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    #115 The path to higher self-esteem

    Whenever someone commits to doing something and doesn’t follow through, I start distrusting them.

    Whenever I commit to doing something and don’t follow through, I start distrusting myself.

    The person who most often lets you down might well be you.

    If you don’t accept this behavior from others, why would you accept it from yourself?

    The path to higher self-esteem is paved with kept promises to yourself.

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    #45 The tragedy of the spoken word

    Language helps us describe the world we perceive. Yet in doing so, it closes our eyes, our ears, our touch, and our heart to the parts of the world we don’t have words for.

    Every language is a lens on a felt reality within and around us – both clarifying and categorizing the world, and limiting it by the words it has available.

    Learning more languages gives you new lenses – and a richer sense of reality.

    But just like the structure of our ears limit the sounds we can hear, and the structure of our eyes limit colors we can see, the structure of any language somehow limits our felt experience of the world.

    How do we re-access memories, emotions, hidden away in a long-forgotten language?

    How do we re-learn to listen to the voices of the wordless world speaking to our animal self… the voices that once upon a time, before verbal language emerged, were all we had?

    there’s an eternal song
    drowned out by the confines of my mother tongue
    a wordless melody that once made sense
    until our brain started blurring it with a lens
    narrowing it down
    neglecting its nuances through verbs and nouns

    with all its might language wants us to abide
    but the wordless world it tries to hide
    will forever be inside

    Lukas Van Vyve
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    #280 Sway with the day-to-day

    Can’t write at your usual time? Sway, and write later in the day anyway.

    A work project doesn’t go your way? Sway, remember your ultimate goal, and keep going anyway.

    Can’t go for your usual run because your knee hurts when you woke up? Sway, realize there are more ways to prepare for a marathon than just running, then do a prep session anyway.

    If you don’t want to let the day-to-day sway you in your purpose, you must sway with the day-to-day.

    When things don’t go your way, sway – but find a way to make progress anyway.

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    #225 Commitment comes first

    When you decide if you should be chasing this goal, job, relationship, or place to live – in other words, commitment – you choose between action or inaction based on if it’s a viable, worthwhile, realistic goal.

    When you decide on the course of action – in other words, how to do something – you’re already committed to action.

    Sometimes, the commitment might be too big, too hard, or too disruptive – and that’s perfectly valid.

    But here’s what I’ve noticed, my friend: whenever I try to decide on the how before I’ve decided on the commitment, I have even more doubts, and any course of action seems complicated.

    I’m curious how you feel about it. We’ll talk more about it in the coming days and weeks.

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