Motivation Manifesto Quotes

personal power is directly tied to personal responsibility, which most people avoid.

But we all know that the seeds of greatness grow faster in the hearts of those doing work they love than in the bitter hearts of those enslaved by work they despise.

We learn that the more we are true to ourselves, the more we can connect with and contribute to the world.

Though I obviously have no proof of this, the one aspect of life that seems clear to me is that good people do whatever they believe is the right thing to do. Being virtuous is hard, not easy. The idea of doing good things simply because you're good seems like a zero-sum game; I'm not even sure those actions would still qualify as 'good,' since they'd merely be a function of normal behavior. Regardless of what kind of god you believe in--a loving god, a vengeful god, a capricious god, a snooty beret-wearing French god, or whatever--one has to assume that you can't be penalized for doing the things you believe to be truly righteous and just. Certainly, this creates some pretty glaring problems: Hitler may have thought he was serving God. Stalin may have thought he was serving God (or something vaguely similar). I'm certain Osama bin Laden was positive he was serving God. It's not hard to fathom that all of those maniacs were certain that what they were doing was right. Meanwhile, I constantly do things that I know are wrong; they're not on the same scale as incinerating Jews or blowing up skyscrapers, but my motivations might be worse. I have looked directly into the eyes of a woman I loved and told her lies for no reason, except that those lies would allow me to continue having sex with another woman I cared about less. This act did not kill 20 million Russian peasants, but it might be more 'diabolical' in a literal sense. If I died and found out I was going to hell and Stalin was in heaven, I would note the irony, but I couldn't complain. I don't make the fucking rules.

How many souls have failed to soar because they were suffocated in a loved one’s worry?

Without making the actual attempt, without trial and strife, there can be no true knowledge, no progress, no high achievement, and no legend.

The Founders believed, and the Conservative agrees, in the dignity of the individual; that we, as human beings, have a right to live, live freely, and pursue that which motivates us not because man or some government says so, but because these are God-given natural rights.

It is the main motivation of humankind to be free, to express our true selves and pursue our dreams without restriction—to experience what may be called Personal Freedom.

Keeping one’s attitude positive, especially when the world conspires to make us mad, is one of the great accomplishments of life.

We have patiently suffered long enough, hoping that someone or some kind of luck would one day grant us more opportunity and happiness. But nothing external can save us, and the fateful hour is at hand when we either become trapped at this level of life or we choose to ascend to a higher plane of consciousness and joy. In this ailing and turbulent world, we must find peace within and become more self-reliant in creating the life we deserve.

We must overcome social- and self-oppression if we are ever to join the ranks of the free souls who love their lives and lead their people.

We must remember we are not the sum of our intentions but of our actions.

Are you not more than your tiny worries about inconvenience? Isn’t a better life worth some struggle?

Those with a miserable attitude rarely move the needle of the world toward progress.

Most people would feel guilty for destroying someone else’s property. Yet they wreck the very temple their Creator gifted them.

Dear past, I survived you. Dear present, I’m ready for you. Dear future, I’m coming for you.

We must set intentions for who we are, for what roles we wish to serve, for how we’ll relate with the world. Without a vibrant awareness, we cannot connect with others or ourselves, nor can we meet the demands of the hour with grace. For this, we now declare: WE SHALL MEET LIFE WITH FULL PRESENCE AND POWER.

Our day is ultimately our choice.

Every decision and action of humankind stems from a hope to attain Personal Freedom.

Well-being has been cast aside for wealth; success favored over sanity. In the process, some have turned cold toward life, and toward others. Where is the energized, heightened, exhilarated pulse one would expect from such a chosen and capable people? Why do we not hear more laughter and life? Where is the vibrant, mad fury and passion of the fully engaged human? Where are the people burning with charisma and joy and magnetism? Where is the appreciation for life’s spark? We must reexamine our attitude toward life. Our supreme duty must be to rekindle the magic of life. For this, we now declare: WE SHALL PRACTICE JOY AND GRATITUDE.

We must remember that the power to direct our destiny comes only from a mindset that makes us willing to struggle through learning, effort, and growth.

Hurry has become the master. We have stopped sensing the stillness, the stunning fullness and beauty and divine perfection of the moment. Most barrel through life, unaware of their senses and surroundings, deaf and blind to the magical qualities of…this…very…moment. We are not supposed to miss it all, this life, but we do, all frazzled, stressed, and stripped away from Now.

The woman afflicted by the need for adoration cannot have a free moment of real joy away from her obsession with self; she is slave to the never-ending quest for youth and beauty and social acceptance.

Each day there are a million divine wonders, acts of human kindness, and beautiful sights. Yet we are too checked out or busy thinking about yesterday or tomorrow to even sense the magic.

This must be our day to define the best of who we are and what we will stand for. Tonight, in the glow of gratitude for our free will, let us write down the words and phrases that describe our ideal identity. Put them on beautiful paper and in ink. Carry them everywhere. Look at these words, memorize them, verbalize them—become them. The more we align our actions with this identity, the more free, motivated, and whole we shall become. Life will feel brighter and more our own, more deep and satisfying. Destiny will smile on us and we will be welcomed into the gates of heaven as people of purpose and integrity.

All great people of history, all the heroes and leaders and innovators who lit humanity’s way out of darkness and ignorance, forged within themselves the courage to overcome their internal conflicts when it mattered most. In many ways, they are just like us: They worried. They procrastinated. They sometimes had lower opinions of their fellow human beings. But what made them celebrated, what pushed society forward, what gave birth to their legend, was their sheer will to overcome such impulses and to faithfully, actively, and lovingly fight for a better life for themselves and others. Let us learn from them, let us master ourselves, and let us now add our own chapter of courage to the good book of humanity.

Do not give your ear to a lazy person, as he will surely pour fear and apathy into your soul.

We compromise too easily when life becomes difficult. Most sacrifice individuality and integrity without a fight, although arrogance prevents seeing this truth.

Destiny turns its favor toward those who act, awarding them with success and a heroic recognition in life.

It is time to remind ourselves that today’s thoughts and actions become our legacy. When we forget this or lie to ourselves thinking our actions do not matter, we have permission to act as momentary buffoons. We let ourselves break, just this once, from our values. We cheat, just this once. We lie, just this once. We put off the hard task, just this once. We skip the workout, just this week. We take the drink, just one more. And soon we find that each of these little breaks in our will leads to another, and then to a lifetime of compromise and regret. Without vigilance, what is right and strong about the human spirit can be whittled away and broken forever.

If you do not want to stop the wheels of progress; if you do not want to go back to the Dark Ages; if you do not want to live again under tyranny, then you must guard your liberty, and you must not let the church get control of your government. If you do, you will lose the greatest legacy ever bequeathed to the human race—intellectual freedom. Now let me tell you another thing. If all the energy and wealth wasted upon religion—in all of its varied forms—had been spent to understand life and its problems, we would today be living under conditions that would seem almost like Utopia. Most of our social and domestic problems would have been solved, and equally as important, our understanding and relations with the other peoples of the world would have, by now, brought about universal peace. Man would have a better understanding of his motives and actions, and would have learned to curb his primitive instincts for revenge and retaliation. He would, by now, know that wars of hate, aggression, and aggrandizement are only productive of more hate and more human suffering. The enlightened and completely emancipated man from the fears of a God and the dogma of hate and revenge would make him a brother to his fellow man. He would devote his energies to discoveries and inventions, which theology previously condemned as a defiance of God, but which have proved so beneficial to him. He would no longer be a slave to a God and live in cringing fear!

Integrity is learning to feel hurt but not integrate its darkness into our soul or cast it onto another.

in choosing to energize yourself will you finally go

A society that lacks good people willing to speak against evil or low standards can only devolve into darkness and mediocrity.

Unless we are being chased by a deadly animal or deranged human, or face imminent physical harm like falling to our death, fear is just bad management of our mind.

the sense of security people get from conformity cannot be understated; it is one of the great enemies of Personal Freedom.

Hurt has nothing to do with love, and love is unaffiliated with and unaffected by pain. We say, “My heart is full of love,” but love is not bound in our heart or our relationships, and thus, it is not caged and capable of being poked, taunted, or trapped. And no amount of love—no matter the pain or hurt—is ever

If we are not vigilant, being around constant worry can quickly limit who we are and what we might be capable of. What can we do, then, with our caring families and friends who unintentionally limit our vision or striving?

Often, breaking integrity means repeatedly doing things we do not love with people we do not care for. Isn’t life meant to be a passionate love affair with our work, our faith, and those we are blessed to know, care for, and serve?

The world’s people are in peril. We no doubt live in a noisy, numb, narcissistic age. The talents and attentions of the majority are not invested in personal mastery and social responsibility but squandered on games, voyeurism, and base sensationalism. We have recklessly abandoned what truly matters—the striving to be great as individuals and as a society—for the glamour and thrill of speed, convenience, and vain expression, in a kind of humanity-wide midlife crisis. Gone are the big visions; here are the quick wins and the sure things. Effort has lost out to entitlement. In the transition to our age of self-adoration and conceit, the page turned long ago on the dreams to rise as a people. Greatness is so rarely sought, and generation after generation fail to hold the line of human goodness and advancement. Why? Because

The man afflicted by hunger for power or money for its own sake is just that: afflicted. He is tormented by incessant desires for more without cause. He is the most likely to wear a social mask to succeed, and thus he is always unsure of himself and his life, the deep tear inside always causing him to obsess about how to get more, why he doesn't have it already, and whom he will have to please or become in order to get it.

My name is Lake Suck and this is my manifesto. I swear to be myself. To think for myself. I will not be led by social conventions. I will make my own way through the world. I will live on my own terms without conforming to society's expectations of who they think I should be, I will be the visible minority. By being myself, I will help to save the world. I swear to always look, listen, learn, think, ask, act, and speak for myself.

Looking back on the fifty years since I first became aware of its flaws, the word that summarizes my feelings about Neoclassical economics today is that it is, as Marx once described the proto-Neoclassical Jean-Baptiste Say, ‘dull’ [...] Its vision of capitalism at its best is a system manifesting the harmony of equilibrium, where everyone is paid their just return (their ‘marginal product’), growth is occurring smoothly at a rate that maximizes social utility through time, and everyone is motivated by consumption – rather than accumulation and power – because, to quote Say, ‘the producers, though they have all of them the air of demanding money for their goods, do in reality demand merchandise for their merchandise’ [...] What a bland picture of the complex, changing world in which we live!

Social oppression is at work when the ways of others diminish who we are or stop us from pursuing our own goals. Often the most highly adaptive among us are the least aware of this process, and often they are socially the least successful and authentic—they have adapted into a predictable character and have lost their spontaneity and authenticity.

Ours has become a world where a tragic number of people are more fascinated by materialism and the lives of distant narcissists than by their own life experience.

Desire without belief in self is ultimately deflating.

humanity’s story has only two perennially recurring themes: struggle and progress.

We have forgotten that the natural foe to life is not a distant death, but a present, in-the-moment detachment from living.

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth. JOHN F. KENNEDY

Maturity comes in understanding that it is our choice alone to move toward freedom.

Let us remember that humanity’s story has only two perennially recurring themes: struggle and progress.

A hallmark of those who achieve greatness is the discovery that they can control the level of motivation they feel by better directing their own minds.

Greatness belongs to those who have mastered the ability to focus relentlessly on their ambitions and act decisively toward them.

When you tune into your soul essence and are in harmony with the Supreme, you are tapped into your superpowers.

We became capable of the impossible.

Our thoughts will free us or destroy us. Maturity comes in understanding that it is our choice alone to move toward freedom.

We are all plagued by doubt, but the great nevertheless find faith and begin.

It is difficult to accept but no less true: If fear is winning in our lives, it is because we simply keep choosing it over our other impulses to be strong or bold or great.

I believe that I can teach my children to follow their dreams by following my own.

Armed with intentions for who we wish to be, how we wish to interact with others, and what we wish to give, we become conscious people. We gain the full might of our personal power.

We complained with angst and anger that it should be easier, forgetting that much of the negative energy that pervades our lives comes from despising the inevitable hardships of change.

let us be clear that the small, complaining, undisciplined part of ourselves—the distracted character wanting nothing but convenience and ease—is unfit to be the ruler of our new destiny.

Let us remember that humanity’s story has only two perennially recurring themes: struggle and progress. We mustn’t wish the end of the former, as the latter would be buried alongside it. And so let us be clear that the small, complaining, undisciplined part of ourselves—the distracted character wanting nothing but convenience and ease—is unfit to be the ruler of our new destiny.

For most, not knowing how to say no is where their lives decline into a thicket of stress and unhappiness. These individuals are easy to spot, as they constantly take on the role of victim to the world’s desires.

And for the entitled, there can be only a constant whining misery; no person who believes they should be given everything for nothing will ever be free from an immature envy and contempt for those who have more than they do.

Giving respect means to do no harm; to allow others their rights in expressing themselves; and to honor the fact that their own thoughts, feelings, and actions are real and justifiable in their own minds, even if we see them as unimportant or wrong. Respect does not necessarily mean approval; one can respect another’s right to speak but not necessarily approve of what is spoken. Respect means that we see others as doing their best with what they have, who they are, and what hand they’ve been dealt, even if we find their efforts wanting in any way. It means seeing the divinity in others, and never inviting disrespect into our lives by projecting disrespect onto others.

It is such a simple formula: The more senses we bring to the moment, the more time slows, the more a catalogue of joyful vivid memories grows in our minds, the more life is filled with gratitude, and the more nourished our soul.

We hold these truths self-evident: That all men and women are created equal, though we do not live equal lives due to differences in will, motivation, effort, and habit. That we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, but that it is incumbent upon each of us to be vigilant and disciplined should we wish to attain such a vital, free, and happy life. We believe the greatest of human powers is the ability to independently think for ourselves, to choose our own aims, affections, and actions. For in the hearts of humankind lives a natural instinct for freedom and independence, a psychological predisposition for self-direction, a biological imperative toward growth, and a spiritual joy in choosing and advancing one’s own life. It is the main motivation of humankind to be free, to express our true selves and pursue our dreams without restriction—to experience what may be called Personal Freedom.

the only permission ever granted by society is permission to follow its norms and traditions. No one will grant us permission to advance quickly, because they fear being left behind or made a fool for clinging to a world already fading in relevance.

Freedom requires responsibility to choose who we are above and beyond our immediate impulses, needs, and social pressures, so that we can genuinely express the type of person we want to be, live the life we truly want to live, leave the legacy we desire.

expectancy is the great differentiator between mere hope and motivation. When we find ourselves hopeful but not motivated, we need to add a little more faith to the mix, to tell ourselves, “I expect that it will happen no matter what, because I have faith in myself to learn and grow and, day by day, make things happen. I will make my dreams a reality over time because I trust my ability to learn, to work, to ask for help, to persist.” With these expectations, our minds begin to form the beliefs and behaviors needed to make our ambitions a reality.

Too often we don’t call out a wrong or expect ourselves or others to act with routine integrity, excellence, or love. There has been a worldwide failure in leadership, birthing an apathetic populace, unjustifiable poverty, unconscionable greed, and a globe ravaged and booby-trapped by war.

There is no veil of ease about the extraordinary effort required to be free. Breaking from conformity and pursuing our own dreams will bring some discord upon us. There will be personal struggle and sacrifice, fear and misfortune, as we try to exert ourselves in the world once more. A vital dedication to our genuine nature and our dreams will annoy people or raise their ire; it will injure egos, step on toes, split relationships, and force interventions with those who try to limit us or stop our march. We might have to confront the bullies, break up with the jerks, leave the poisonous work environment, and challenge others to higher standards.

As the great nineteenth-century abolitionist and libertarian Lysander Spooner pointed out, the primary motive of Lincoln and the war party was to preserve and consolidate Northern control of the Southern economy. The Southern states could not be allowed to evade the tariff, a key element of the mercantilist American system that Lincoln favored.

When a stranger lies to hurt our reputation, we should know that it is a common thing, and that it is happening to us only because we are trying to do important things in the world. If we are conscious to the existence of rude, ignorant, cruel people, then we can control our reaction when they emerge from the darkness and attempt to steal our light.

humanity is populated by the couch critics, the apathetic advisors who, from a detached perch of safety, believe that every whim that breezes over their small minds, and every one of their witless arguments, ought to carry the same weight as the hard-won wisdom of those who are actually in the fight, whose minds have been sharpened with real-world experience, whose legends are being forged by action.

We inherently know that, when controlled by others, life loses its flair and we are cast into melancholy and mediocrity. Without such striving for individual freedom, what becomes of us? We relinquish our free will to a society of strangers that speaks not of liberty and courage but of conformity and caution. Our true self is subjugated and a pseudo self emerges, a mere reflection of a society that has lost its way. “They” start running our lives and soon we are not “us” anymore, just walking zombies filled with the commands of others’ preferences and expectations. We become those masked souls who spend their time wandering in a wildernesses of sameness and sadness. We become tired and weak. We lose our nature. And then we see the worst of human behavior—a mass of people who do not speak up for themselves or others but rather do only what they are told.

We hold these truths self-evident: That all men and women are created equal, though we do not live equal lives due to differences in will, motivation, effort, and habit. That we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, but that it is incumbent upon each of us to be vigilant and disciplined should we wish to attain such a vital, free, and happy life.

We have forgotten that courage is a choice, and that permission to move forward with boldness is never given by the fearful masses. Most have forgotten that seeking change always requires a touch of insanity. If taking action before the perfect conditions arise, or before we receive permission, is unreasonable or reckless, then we must be unreasonable and reckless. We must remember we are not the sum of our intentions but of our actions. Bold and

This is why we seek personal growth—to be free from the pain we cause ourselves, to make better choices, to feel better about who we are becoming, to act more confidently in social situations, and to unleash our full creativity and contributions into the world in order to make our highest difference. Gaining Personal Freedom in this sense is letting go of any self-doubt and self-loathing and allowing ourselves permission to be our unique, powerful, authentic selves.

With love resonating through our souls, we are capable of energizing and enlivening those around us with startling power. This energy makes us beautiful to all, even to those who are so concerned with themselves that they can barely see what is right in front of them. This energy gives us access to every power that humans have to create connection with one another: caring, patience, thoughtfulness, kindness, compassion, empathy. It also gives us the charge to lead, activating within us the one virtue needed to unify humankind: courage of the heart.

Declaring that we will master our fears is the first great leap toward freedom. Our vitality, growth, and destiny all demand that we can topple fear. As so much hangs in the balance, let us better understand what fear really is. Fear is the human motive of aversion. Fear doesn’t help us commit to higher aims. It doesn’t help us imagine greatness. Its sole aim is immediate release from threat, strain, or pain. It often becomes a by-all-means-necessary approach to controlling any given situation so that the body—but most often the ego—can feel safe and unchallenged.

The reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives. They SAY they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist’s real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West because they are strong and successful.

we must believe that we can bend reality to our own preferences, crafting the lives we desire through disciplined learning and initiative. We mustn’t wait for permission or perfect timing any longer. Instead we must be courageous and self-reliant, moving forward at a moment’s notice. We must see struggle as positive and necessary for our growth and ability to innovate and serve. And we must know all that we need is accessible in the Now—there is abundance in this world to be had, and everything we need to begin the great quest toward a free and fulfilling life is already within us. Should we live from these beliefs, then we shall reach levels of motivation and happiness undreamed of by the timid masses.

Let us remember that all that we love of life can be accessed only now. All we seek is here, with us and available to us in this moment. All the real riches—love, passion, joy, satisfaction, harmony—are available now on the menu of the mind, available for us to savor should we awake and order them. All that we seek to become is also here; we can choose what role we want to play and how we will direct life’s energies in each moment. Should we learn to direct our awareness and power in all we do, then discontent shall disappear and a vital energy will return. We will sense a vibrancy unfathomable to most men and women of this Earth. For this, let us declare: We Shall Meet Life with Full Presence and Power.

Self-Management If you can read just one book on motivation—yours and others: Dan Pink, Drive If you can read just one book on building new habits: Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit If you can read just one book on harnessing neuroscience for personal change: Dan Siegel, Mindsight If you can read just one book on deep personal change: Lisa Lahey and Bob Kegan, Immunity to Change If you can read just one book on resilience: Seth Godin, The Dip Organizational Change If you can read just one book on how organizational change really works: Chip and Dan Heath, Switch If you can read just two books on understanding that change is a complex system: Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations Dan Pontefract, Flat Army Hear interviews with FREDERIC LALOUX, DAN PONTEFRACT, and JERRY STERNIN at the Great Work Podcast. If you can read just one book on using structure to change behaviours: Atul Gawande, The Checklist Manifesto If you can read just one book on how to amplify the good: Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin and Monique Sternin, The Power of Positive Deviance If you can read just one book on increasing your impact within organizations: Peter Block, Flawless Consulting Other Cool Stuff If you can read just one book on being strategic: Roger Martin and A.G. Lafley, Playing to Win If you can read just one book on scaling up your impact: Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao, Scaling Up Excellence If you can read just one book on being more helpful: Edgar Schein, Helping Hear interviews with ROGER MARTIN, BOB SUTTON, and WARREN BERGER at the Great Work Podcast. If you can read just two books on the great questions: Warren Berger, A More Beautiful Question Dorothy Strachan, Making Questions Work If you can read just one book on creating learning that sticks: Peter Brown, Henry Roediger and Mark McDaniel, Make It Stick If you can read just one book on why you should appreciate and marvel at every day, every moment: Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything If you can read just one book that saves lives while increasing impact: Michael Bungay Stanier, ed., End Malaria (All money goes to Malaria No More; about $400,000 has been raised so far.) IF THERE ARE NO STUPID QUESTIONS, THEN WHAT KIND OF QUESTIONS DO STUPID PEOPLE ASK?

I am a graduate of Calcutta University and employed as an Assistant Inspector, Calcutta Corporation. I am also a writer and used to visit the College Street Coffee House where young writers of Calcutta generally assembled in the evening. Samir Roychoudhury is a personal friend of mine. I came to know the sponsors of Hungry Generation, namely Shakti Chattopadhyay, Malay Roychoudhury and others. Although I am not directly connected with the Hungry Generation I was interested in the literary movement. Some of the manifesto of the Hungry Generation contain advertisement of my literary work. In one of the publication my name was cited as editor. This was probably done with a motive to exploit my reputation as writer but since my prior consent was not taken I took exception. The present publication in question also came to my notice. As a poet myself I do not approve either the theme or the language of the poem of Malay Roychoudhury captioned প্রচণ্ড বৈদ্যুতিক ছুতার ; I have severed all connection with Hungry Generation. I had correspondence with Malay Roychoudhury who often sought my advise in literary matters. Sandipan Chattopadhyay ( alias Pashupati Chatterjee ) 15 March 1965

Another way in which people satisfy their need for the power process is through surrogate activities. As we explained in paragraphs 38-40, a surrogate activity is an activity that is directed toward an artificial goal that the individual pursues for the sake of the “fulfillment” that he gets from pursuing the goal, not because he needs to attain the goal itself. For instance, there is no practical motive for building enormous muscles, hitting a little ball into a hole or acquiring a complete series of postage stamps. Yet many people in our society devote themselves with passion to bodybuilding, golf or stamp-collecting. Some people are more “other-directed” than others, and therefore will more readily attach importance to a surrogate activity simply because the people around them treat it as important or because society tells them it is important. That is why some people get very serious about essentially trivial activities such as sports, or bridge, or chess, or arcane scholarly pursuits, whereas others who are more clear-sighted never see these things as anything but the surrogate activities that they are, and consequently never attach enough importance to them to satisfy their need for the power process in that way. It only remains to point out that in many cases a person’s way of earning a living is also a surrogate activity.

Too many have fled this moment for yesterday or tomorrow, dreaming of a time and place they would rather be. To what result? Those who are alive but who are in a sense living in a different time from now are ghosts. They are never fully seen or sensed by their loved ones; the bounty of the universe cannot find them to gift them; they are dissipated, absent from the roll call of Now.

I won’t let others stoke fear in my heart. I choose to remain true to who I am and where my dreams direct me no matter the hardship I might incur. I remember it always: Fear wins or Freedom wins, and I choose Freedom.

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

The man who believes the home he is building may house the devil someday will soon put away his tools.

the vast majority hate the struggle required to advance. They complain with great angst that the road to independence and abundance is too hard, too inconvenient, too slow. If there is no straight and speedy line to success, the journey never begins. People don’t go back to school because it will take too long. They don’t exercise because the results come too slowly. They don’t fight for their dreams because it would require long nights stacked on top of already busy days.

No longer shall we wait for permission, proper timing, or ease in rapidly progressing our lives

The biggest error made by advocates of government planning, from Marx to Keynes to Obama, is the assumption that bureaucrats and elected officials possess both the detailed knowledge and right motives to be able to solve the economic problems of a nation. While microeconomics correctly assumes that individuals act in their own self-interest, every macroeconomic proposal for government intervention implicitly assumes that public officials act in the public interest, somehow suppressing their individual interests to the greater interests of society.

The sustaining choices of motivation are thus attention and effort.

Humankind’s main motivation is to seek and experience Personal Freedom.

Choosing our own aims and seeking to bring them to fruition creates a sense of vitality and motivation in life.

What will our mission be from this moment forward? What will be our plan of action? What steps must be taken?

So now, in these magical moments of our lives bursting with fire and choice, let us sit and write. Let us take back our day tomorrow by scribing our dreams tonight. Let us ask: What am I really after in life? What do I truly want to create and contribute? What kind of person do I want to show the world each day? What types of persons shall I love and enjoy life with? What great cause will keep me going when I feel weak or distracted? What shall be my ultimate legacy? What steps must I take to begin and sustain these efforts? What will I orient my days to accomplishing this week? This month? This year?