What’s a Personal Mantra or Philosophy You Live By?
Life is hard.
More often than not, life is going to throw something at you that you didn’t expect. Sometimes it will knock you down, sometimes it will change your plans, and sometimes it will make you wonder what the hell just happened.
My philosophy is pretty simple: never quit, stay focused, and always do your best.
That doesn’t mean everything will work out exactly the way you want it to. It won’t. Life doesn’t make those kinds of promises. You can do everything right and still end up with a result you didn’t expect.
But I believe that if you stay the course, keep moving forward, and do the best you can with what you’ve been given, the result will usually be better than the alternative.
And sometimes “better” doesn’t mean getting what you wanted. Sometimes it means discovering that what you thought was a setback was actually taking you somewhere you needed to go.
I’ve also learned that you don’t always get to understand the meaning of an event while you’re living through it. Sometimes you have to look back years later before you realize why something happened the way it did.
That’s probably why I don’t believe in quitting when things get difficult.
Do your best. Keep moving. Give it time.
Things have a funny way of working themselves out in the long run.
There’s a thought commonly attributed to the Stoic philosopher Epictetus that fits this philosophy particularly well:
“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
I think that’s pretty damn good advice.
Not because we control what happens to us. We don’t.
But we do have some control over what we do next.
And sometimes, that’s enough.
What’s the personal philosophy or piece of advice that has helped you get through the hard times in your life?
I’d genuinely like to hear it. We all learn a few things along the way, and sometimes the best advice comes from someone who has already been where we’re headed.
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