All Is Well in the Great Mess

We have a tendency to think
in terms of doing and not
in terms of being.

We think that when we’re not doing anything,
we’re wasting our time.

But that’s not true.

Our time is first of all
for us to be.

To be what?

To be alive, to be peaceful,
to be joyful, to be loving.

And this is what the world needs the most.

We all need to train ourselves in our way of being,
and that is the ground for all action.

No coming, no going,
No after, no before,
I hold you close,
I release you to be free;
I am in you
And you are in me.

– Thich Nhat Hanh, *11 October 1926 - †22 January 2022

Sometimes the scariest bridge to burn
is the one between you
and the person you thought you were.

– Tanya Markul

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.

– Aristotle

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

– Marcus Aurelius

The new year is coming to an end and for next year I already have a little surprise for all German speaking visitors:

Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living

Enjoy reading and practicing. And if you like it and can afford it, please support the author by buying the book.

In a chaotic modern world seemingly designed to burn everyone out, slowing down is a profoundly positive act of rebellion.

– Unknown Author

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Ergib dich nicht der Stimmung dessen, der dich beleidigt, und folge nicht dem Weg, auf den er dich schleppen möchte.

– Marcus Aurelius

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“If you are depressed, you are living in the past.
If you are anxious, you are living in the future.
If you are at peace, you are living in the moment.”

– Junia Bretas, West Los Angeles Buddhist Temple Bulletin, volume 57, July-August 2014

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

“No person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don’t have, and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have.”

-— Seneca, Letters From a Stoic

“Do you want to improve the world?
I don’t think it can be done.

The world is sacred.
It can’t be improved.
If you tamper with it, you’ll ruin it.
If you treat it like an object, you’ll lose it.

There is a time for being ahead,
a time for being behind;
a time for being in motion,
a time for being at rest;
a time for being vigorous,
a time for being exhausted;
a time for being safe,
a time for being in danger.

“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”

„Nicht wer wenig hat, sondern wer viel wünscht, ist arm.“

– Seneca