Here are some powerful ideas that can help us work and live with more vitality, clarity, and purpose:
1. On the door frame outside his workroom, [writer William Styron] tacked a piece of cardboard with a quotation from Flaubert written on it:
“Be regular and orderly in your life, like a good bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”
2. “A task left undone remains undone in two places - at the actual location of the task, and inside your head. Incomplete tasks in your head consume the energy of your attention as they gnaw at your conscience. They siphon off a little more of your personal power every time you delay. No need to be a perfectionist, that’s debilitating in an imperfect world, but it’s good to be a ‘completionist’. If you start it, finish it - or forget it.”
– Brahma Kumaris, quote courtesy of David Allen
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I can really relate to the second one. I always procrastinate, and it just feels like a cloud hanging over my head. It feels so much better to just finish whatever it is I'm putting off.
This is well said. When I put things off, they do stay in my mind and take energy as I think about having not done them. It's a great feeling to actually finish projects. There is a time to rest and a time to get things done. I also really like the part about how we shouldn't be perfectionists, but we should be completionists.
I absolutely agree with Kate about the second quote. I have the same feeling, but some weird part of me enjoys the procrastination--the "thinking about it" stage.
I'm more intrigued by the first quote. I think this is where more people would disagree. I don't think we have to be complacent to be original--quite the opposite! Maybe it's just me, but I need what I write to echo in my life...
When I interview someone new and learn something, I need to change my life and become more individual. I can't remain unaffected in my everyday decisions after spending the day with an introverted artist or an evening with a charismatic poet.
Post a Comment