Milestones Path Quotes

Among university professors, for example, getting tenure is a major hurdle and milestone, and at most universities tenure depends heavily on having published some high-quality, original work. One researcher, Bob Boice, looked into the writing habits of young professors just starting out and tracked them to see how they fared. Not surprisingly, in a job where there is no real boss and no one sets schedules or tells you what to do, these young professors took a variety of approaches. Some would collect information until they were ready and then write a manuscript in a burst of intense energy, over perhaps a week or two, possibly including some long days and very late nights. Others plodded along at a steadier pace, trying to write a page or two every day. Others were in between. When Boice followed up on the group some years later, he found that their paths had diverged sharply. The page-a-day folks had done well and generally gotten tenure. The so-called “binge writers” fared far less well, and many had had their careers cut short. The clear implication was that the best advice for young writers and aspiring professors is: Write every day. Use your self-control to form a daily habit, and you’ll produce more with less effort in the long run.

The path to accepting your sexuality has to start somewhere. For those identify as heterosexual, the childhood bliss of an early crush is typically encouraged and praised. Milestones such as your first date and the prom are celebrated by parents and friends. But when you’re anything other than straight, it’s more complicated; your growth gets shrouded and stunted. That’s why a lot of queer people, when they fall in love and get into a relationship for the first time, revert to a kind of prepubescent puppy love: spontaneous, impulsive, obsessive, and ecstatic. I’ve heard many people express annoyance at friends who “just came out and it’s totally cool and whatever, but do they have to talk about it all the time?” My answer to that is “Yes. Yes, they do. Don’t you remember puppy love? Well, imagine if you had to hide it for twenty years. So yeah, if they wanna gush about it, let them gush. There’s a first time for everything.

Problem #3: Goals restrict your happiness. The implicit assumption behind any goal is this: “Once I reach my goal, then I’ll be happy.” The problem with a goals-first mentality is that you’re continually putting happiness off until the next milestone. I’ve slipped into this trap so many times I’ve lost count. For years, happiness was always something for my future self to enjoy. I promised myself that once I gained twenty pounds of muscle or after my business was featured in the New York Times, then I could finally relax. Furthermore, goals create an “either-or” conflict: either you achieve your goal and are successful or you fail and you are a disappointment. You mentally box yourself into a narrow version of happiness. This is misguided. It is unlikely that your actual path through life will match the exact journey you had in mind when you set out. It makes no sense to restrict your satisfaction to one scenario when there are many paths to success. A systems-first mentality provides the antidote. When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running. And a system can be successful in many different forms, not just the one you first envision.

Success in life is about project management. Determine deliverables, make milestones, and always pursue the critical path.

Forever Drifting outside in a pall of smoke, I follow a snail’s streaked path down the garden to the garden’s stone wall. Alone at last I squat on my heels, see what needs to be done, and suddenly affix myself to the damp stone. I begin to look around me slowly and listen, employing my entire body as the snail employs its body, relaxed, but alert. Amazing! Tonight is a milestone in my life. After tonight how can I ever go back to that other life? I keep my eyes on the stars, wave to them with my feelers. I hold on for hours, just resting. Still later, grief begins to settle around my heart in tiny drops. I remember my father is dead, and I am going away from this town soon. Forever. Goodbye, son, my father says. Toward morning, I climb down and wander back into the house. They are still waiting, fright splashed on their faces, as they meet my new eyes for the first time.

Problem #3: Goals restrict your happiness. The implicit assumption behind any goal is this: “Once I reach my goal, then I’ll be happy.” The problem with a goals-first mentality is that you’re continually putting happiness off until the next milestone. I’ve slipped into this trap so many times I’ve lost count. For years, happiness was always something for my future self to enjoy. I promised myself that once I gained twenty pounds of muscle or after my business was featured in the New York Times, then I could finally relax. Furthermore, goals create an “either-or” conflict: either you achieve your goal and are successful or you fail and you are a disappointment. You mentally box yourself into a narrow version of happiness. This is misguided. It is unlikely that your actual path through life will match the exact journey you had in mind when you set out. It makes no sense to restrict your satisfaction to one scenario when there are many paths to success.

The generation born between 1995 and 2012, called iGen (or sometimes Gen Z), is very different from the Millennials, the generation that preceded it. According to Jean Twenge, an expert in the study of generational differences, one difference is that iGen is growing up more slowly. On average, eighteen-year-olds today have spent less time unsupervised and have hit fewer developmental milestones on the path to autonomy (such as getting a job or a driver's license), compared with eighteen-year-olds in previous generations.

The Seer's Map by Stewart Stafford Howling dog, thou cursèd hound, Plaguest thy master with baleful sound, The cur's yelps taint the air around; A dirge for all that hear thy wound. The rooftop magpie foretells: Herald of guests to visit soon, A noisy speech announceth, Companions of the afternoon. Lucky horseshoe and iron key, Bringeth good fortune to the finder, But spilling salt provokes fate, And draws the evil eye's reminder. A shoe upon the table laid, Tempts the dead to live anon, For this ungracious gesture waketh, Flesh and blood from skeleton. Who crosses the path of hare or priest, A perilous milestone on thy road, Their very presence signifies That gathering trouble doth forebode. A toad on thy merry travels, Brings sweet smiles and kindest charms, Keep one about thy person warm, To shelter safe from danger's harms. Red sky at night delights the eye, Of shepherd that beholds thy light, Thy colour doth betoken dawn Of weather fair and clear and bright. Red sky at morn troubles the heart, Of shepherd that surveys thy shade, Thy hue doth presage day Of stormy blast and tempest made. December's thunder balm, Speaks of harvest's tranquil mind, January's thunder, fierce! Warns of war and gales unkind. An itchy palm hints at gold To come into thy hand ere long, But if thou scratch it, thou dost lose The fair wind that blows so strong. A Sunday Christmas forewarns: Three signs of what the year shall hold; A winter mild, a Lenten wind, And summer dry, to then unfold. Good luck charm on New Year's Day Maketh fortune bloom all year, But to lose it or give it away, Thou dost invite ill-omened fear. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

We can sacrifice ourselves in order to save lives, to spread messages of freedom, hope, and dignity. That is our Buddha Nature, our Christ Nature – people who have embodied the principles of love and compassion and have taken extraordinary measures to change the world for the better. We call them heroes and heroines - for example, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Malala Yousafzai, along with the nameless aid workers, neonatal surgeons, and ordinary parents who make extraordinary choices in life-threatening circumstances. And we admire them. Those are the people who we want to occupy our Jewel Tree, letting their nectar rain down upon us in a shower of blessing and inspiration. They are the people who have discovered interdependence, wisdom, and compassion, have seen through the illusion of separation and come out the other side with the hero‘s elixir for the welfare of others. If we don‘t believe we can do it, if we don‘t have the confidence, that‘s the last hurdle. We believe there is something special about the hero and something deficient about us, but the only difference is that the Bodhisattva has training, has walked the Lam Rim, has reached the various milestones that each contemplation is designed to evoke, and collectively those experiences have brought confidence. Our natures are the same. It‘s in your DNA to become a hero. As heretical as it may sound to some, there is no inherent specialness to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He is not inherently different from you. If you had his modeling, training, support, and devotional refuge, you too could be a paragon of hope and goodwill. Now, hopefully you will recognize cow critical it is for you to embrace your training (the Bodhisattva Path), so that we can shape-shift civilization through the neural circuitry of living beings. (pp. 139 - 140)

Learn! For learning is an adornment for one who possesses it, a virtue and a prelude to every praiseworthy action. Profit each day by increasing [your] learning, and swimming in the seas of beneficial knowledge. Give yourself up to the study of jurisprudence, for the knowledge of jurisprudence is the best guide to piety and the fear of God, and it is the straightest path to the ultimate goal. It is the milestone leading to the ways of proper guidance; it is the fortress that saves [one] from all hardships. Indeed, one godly person versed in jurisprudence is more powerful against Satan than a thousand [ordinary] worshipers.

Always so eager to achieve the next milestone on her path, she has neglected to question that path or to look ahead.

The archetype of the hero in Tibetan Buddhism is a Bodhisattva, an evolved being motivated by profound compassion for the suffering of others who vows to reach complete awakening. Bodhisattvas who pursue the Gradual Path follow a succession of training steps through stages of psychological development and reach specific milestones, or realizations, along the way to enlightenment. Both physicists discovering the ultimate nature of reality and poet-activists, Bodhisattvas generate love and compassion as practical and constructive forces to skillfully redesign the matrix of interdependence we all share.

When you’re inspired, you become inspiring.” “Before building walls, build a foundation, make sure it’s solid and that it remains solid.” “Never limit your ambitions.” “If you want to shine like a star, care to make others shine like stars.” “Someone’s respect for the environment will likely reflect his truest respect for others.” “Learn to recognize and celebrate your personal milestones. It will trigger positive emotions in you.” “Make peace with your past. You’ll emotionally be more positive. You’ll improve your wisdom. You’re inner sweetness will breathe out more efficiently.” “When you emotionally manage the fact that perfection does not exist and only reaching excellence does, your inner sweetness will breathe efficiently.” “We all have emotional batteries. We are all energy. Your positive energy can help someone else recharge.” “Humans are responsible for nearly all problems and are the solution for everything - Be positively, the solution!” “Be careful what you tolerate in your company, you are teaching levels of the pyramid how to treat your business Culture and Core Values.” “Raising your voice is not an argument.” “Feed positively your roots. As a result, your inner sweetness will breathe efficiently thru your shell.” “Authenticity in the workplace is not define as making yourself difficult to manage – Be positively authentic!” “Be positively the influencer, not the follower.” “Biases can trick us as humans and have a negative impact on our emotions – Be positively curious!” “Never make someone emotionally pay the price because of how you were not able to manage positively your own emotions.” “If you want your team to improve their technical skills, make sure to improve your interpersonal skills first.” “Beware of the individualism culture. If you are in a people management/leadership position, remember the following: IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU!” “Like the roots of a human’s mind, feed social media positively. It will feed a large scale of humans mind!” “Like an upside-down pineapple fruit, the inner sweetness of a company becomes sweeter when you flip upside down the position level pyramid!” “Do not wait for someone to harvest you. Build your own path!” “A leader should trigger positive emotions and it all starts with you!” “Earth is more beautiful than we think – Imagine how splendid it would be if we were all interacting positively on it!” Communication becomes efficient when it’s done we positive emotions – Be positively curious!” “Having excuses for everything is the roadblock of self-awareness and inner growth” “Don’t limit your challenges – rather – Challenge your limits!” “The higher the position level you’re ambitious to reach, the less about you it should be. In life, you’re already at the top, therefore, it starts with you because it is not about you!” “I’m realistically optimistic!” “The pineapple - from all fruits – looks authentic. The great thing about it is no matter its shape – size - high – and color, one thing remains the same: Its inner sweetness! A pineapple = a pineapple. A pineapple = a human” “Often, what we think we know - what we think is - and what we think should are our biggest obstacles in life. Be positively curious!” “Being curious is best practice – Be positive curious, meaning, with positive emotions. Your inner sweetness will be felt with this approach” “Keep it sweet with yourself, not everything is suited for everyone!” “The art of managing with discipline emotional challenges and a sign of a mental strength is when many appreciate what you do in the shadow and in silence, and you still do more than expected.” “Beware of the time is money mindset blind spots, respectful interactions and good social etiquettes are not to be served like an American fast food!” “Look and listen without biases – Be positively curious!

When you’re inspired, you become inspiring.” “Before building walls, build a foundation, make sure it’s solid and that it remains solid.” “Never limit your ambitions.” “If you want to shine like a star, care to make others shine like stars.” “Someone’s respect for the environment will likely reflect his truest respect for others.” “Learn to recognize and celebrate your personal milestones. It will trigger positive emotions in you.” “Make peace with your past. You’ll emotionally be more positive. You’ll improve your wisdom. You’re inner sweetness will breathe out more efficiently.” “When you emotionally manage the fact that perfection does not exist and only reaching excellence does, your inner sweetness will breathe efficiently.” “We all have emotional batteries. We are all energy. Your positive energy can help someone else recharge.” “Humans are responsible for nearly all problems and are the solution for everything - Be positively, the solution!” “Be careful what you tolerate in your company, you are teaching levels of the pyramid how to treat your business Culture and Core Values.” “Raising your voice is not an argument.” “Feed positively your roots. As a result, your inner sweetness will breathe efficiently thru your shell.” “Authenticity in the workplace is not define as making yourself difficult to manage – Be positively authentic!” “Be positively the influencer, not the follower.” “Biases can trick us as humans and have a negative impact on our emotions – Be positively curious!” “Never make someone emotionally pay the price because of how you were not able to manage positively your own emotions.” “If you want your team to improve their technical skills, make sure to improve your interpersonal skills first.” “Beware of the individualism culture. If you are in a people management/leadership position, remember the following: IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU!” “Like the roots of a human’s mind, feed social media positively. It will feed a large scale of humans mind!” “Like an upside-down pineapple fruit, the inner sweetness of a company becomes sweeter when you flip upside down the position level pyramid!” “Do not wait for someone to harvest you. Build your own path!” “A leader should trigger positive emotions and it all starts with you!” “Earth is more beautiful than we think – Imagine how splendid it would be if we were all interacting positively on it!” Communication becomes efficient when it’s done we positive emotions – Be positively curious!” “Having excuses for everything is the roadblock of self-awareness and inner growth” “Don’t limit your challenges – rather – Challenge your limits!” “The higher the position level you’re ambitious to reach, the less about you it should be. In life, you’re already at the top, therefore, it starts with you because it is not about you!” “I’m realistically optimistic!” “The pineapple - from all fruits – looks authentic. The great thing about it is no matter its shape – size - high – and color, one thing remains the same: Its inner sweetness! A pineapple = a pineapple. A pineapple = a human” “Often, what we think we know - what we think is - and what we think should are our biggest obstacles in life. Be positively curious!” “Being curious is best practice – Be positive curious, meaning, with positive emotions. Your inner sweetness will be felt with this approach” “Keep it sweet with yourself, not everything is suited for everyone!” “The art of managing with discipline emotional challenges and a sign of a mental strength is when many appreciate what you do in the shadow and in silence, and you still do more than expected.” “Beware of the time is money mindset blind spots, respectful interactions and good social etiquettes are not to be served like an American fast food!” “Look and listen without biases – Be positively curious!

When you’re inspired, you become inspiring.” “Before building walls, build a foundation, make sure it’s solid and that it remains solid.” “Do the right thing even when no one is watching, not because you have too, but because you can!” “You are who you choose to be!” “The only thing that can’t change in a human’s life is its birth – If you think there’s death -there no death if you have a legacy.” “I will because I can!” “If you want to shine like a star, care to make others shine like stars.” “Someone’s respect for the environment will likely reflect his truest respect for others.” “Learn to recognize and celebrate your personal milestones. It will trigger positive emotions in you.” “Make peace with your past. You’ll emotionally be more positive. You’ll improve your wisdom. You’re inner sweetness will breathe out more efficiently.” “When you emotionally manage the fact that perfection does not exist and only reaching excellence does, your inner sweetness will breathe efficiently.” “We all have emotional batteries. We are all energy. Your positive energy can help someone else recharge.” “Humans are responsible for nearly all problems and are the solution for everything - Be positively, the solution!” “Feed positively your roots. As a result, your inner sweetness will breathe efficiently thru your shell.” “Be positively the influencer, not the follower.” “Never make someone emotionally pay the price because of how you were not able to manage positively your own emotions.” “If you want your team to improve their technical skills, make sure to improve your interpersonal skills first.” “Like the roots of a human’s mind, feed social media positively. It will feed a large scale of humans mind!” “Like an upside-down pineapple fruit, the inner sweetness of a company becomes sweeter when you flip upside down the position level pyramid!” “Do not wait for someone to harvest you. Build your own path!” “Earth is more beautiful than we think – Imagine how splendid it would be if we were all interacting positively on it!” Communication becomes efficient when it’s done we positive emotions – Be positively curious!” “Having excuses for everything is the roadblock of self-awareness and inner growth” “Don’t limit your challenges – rather – Challenge your limits!” “The pineapple - from all fruits – looks authentic. The great thing about it is no matter its shape – size - high – and color, one thing remains the same: Its inner sweetness! A pineapple = a pineapple. A pineapple = a human” “Often, what we think we know - what we think is - and what we think should are our biggest obstacles in life. Be positively curious!” “The higher the position level you’re ambitious to reach, the less about you it should be. In life, you’re already at the top, therefore, it starts with you because it is not about you!” “I’m realistically optimistic!” “Keep it sweet with yourself, not everything is suited for everyone!” “Beware of the time is money mindset blind spots, respectful interactions and good social etiquettes are not to be served like an American fast food!

When you’re inspired, you become inspiring.” “Before building walls, build a foundation, make sure it’s solid and that it remains solid.” “Do the right thing even when no one is watching, not because you have too, but because you can!” “You are who you choose to be!” “The only thing that can’t change in a human’s life is its birth – If you think there’s death -there no death if you have a legacy.” “I will because I can!” “If you want to shine like a star, care to make others shine like stars.” “Someone’s respect for the environment will likely reflect his truest respect for others.” “Learn to recognize and celebrate your personal milestones. It will trigger positive emotions in you.” “Make peace with your past. You’ll emotionally be more positive. You’ll improve your wisdom. You’re inner sweetness will breathe out more efficiently.” “When you emotionally manage the fact that perfection does not exist and only reaching excellence does, your inner sweetness will breathe efficiently.” “We all have emotional batteries. We are all energy. Your positive energy can help someone else recharge.” “Humans are responsible for nearly all problems and are the solution for everything - Be positively, the solution!” “Feed positively your roots. As a result, your inner sweetness will breathe efficiently thru your shell.” “Be positively the influencer, not the follower.” “Never make someone emotionally pay the price because of how you were not able to manage positively your own emotions.” “If you want your team to improve their technical skills, make sure to improve your interpersonal skills first.” “Like the roots of a human’s mind, feed social media positively. It will feed a large scale of humans mind!” “Like an upside-down pineapple fruit, the inner sweetness of a company becomes sweeter when you flip upside down the position level pyramid!” “Do not wait for someone to harvest you. Build your own path!” “Earth is more beautiful than we think – Imagine how splendid it would be if we were all interacting positively on it!” "Communication becomes efficient when it’s done we positive emotions – Be positively curious!” “Having excuses for everything is the roadblock of self-awareness and inner growth” “Don’t limit your challenges – rather – Challenge your limits!” “The pineapple - from all fruits – looks authentic. The great thing about it is no matter its shape – size - high – and color, one thing remains the same: Its inner sweetness! A pineapple = a pineapple. A pineapple = a human” “Often, what we think we know - what we think is - and what we think should are our biggest obstacles in life. Be positively curious!” “The higher the position level you’re ambitious to reach, the less about you it should be. In life, you’re already at the top, therefore, it starts with you because it is not about you!” “I’m realistically optimistic!” “Keep it sweet with yourself, not everything is suited for everyone!” “Beware of the time is money mindset blind spots, respectful interactions and good social etiquettes are not to be served like an American fast food!

This is the Rocketship Growth Rate—the precise pace at which a startup must grow to break out. How do you calculate this rate of growth? First, by setting a goal of exceeding a billion dollars of valuation—thus being in a position to achieve an IPO—and working backward. Hitting a $1 billion valuation generally requires at least $100 million in top-line recurring revenue annually, based on the rough market multiple of 10x revenue. You’d want to hit that in 7–10 years, to sustain the engagement of the key employees and also reward investors who often work in decade-long time cycles. These two goals—revenue and time—work together to create an overall constraint. Neeraj Agarwal, a venture capitalist and investor in B2B companies, first calculated this growth rate by arguing that SaaS companies in particular need to follow a precise path to reach these numbers:64 Establish great product-market fit Get to $2 million in ARR (annual recurring revenue) Triple to $6 million in ARR Triple to $18 million Double to $36 million Double to $72 million Double to $144 million SaaS companies like Marketo, Netsuite, Workday, Salesforce, Zendesk, and others have all roughly followed this curve. And the rough timing makes sense. The first phase, in which the team initially gets to product/market fit, takes 1–3 years. Add on the time to reach the rest of the growth milestones, and the entire process might take 6–9 years. Of course, after year 10, the company might still be growing quickly, though it’s more common for it to be growing 50 percent annualized rather than doubling. The argument is that products with network effects both can see higher growth rates as they tap into the various network forces I’ve discussed, and can compound these growth rates for a longer period of time—and looking at the data, I think that’s generally true.

And, 37 years later, in 2013, his breakthrough moment came in another thought experiment, which revealed a system of cycling protocells capable of evolving but also sharing innovations, thereby able to lift ever more complex forms into being. Was this vision simply a motivation for his life’s work, driving him on for decades? Or was it a precognition sent by his future self or from some other mysterious time-shifted source? However you might interpret it, a causal temporal loop seems possible. A clue to this loop came from another point in the interview when Dr Damer told Dr Mossbridge that he had had an even earlier vision, suggesting that future versions of himself were able to communicate back through time. When he was about to turn ten, he wanted to mark that milestone, so he went on a long walk in his neighbourhood. He found himself at the edge of a slough, and asked, “What could I do right now that would have a really positive effect on my future?” Suddenly a vision opened up in his mind’s eye, a line of all his future selves extending to the horizon. They were all busy doing slightly different but interesting things. He felt pleased and began to look forward to this future. Showing remarkable maturity and awareness, the young Bruce decided it would be a good idea to make a deal with these future selves, then and there. He asked them to agree to a written contract, which he held up on an imagined piece of paper. It said: “You will all agree to not send negative thoughts back to the prior, littler selves because they did their best at the time.” One after the next, the future selves each “signed” the only-positive-thoughts contract. Once this was completed, he described experiencing a rush, a sort of force pulling on him as all the doors to the future swung open. He then saw his future path as one flowing, forward movement with no turbulence returning back down to his present. Given this earlier experience, it’s no surprise that just four years later he experienced receiving a clue from the future, setting his life’s work. From a very young age, Bruce felt he was in communication with his future selves and that he also possessed an intimate relationship with some kind of bigger, guiding system. This gave him an abiding sense that his life’s path was somehow mapped out through his intentions toward destinations lit by delivered visions.

And, 37 years later, in 2013, his breakthrough moment came in another thought experiment, which revealed a system of cycling protocells capable of evolving but also sharing innovations, thereby able to lift ever more complex forms into being. Was this vision simply a motivation for his life’s work, driving him on for decades? Or was it a precognition sent by his future self or from some other mysterious time-shifted source? However you might interpret it, a causal temporal loop seems possible. A clue to this loop came from another point in the interview when Dr Damer told Dr Mossbridge that he had had an even earlier vision, suggesting that future versions of himself were able to communicate back through time. When he was about to turn ten, he wanted to mark that milestone, so he went on a long walk in his neighbourhood. He found himself at the edge of a slough, and asked, “What could I do right now that would have a really positive effect on my future?” Suddenly a vision opened up in his mind’s eye, a line of all his future selves extending to the horizon. They were all busy doing slightly different but interesting things. He felt pleased and began to look forward to this future. Showing remarkable maturity and awareness, the young Bruce decided it would be a good idea to make a deal with these future selves, then and there. He asked them to agree to a written contract, which he held up on an imagined piece of paper. It said: “You will all agree to not send negative thoughts back to the prior, littler selves because they did their best at the time.” One after the next, the future selves each “signed” the only-positive-thoughts contract. Once this was completed, he described experiencing a rush, a sort of force pulling on him as all the doors to the future swung open. He then saw his future path as one flowing, forward movement with no turbulence returning back down to his present. Given this earlier experience, it’s no surprise that just four years later he experienced receiving a clue from the future, setting his life’s work. From a very young age, Bruce felt he was in communication with his future selves and that he also possessed an intimate relationship with some kind of bigger, guiding system. This gave him an abiding sense that his life’s path was somehow mapped out through his intentions toward destinations lit by delivered visions. We don’t all have to have visions like Bruce Damer’s to connect with our future selves or to develop our precognitive abilities. Each of us will do this in our own way, as we discuss in detail in Part 2. But Dr Damer’s experiences illustrate just how incredibly powerful it can be to take seriously messages and visions that seem to come to us from the future.

Although celiac disease is typically thought of as a “gut problem,” more precisely, it is a body-wide inflammatory disease that manifests in the gut. Celiacs, it turns out, can have poor teeth for a couple of reasons. One, gut inflammation can lead to poor absorption of minerals, making the teeth generally weaker and prone to decay. And two, enamel defects commonly seen in celiacs make teeth vulnerable to cavity-forming bacteria. In children, celiac disease often presents as failure to thrive, anemia, digestive symptoms like diarrhea or constipation, or a distinctive rash on the skin. Rosa was too healthy. She had hit every milestone in her development, and her height and weight were above average for her age group. She had no signs or symptoms of anemia, digestive symptoms, or rashes. But in addition to her cavities, she did have another symptom common to celiacs: frequent canker sores.

One of my favorite Indian sages, Nisargadatta Maharaj, put it this way, “The outer teacher is merely a milestone. It is only your inner teacher that will walk with you to the goal, for he [she] is the goal.

The outer teacher is merely a milestone. It is only your inner teacher that will walk with you to the goal, for he [she] is the goal.

Faith and devotion are two important milestones on the path towards God. Faith removes worry, anxiety, and fear, while devotion makes life smooth and joyful. Human life becomes very painful and burdensome if a person has no one to trust and love. Spiritual seekers who put their trust in God and love Him wholeheartedly surrender themselves to Him, and as a result, God, the Eternal Father, takes care of them. Just as children enjoy a carefree life in their own homes, so spiritual seekers live happily in this world. Truly, God provides whatever His devotees need.

Fastscaling means that you’re willing to sacrifice efficiency for the sake of increasing your growth rate. However, because fastscaling takes place in an environment of certainty, the costs are well understood and predictable. Fastscaling is a good strategy for gaining market share or trying to achieve revenue milestones.

We can sacrifice ourselves in order to save lives, to spread messages of freedom, hope, and dignity. That is our Buddha Nature, our Christ Nature – people who have embodied the principles of love and compassion and have taken extraordinary measures to change the world for the better. We call them heroes and heroines - for example, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Malala Yousafzai, along with the nameless aid workers, neonatal surgeons, and ordinary parents who make extraordinary choices in life-threatening circumstances. And we admire them. Those are the people who we want to occupy our Jewel Tree, letting their nectar rain down upon us in a shower of blessing and inspiration. They are the people who have discovered interdependence, wisdom, and compassion, have seen through the illusion of separation and come out the other side with the hero‘s elixir for the welfare of others. If we don‘t believe we can do it, if we don‘t have the confidence, that‘s the last hurdle. We believe there is something special about the hero and something deficient about us, but the only difference is that the Bodhisattva has training, has walked the Lam Rim, has reached the various milestones that each contemplation is designed to evoke, and collectively those experiences have brought confidence. Our natures are the same. It‘s in your DNA to become a hero. As heretical as it may sound to some, there is no inherent specialness to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He is not inherently different from you. If you had his modeling, training, support, and devotional refuge, you too could be a paragon of hope and goodwill. Now, hopefully you will recognize cow critical it is for you to embrace your training (the Bodhisattva Path), so that we can shape-shift civilization through the neural circuitry of living beings. (pp. 139 - 140)

A milestone is an indication of progress, not the destination.

Incremental success is irrelevant in the exponential world. Anything less than radical is meaningless.

The accuracy of our vision depends upon the cleanliness of the lens and its alignment with our eyesight. How clean and aligned are your lenses to see yourself?

The implicit assumption behind any goal is this: “Once I reach my goal, then I’ll be happy.” The problem with a goals-first mentality is that you’re continually putting happiness off until the next milestone. I’ve slipped into this trap so many times I’ve lost count. For years, happiness was always something for my future self to enjoy. I promised myself that once I gained twenty pounds of muscle or after my business was featured in the New York Times, then I could finally relax. Furthermore, goals create an “either-or” conflict: either you achieve your goal and are successful or you fail and you are a disappointment. You mentally box yourself into a narrow version of happiness. This is misguided. It is unlikely that your actual path through life will match the exact journey you had in mind when you set out. It makes no sense to restrict your satisfaction to one scenario when there are many paths to success. A systems-first mentality provides the antidote. When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running. And a system can be successful in many different forms, not just the one you first envision.

Success comes when we wake up every day in that never-ending pursuit of WHY we do WHAT we do. Our achievements, WHAT we do, serve as the milestones to indicate we are on the right path.

The vision is an inspirational view of the future and lets everyone know toward what goal they are working. The road map provides specific directions for how to transition from a bleak present to a bright future; it outlines specific tasks, milestones, and markers of the path ahead.

UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS Associative binding of experiences in memory to create an internal chronology would also help explain why most precognitive dreams are only identified as such in hindsight. Even if premory is just an aspect of memory and obeys most of the same principles, the stand-out exception is that only with memory for things past can we engage in what psychologists call source monitoring. We can often tell more or less how we know things from past experience because we can situate them, at least roughly, in relation to other biographical details. We can’t do this with experiences refluxing from our future, because they lack any context. We don’t know yet where or how they fit into our lives, so it may be natural for the conscious mind to assume that they don’t fit at all.12 Again, it is natural and inviting to think of precognition as a kind of radar or sonar scanning for perils in the water ahead. A metaphor that Dunne used for precognitive dreaming is a flashlight we point ahead of us on a dark path. But it makes more sense that our brains are constantly receiving messages sent back in time from our future self and are continually sifting and scanning those messages for possible associations to present concerns and longstanding priorities without knowing where that information comes from, let alone how far away it is in time. Items that match our current concerns or preoccupations will be taken and elaborated as dreams or premonitions or other conscious “psi” experiences, but we are likely only to recognize their precognitive character after the future event transpires and we recognize its source. And even then, we will only notice it, by and large, if we are paying close attention. That matching or resonance with current concerns may be important in determining the timing of a dream in relation to its future referent. For instance, it is possible Freud dreamed about the oral symptoms in the mouth of his patient Anna Hammerschlag when he did because of a confluence of events in his life in 1895 that pre-minded him of his situation all those years later, in 1923—including his relapse to smoking his cigars after his friend Wilhelm Fliess had told him to quit. Again, his thoughts about his smoking may have been the short circuit or thematic resonance between these two distant points in his life, precipitating the dream. Incidentally, there is no reason to assume that that single dream of Freud’s was the only one in his life about his cancer and surgeries. Multiple dreams may point to the same experience via multiple symbolic or associative avenues, so it would be expected that some of Freud’s later dreams, especially closer to 1923, may have also related to the same experiences. We’ll never know, of course. But dreamers frequently report multiple precognitive dreams targeting the same later upheaval in their lives, especially major experiences like health crises and life milestones.