend, it’s falling in love, cheering for our football team, innovating, mentoring, building, creating, reading, eating pasta, skiing… Whatever you choose to do with your life, becomes your life. Life doesn’t need fancy definitions when you look at it at a personal level, because after all life is what you do while you’re waiting to die.
From the musical Zorba The Greek.
Wait listen to me, I’ll tell you.
Life is what you do while you’re waiting to die. Life is other times goes by. Life is where you wait, while you waiting to live.
Brené Brown studies human connection — our ability to empathize, belong, love. In a poignant, funny talk at TEDxHouston, she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity.
Brené Brown studies vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame. Full bio »
We live in a vulnerable world. And one of the ways we deal with it is we numb vulnerability. And I think there’s evidence — and it’s not the only reason this evidence exists, but I think it’s a huge cause — we are the most in-debt, obese, addicted and medicated adult cohort in U.S. history. The problem is — and I learned this from the research — that you cannot selectively numb emotion. You can’t say, here’s the bad stuff. Here’s vulnerability, here’s grief, here’s shame, here’s fear, here’s disappointment. I don’t want to feel these. I’m going to have a couple of beers and a banana nut muffin. (Laughter) I don’t want to feel these. And I know that’s knowing laughter. I hack into your lives for a living. God. (Laughter) You can’t numb those hard feelings without numbing the other affects, our emotions. You cannot selectively numb. So when we numb those, we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness. And then we are miserable, and we are looking for purpose and meaning, and then we feel vulnerable, so then we have a couple of beers and a banana nut muffin. And it becomes this dangerous cycle.
Steve Jobs’ Stanford Class of 2005 Commencement speech
His lesson to me that I shall remember are the following four brief points.
You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.
The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.
Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Here is his speech, courtesy of Stanford University
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do… so throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour, catch the trade winds in your sails… explore, dream, discover.
