Doesn’t have to be a life motto. Any motto, for any application.
Mine is: “Fear is shorter than regret.”
“Be excellent to each other”.
Show some compassion, be a bro, care about other people. Maybe we can make society a bit better; one person, one act of kindness, at a time.
Party on, dude
And party on dude! I came here to say this. It’s such an easy tenant to live by. The world would be a better place if everyone really took it to heat.
An easy tenant to live by would be a good neighbor.
An easy tenet to live by is a simple guiding principle.Thanks not sure if it was the dyslexia or the autocorrect which got me that time.
You look nice today
I like your style
90% of life is showing up.
I use this every time I’m on the fence about going to an event or just curling up on the couch.
It’s a good one. I’ll meditate to this.
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” — George Bernard Shaw
Remember you will die. Not as a fear but simply as a reminder.
Memento mori
Et in Arcadia ego
If you can’t control it, don’t worry about it.
Used to mostly keep me sane at work
If you can’t do something about a problem, worrying just gives you another problem. If you can do something about it, don’t waste energy worrying about it, just do the thing
Nothin’, what’s a motto with you?
Paraphrased from Forrest Gump.
“Well, I’ve come this far. Might as well keep going.”
It’s great, because you just lie to yourself about the starting point of any task, and it doesn’t seem so bad.
If I’ve survived from birth until now, then I guess I can survive doing the dishes.Be morally better than average. If you justify being bad by saying everyone else is doing it, you’re not helping the downward spiral. Because bad people and people with no choice make things worse on average.
Try to live a happy life imposing as little as possible on others.
Brings to mind the bene gesserit litany against fear:
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
I often pair with:
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
Which is a nice allegory for most any chemical stimulant (coffee).
Everything is true, nothing is permitted.
Nothing is true, everything is permitted.
The Benne gesserit is my second favourite quote.
“This night would be better spent preparing for the next life instead of rehashing the mistakes of this one.”
Lt. Commander Worf.
“Anything that isn’t nothing”
Helps me push through when executive dysfunction hits. Getting outside for even just a little bit is a whole lot better than staying inside while telling myself I’m going to run 3 miles, for example
That’s a good one. A few others that help with my executive dysfunction are:
- “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.” (It’s better to do something than to obsess over trying for the impossible goal of ‘perfection’.)
- “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.” (This one helps especially with art and things I enjoy but struggle to do if I’m not instantly great at them.)
- “Laziness does not exist.” (This was inspired by a Medium article I read years ago which explained there is always an underlying cause of procrastination. Mental or physical ill health issues, uncertainty about the task, fear of failure, etc. When I am struggling to move forward, I now look for that reason and can begin to remove the barrier.)
I love this. I always tell people trying to get into fitness and struggling something along these lines. Anything is better than nothing. Even just going to the gym and walking around the place and walking right out… Still better than doing nothing at all. Terry crews has an awesome quote kinda along these lines:
I tell people this a lot - go to the gym, and just sit there, and read a magazine, and then go home. And do this every day. Go to the gym, don’t even work out. Just GO. Because the habit of going to the gym is more important than the work out. Because it doesn’t matter what you do. You can have fun — but as long as you’re having fun, you continue to do it.
“Some is better than none.” -My motto throughout college.
Usually I was stressed by the number of chapters I had to read, or pages I had to write. Instead of shutting down and not doing anything, I would tell myself to just read a single page or write a paragraph because any amount of work done is better than nothing.
Now I apply it to work and chores.
Customer support: trust but verify.
I believe they have a problem. I believe they think they restarted, but I’m gonna check anyway.
In disagreements: “does it matter?”
Most shit we get angry about isn’t important. In the grand scheme of life, most shit just doesn’t matter.
Before you criticize a man, you should walk a mile in his shoes. That way if he gets angry, you’re a mile away! And you’ve got his shoes!
