Goal In Life Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Goal In Life. Here they are! All 100 of them:

β€œ
Learn to light a candle in the darkest moments of someone’s life. Be the light that helps others see; it is what gives life its deepest significance.
”
”
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β€œ
Be grateful for what you already have while you pursue your goals. If you aren’t grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more.
”
”
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β€œ
sometimes you don't need a goal in life, you don't need to know the big picture. you just need to know what you're going to do next!
”
”
Sophie Kinsella (The Undomestic Goddess)
β€œ
Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.
”
”
Bob Marley
β€œ
The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov)
β€œ
If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.
”
”
Albert Einstein
β€œ
Happiness is not a goal...it's a by-product of a life well lived.
”
”
Eleanor Roosevelt
β€œ
You never know what's around the corner. It could be everything. Or it could be nothing. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you've climbed a mountain.
”
”
Tom Hiddleston
β€œ
Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.
”
”
Epictetus
β€œ
When I was growing up I always wanted to be someone. Now I realize I should have been more specific.
”
”
Lily Tomlin
β€œ
Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
β€œ
When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.
”
”
Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich)
β€œ
A busy, vibrant, goal-oriented woman is so much more attractive than a woman who waits around for a man to validate her existence.
”
”
Mandy Hale (The Single Woman: Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass)
β€œ
The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.
”
”
Joseph Campbell (A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living)
β€œ
It's not hard to decide what you want your life to be about. What's hard, she said, is figuring out what you're willing to give up in order to do the things you really care about.
”
”
Shauna Niequist (Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way)
β€œ
Focus on your goals, not your fear. Focus like a laser beam on your goals.
”
”
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β€œ
My goal in life is to have a psychiatric disorder named after me.
”
”
Darynda Jones (Fifth Grave Past the Light (Charley Davidson, #5))
β€œ
The true measure of success is how many times you can bounce back from failure.
”
”
Stephen Richards
β€œ
For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth - that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.
”
”
Viktor E. Frankl (Man’s Search for Meaning)
β€œ
Dream your own dreams, achieve your own goals. Your journey is your own and unique.
”
”
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β€œ
Courage doesn’t happen when you have all the answers. It happens when you are ready to face the questions you have been avoiding your whole life.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
β€œ
I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.
”
”
Eric Roth (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay)
β€œ
Whenever I am in a difficult situation where there seems to be no way out, I think about all the times I have been in such situations and say to myself, "I did it before, so I can do it again.
”
”
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β€œ
If you want to be a grocer, or a general, or a politician, or a judge, you will invariably become it; that is your punishment. If you never know what you want to be, if you live what some might call the dynamic life but what I will call the artistic life, if each day you are unsure of who you are and what you know you will never become anything, and that is your reward.
”
”
Oscar Wilde
β€œ
Find a purpose to serve, not a lifestyle to live.
”
”
Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
β€œ
There is immense power when a group of people with similar interests gets together to work toward the same goals.
”
”
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β€œ
How much you can learn when you fail determines how far you will go into achieving your goals.
”
”
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β€œ
Don’t let mental blocks control you. Set yourself free. Confront your fear and turn the mental blocks into building blocks.
”
”
Roopleen (Words to inspire the winner in YOU)
β€œ
Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.
”
”
Marcus Aurelius (The Emperor's Handbook)
β€œ
...because a life without meaning, without drive or focus, without dreams or goals, isn't a life worth living.
”
”
Chris Colfer (Struck By Lightning: The Carson Phillips Journal (The Land of Stories))
β€œ
Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment
”
”
Jim Rohn
β€œ
If you have a goal, write it down. If you do not write it down, you do not have a goal - you have a wish.
”
”
Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
β€œ
When you work on something that only has the capacity to make you 5 dollars, it does not matter how much harder you work – the most you will make is 5 dollars.
”
”
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β€œ
Everything you want in life is a relationship away.
”
”
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β€œ
Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ....get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.
”
”
Abraham Joshua Heschel
β€œ
Quit worrying about how everything is going to turn out. Live one day at a time; better yet, make the most of this moment. It’s good to have a big – picture outlook, to set goals, to establish budgets and make plans, but if you’re always living in the future, you’re never really enjoying the present in the way God wants you to.
”
”
Joel Osteen (Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential)
β€œ
To dream of success is to set a goal of where you want to be; to wake up, take action, and achieve it is what true success is all about.
”
”
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for all Africans: How Every African Can Live the Life of Their Dreams)
β€œ
The person that you were in the past might not have been able to meet your goals, but you have everything in you to become the person you need to be now to meet those goals.
”
”
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β€œ
As a community, great things can happen when each individual contributes, according to their strengths, toward a common goal.
”
”
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β€œ
Goals that are believable are achievable.
”
”
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β€œ
There is strange comfort in knowing that no matter what happens today, the Sun will rise again tomorrow.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
β€œ
Life always begins with one step outside of your comfort zone.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
β€œ
Reality is a projection of your thoughts or the things you habitually think about.
”
”
Stephen Richards
β€œ
Our way of thinking creates good or bad outcomes.
”
”
Stephen Richards
β€œ
And all the voices, all the goals, all the yearnings, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together was the world. All of them together was the stream of events, the music of life.
”
”
Hermann Hesse (Siddhartha)
β€œ
Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these.
”
”
Susan B. Anthony
β€œ
The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life.
”
”
William Faulkner
β€œ
Many times in life, we are held back from achieving our goals because we do not commit ourselves wholeheartedly. With an escape route in mind, we hold ourselves back from giving our all.
”
”
Idowu Koyenikan (All You Need Is a Ball: What Soccer Teaches Us about Success in Life and Business)
β€œ
The true definition of mental illness is when the majority of your time is spent in the past or future, but rarely living in the realism of NOW.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
β€œ
Everything we do is infused with the energy with which we do it. If we're frantic, life will be frantic. If we're peaceful, life will be peaceful. And so our goal in any situation becomes inner peace.
”
”
Marianne Williamson
β€œ
Don't set your goals by what other people deem important.
”
”
Jaachynma N.E. Agu (The Prince and the Pauper)
β€œ
Acquiring wisdom is great but it is not the goal, applying it is.
”
”
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β€œ
Temperamentally anxious people can have a hard time staying motivated, period, because their intense focus on their worries distracts them from their goals.
”
”
Winifred Gallagher (Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life)
β€œ
What is considered impossible is someone else’s opinion. What is possible is my decision.
”
”
Idowu Koyenikan (All You Need Is a Ball: What Soccer Teaches Us about Success in Life and Business)
β€œ
To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.
”
”
Robert M. Pirsig
β€œ
Judgment is a negative frequency.
”
”
Stephen Richards
β€œ
Great goals make great people. People cannot hit what they do not aim for.
”
”
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β€œ
When your back is to the wall and you are facing fear head on, the only way is forward and through it.
”
”
Stephen Richards (Releasing You from Fear (CD))
β€œ
When you stop living your life based on what others think of you real life begins. At that moment, you will finally see the door of self acceptance opened.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
β€œ
Dignity will only happen when you realize that having someone in your life doesn’t validate your worth.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
β€œ
The struggles we endure today will be the β€˜good old days’ we laugh about tomorrow.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
β€œ
Goals are the road maps that guide you to your destination. Cultivate the habit of setting clearly-defined written goals; they are the road maps that guide you to your destination.
”
”
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β€œ
I like to believe that you don't need to reach a certain goal to be happy. I prefer to think that happiness is always there, and that when things don't go the way we might like them to, it's a sign from above that something even better is right around the corner.
”
”
David Archuleta (Chords of Strength: A Memoir of Soul, Song and the Power of Perseverance)
β€œ
Your complaints, your drama, your victim mentality, your whining, your blaming, and all of your excuses have NEVER gotten you even a single step closer to your goals or dreams. Let go of your nonsense. Let go of the delusion that you DESERVE better and go EARN it! Today is a new day!
”
”
Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
β€œ
Success will be within your reach only when you start reaching out for it.
”
”
Stephen Richards (Think Your way to Success: Let Your Dreams Run Free)
β€œ
Once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy.
”
”
Nisargadatta Maharaj
β€œ
Our ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death but a good life to the very end.
”
”
Atul Gawande (Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End)
β€œ
If you're bored with life, if you don't get up every morning with a burning desire to do things, you don't have enough goals.
”
”
Lou Holtz
β€œ
Before you can successfully make friends with others, first you have to become your own friend.
”
”
Stephen Richards
β€œ
It’s a lack of clarity that creates chaos and frustration. Those emotions are poison to any living goal.
”
”
Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β€œ
All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.
”
”
Brian Tracy (Personal Success (The Brian Tracy Success Library))
β€œ
The greatest battles of life are fought out daily in the silent chambers of the soul.
”
”
David O. McKay
β€œ
It sometimes takes a state of solitude to bring to mind the real power of companionship.
”
”
Stephen Richards
β€œ
People sometimes sneer at those who run every day, claiming they’ll go to any length to live longer. But I don’t think that’s the reason most people run. Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest. If you’re going to while away the years, it’s far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive than in a fog, and I believe running helps you do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that’s the essence of running, and a metaphor for lifeβ€”and for me, for writing as well. I believe many runners would agree.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (What I Talk About When I Talk About Running)
β€œ
People will kill you. Over time. They will shave out every last morsel of fun in you with little, harmless sounding phrases that people uses every day, like: 'Be realistic!'" [What It Is (2009)]
”
”
Dylan Moran
β€œ
There are many goals but one path - the path of compassion.
”
”
Amit Ray (Nonviolence: The Transforming Power)
β€œ
People are not lazy, they simply have impotent goals..that is..goals that do not inspire them.
”
”
Anthony Robbins
β€œ
Whoever uses the spirit that is in him creatively is an artist. To make living itself an art, that is the goal.
”
”
Henry Miller (Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch)
β€œ
Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow, and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune's control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.
”
”
Seneca
β€œ
Don't exist. Live. Get out, explore. Thrive. Challenge authority. Challenge yourself. Evolve. Change forever. Become who you say you always will. Keep moving. Don't stop. Start the revolution. Become a freedom fighter. Become a superhero. Just because everyone doesn't know your name doesn't mean you dont matter. Are you happy? Have you ever been happy? What have you done today to matter? Did you exist or did you live? How did you thrive? Become a chameleon-fit in anywhere. Be a rockstar-stand out everywhere. Do nothing, do everything. Forget everything, remember everyone. Care, don't just pretend to. Listen to everyone. Love everyone and nothing at the same time. Its impossible to be everything,but you can't stop trying to do it all. All I know is that I have no idea where I am right now. I feel like I am in training for something, making progress with every step I take. I fear standing still. It is my greatest weakness. I talk big, but often don't follow through. That's my biggest problem. I don't even know what to think right now. It's about time I start to take a jump. Fuck starting to take. Just jump-over everything. Leap. It's time to be aggressive. You've started to speak your mind, now keep going with it, but not with the intention of sparking controversy or picking a germane fight. Get your gloves on, it's time for rebirth. There IS no room for the nice guys in the history books. THIS IS THE START OF A REVOLUTION. THE REVOLUTION IS YOUR LIFE. THE GOAL IS IMMORTALITY. LET'S LIVE, BABY. LET'S FEEL ALIVE AT ALL TIMES. TAKE NO PRISONERS. HOLD NO SOUL UNACCOUNTABLE, ESPECIALLY NOT YOUR OWN. IF SOMETHING DOESN'T HAPPEN, IT'S YOUR FAULT. Make this moment your reckoning. Your head has been held under water for too long and now it is time to rise up and take your first true breath. Do everything with exact calculation, nothing without meaning. Do not make careful your words, but make no excuses for what you say. Fuck em' all. Set a goal for everyday and never be tired.
”
”
Brian Krans (A Constant Suicide)
β€œ
The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.
”
”
Carl Sagan (Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space)
β€œ
When someone is seeking,” said Siddartha, β€œIt happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You, O worthy one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose.
”
”
Hermann Hesse (Siddhartha)
β€œ
What if the meaning of life on earth is not eternal progress toward some unspecified goalβ€”the engineering and production of more and more powerful technologies, the development of more and more complex and abstruse cultural forms? What if these things just rise and recede naturally, like tides, while the meaning of life remains the same alwaysβ€”just to live and be with other people?
”
”
Sally Rooney (Beautiful World, Where Are You)
β€œ
Tell me not in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.
”
”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Voices of the Night)
β€œ
If you took one-tenth the energy you put into complaining and applied it to solving the problem, you'd be surprised by how well things can work out... Complaining does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won't make us happier.
”
”
Randy Pausch (The Last Lecture)
β€œ
Today is a new day and it brings with it a new set of opportunities for me to act on. I am attentive to the opportunities and I seize them as they arise. I have full confidence in myself and my abilities. I can do all things that I commit myself to. No obstacle is too big or too difficult for me to handle because what lies inside me is greater than what lies ahead of me. I am committed to improving myself and I am getting better daily. I am not held back by regret or mistakes from the past. I am moving forward daily. Absolutely nothing is impossible for me.
”
”
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β€œ
As far as we can tell from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if planet earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence any meaning that people inscribe to their lives is just a delusion.
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
β€œ
The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.
”
”
Seneca (On the Shortness of Life)
β€œ
Many people are unhappy and are not experiencing life to its fullest because they’ve closed their hearts to compassion, they are motivated by only what they want and what they think they need. They rarely do anything for anybody else unless they have an ulterior goal in mind. They are self-involved and self-centered.
”
”
Joel Osteen (Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential)
β€œ
Modern man has transformed himself into a commodity; he experiences his life energy as an investment with which he should make the highest profit, considering his position and the situation on the personality market. He is alienated from himself, from his fellow men and from nature. His main aim is profitable exchange of his skills, knowledge, and of himself, his "personality package" with others who are equally intent on a fair and profitable exchange. Life has no goal except the one to move, no principle except the one of fair exchange, no satisfaction except the one to consume.p97.
”
”
Erich Fromm (The Art of Loving)
β€œ
I'm going to enjoy every second, and I'm going to know I'm enjoying it while I'm enjoying it. Most people don't live; they just race. They are trying to reach some goal far away on the horizon, and in the heat of the going they get so breathless and panting that they lose sight of the beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through; and then the first thing they know, they are old and worn out, and it doesn't make any difference whether they've reached the goal or not.
”
”
Jean Webster
β€œ
Paracelsus At times I almost dream I too have spent a life the sages’ way, And tread once more familiar paths. Perchance I perished in an arrogant self-reliance Ages ago; and in that act a prayer For one more chance went up so earnest, so Instinct with better light let in by death, That life was blotted out β€” not so completely But scattered wrecks enough of it remain, Dim memories, as now, when once more seems The goal in sight again.
”
”
Robert Browning
β€œ
Dare to dream! If you did not have the capability to make your wildest wishes come true, your mind would not have the capacity to conjure such ideas in the first place. There is no limitation on what you can potentially achieve, except for the limitation you choose to impose on your own imagination. What you believe to be possible will always come to pass - to the extent that you deem it possible. It really is as simple as that.
”
”
Anthon St. Maarten
β€œ
Make New Year's goals. Dig within, and discover what you would like to have happen in your life this year. This helps you do your part. It is an affirmation that you're interested in fully living life in the year to come. Goals give us direction. They put a powerful force into play on a universal, conscious, and subconscious level. Goals give our life direction. What would you like to have happen in your life this year? What would you like to do, to accomplish? What good would you like to attract into your life? What particular areas of growth would you like to have happen to you? What blocks, or character defects, would you like to have removed? What would you like to attain? Little things and big things? Where would you like to go? What would you like to have happen in friendship and love? What would you like to have happen in your family life? What problems would you like to see solved? What decisions would you like to make? What would you like to happen in your career? Write it down. Take a piece of paper, a few hours of your time, and write it all down - as an affirmation of you, your life, and your ability to choose. Then let it go. The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals.
”
”
Melody Beattie (The Language of Letting Go: Daily Meditations on Codependency (Hazelden Meditation Series))
β€œ
The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life. Only if we know that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interests upon futilities, and upon all kinds of goals which are not of real importance. Thus we demand that the world grant us recognition for qualities which we regard as personal possessions: our talent or our beauty. The more a man lays stress on false possessions, and the less sensitivity he has for what is essential, the less satisfying is his life. He feels limited because he has limited aims, and the result is envy and jealousy. If we understand and feel that here in this life we already have a link with the infinite, desires and attitudes change.
”
”
C.G. Jung (Memories, Dreams, Reflections)
β€œ
Disappointment will come when your effort does not give you the expected return. If things don’t go as planned or if you face failure. Failure is extremely difficult to handle, but those that do come out stronger. What did this failure teach me? is the question you will need to ask. You will feel miserable. You will want to quit, like I wanted to when nine publishers rejected my first book. Some IITians kill themselves over low grades – how silly is that? But that is how much failure can hurt you. But it’s life. If challenges could always be overcome, they would cease to be a challenge. And remember – if you are failing at something, that means you are at your limit or potential. And that’s where you want to be. Disappointment’ s cousin is Frustration, the second storm. Have you ever been frustrated? It happens when things are stuck. This is especially relevant in India. From traffic jams to getting that job you deserve, sometimes things take so long that you don’t know if you chose the right goal. After books, I set the goal of writing for Bollywood, as I thought they needed writers. I am called extremely lucky, but it took me five years to get close to a release. Frustration saps excitement, and turns your initial energy into something negative, making you a bitter person. How did I deal with it? A realistic assessment of the time involved – movies take a long time to make even though they are watched quickly, seeking a certain enjoyment in the process rather than the end result – at least I was learning how to write scripts, having a side plan – I had my third book to write and even something as simple as pleasurable distractions in your life – friends, food, travel can help you overcome it. Remember, nothing is to be taken seriously. Frustration is a sign somewhere, you took it too seriously.
”
”
Chetan Bhagat
β€œ
I think most people are just trying to be happy, and that most of their actions, however misguided, are in line with that goal. Most people just want to feel they belong somewhere, want to be loved, and want to feel they're important to someone. If you really examine all the wrongheaded and messed-up things they do, they can most often be traced back to that basic desire. The abusers, the addicted, the cruel and unpleasant, the manipulators --these are just people who started this quest for happiness in the basement of their lives. Someone communicated to them through word or deed that they were undeserving, so they think they have to claw their way there over the backs of others, leaving scars and creating damage. Of course, they only create more misery for themselves and others.
”
”
Lisa Unger (Sliver of Truth (Ridley Jones, #2))
β€œ
My main goal is to stay alive. To keep fooling myself into hanging around. To keep getting up every day. Right now I live without inspiration. I go day to day and do the work because it's all I know. I know that if I keep moving I stand a chance. I must keep myself going until I find a reason to live. I need one so bad. On the other hand maybe I don't. Maybe it's all bullshit. Nothing I knew from my old life can help me here. Most of the things that I believed turned out to be useless. Appendages from someone else's life. Everything I have I would give to not know what I know. To not feel emptiness as my constant companion. To not look into this room and be reminded why I'm in it. I'm not getting enough air. The room feels so small all of a sudden. It's pathetic to be this lonely and know it. To keep breathing. To be silent and alone. And to know.
”
”
Henry Rollins (Roomanitarian)
β€œ
A Psalm of Life Tell me not in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest, Was not spoken of the soul. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each tomorrow Find us farther than today. Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. In the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife! Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act, - act in the living Present! Heart within, and God o'erhead! Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sand of time; Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solenm main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again. Let us then be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.
”
”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Voices of the Night)
β€œ
Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live--that productive work is the process by which man's consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one's purpose, of translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth in the image of one's values--that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind, and no work is creative if done by a blank who repeats in uncritical stupor a routine he has learned from others--that your work is yours to choose, and the choice is as wide as your mind, that nothing more is possible to you and nothing less is human--that to cheat your way into a job bigger than your mind can handle is to become a fear-corroded ape on borrowed motions and borrowed time, and to settle down into a job that requires less than your mind's full capacity is to cut your motor and sentence yourself to another kind of motion: decay--that your work is the process of achieving your values, and to lose your ambition for values is to lose your ambition to live--that your body is a machine, but your mind is its driver, and you must drive as far as your mind will take you, with achievement as the goal of your road--that the man who has no purpose is a machine that coasts downhill at the mercy of any boulder to crash in the first chance ditch, that the man who stifles his mind is a stalled machine slowly going to rust, that the man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap, and the man who makes another man his goal is a hitchhiker no driver should ever pick up--that your work is the purpose of your life, and you must speed past any killer who assumes the right to stop you, that any value you might find outside your work, any other loyalty or love, can be only travelers you choose to share your journey and must be travelers going on their own power in the same direction.
”
”
Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)