Best of ‘22 – As You Saw It

*MEE, SD, LL, PC, IL, OA, TH, SC, RG, DM, ZV, JG, CW, JD, AM, PH, TB*

A Note to the Reader:

This is that get your highlighter out and get ready to hit “print” energy. This is that ‘Yup, that was me’ when you see your quote energy. This is what yall deemed the best of the best for 2022! And what makes it the best? The most beautiful prose, the length, the syntax? Nah, simply because a certain quote made you feel something when you read it and as such, you felt compelled to send it. Nothing more nothing less. This quote spoke to me as I was curating this: “It’s helpful to work as if the project you’re engaged in is bigger than you.” ~Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being (pg. 263). This project is bigger than me – thanks to you.

The Calisthenics:

“Contrast. When we want change, and we ask for it, the contrast begins. And it is at that moment your training elevates. You become faced with making different decisions than you once did because now you’re playing for higher stakes. Growth is not easy but it’s worth it. Deciding to make choices based on your truth, your integrity and your intention is often met with resistance…sometimes your own and sometimes from others. The key is to push through that resistance knowing from the start that it’s simply there to test you; to see if what you’re really fighting for is more important than what no longer serves.” ~Matt Gottesman

The Core: 

“Success is never on discount.” ~Dr. Eric Thomas       

“Sunshine all the time makes a desert.” ~Arabic Proverb

“Solitude is the furnace of transformation.” ~Henri Nowen

“Truth is not determined by a majority vote.” ~Pope Benedict

“Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.” ~Peter Thiel 

“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.” ~Nelson Mandela

“What we look for, we find. What we pay attention to, we grow.” ~Kpaxs

“Circumstances do not make a man, they reveal him.” ~Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

“Progress lies in improving the future, not defending the past.” ~Adam Grant

“Let your friends show up for you, don’t hide your wounds.” ~Dr. Thema Bryant  

“Risk is what’s left when you think you’ve thought of everything.” ~Carl Richards

“Your perspective will become your prison or your passport. Choose wisely.” ~Steven Furtick

“The sign of respectable people reveals itself in flight from responsibility.” ~John W. Doberstein

“Evil draws its power from indecision and concern for what other people think.” ~Pope Benedict

“The world will ask you who you are, and if you don’t know, the world will tell you.” ~Carl Jung

“Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” ~Theodore Roosevelt

“Anything that I thought took too long still happened on time. I accept that more now.” ~Rob Hill Sr.

“No results? Keep working. Bad results? Keep working. Good results? Keep working.” ~Ryan Breslow

“It’s a dangerous thing to mistake speaking without thought for speaking the truth.” ~Benoit Blanc, Glass Onion 

“Life doesn’t care about how hard you work, only about how much value you create for others.” ~Orange Book

“I have more to do, than I have to say…You can keep the mics and lights—just give me the plow.” ~Jason Wilson

“The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.” ~Pope Benedict

“In the short term, you are as good as your intensity. In the long term, you are only as good as your consistency.” ~Shane Parrish

“They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.” ~Khalil Gibran

“Wanting to be a better version of you is worthwhile. Desiring change is maturity. Hoping to be someone else is just wasting your time.” ~Maria Goff 

“Time decides who you meet in life, your heart decides who you want in your life, and your behavior decides who stays in your life.” ~Ziad K. Abdelnour

“You deserve a slow love. Uncomplicated. No rush. Sure. Stable. Consistent. You deserve that love. You deserve someone that’s sure of you, that you’re sure of.” ~@poemsporn_

“You are not happier when you have everything you wanted. You are happier when you are in the process of getting what you want, and things are going well.” ~Orange Book

“Be very careful of how you talk to yourself inside your head because the universe will give you what you talk to yourself about.” ~Cuttino Mobley (on Iman Amongst Men Podcast)

“When any person offers you a chance to earn lots of money without risk, don’t listen to the rest of their sentence. Follow this and you’ll save yourself a lot of misery.” ~Charlie Munger

“Maturity is when you stop asking people why they don’t call or text you anymore. You just notice the change and accept it, no drama, no fights. You just walk away with a smile.” ~Anonymous

“Peacocks can’t fly due to the heavy tail they have for status display and mating success. Attachment to things that give us status become our identity and comes at a price of true freedom. Pride is prison.” ~Kunal Shah

“Sometimes, people aren’t being unsociable because they’re anxious, shy or rude—they’re simply aware that the interactions taking place in front of them aren’t authentic or healthy enough for participation.” ~Vex King

“If you don’t have a partner that is honest, shows effort, is consistent & reliable, has self-awareness, is clear & directional, is supportive, is spiritual…you don’t have a partner, you have a distraction.” ~Matt Gottesman

“We’ve become so obsessed with being like other people that we’ve abandoned our own uniqueness. You weren’t created to do everything someone else can do. You were created to do everything they can’t do.” ~Emmanuel Acho

“Think of self-competition as a quest for evolution. The object is not to beat our other work. It’s to move things forward and create a sense of progression. Growth over superiority.” ~Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being 

“The most underrated form of intimacy is telling the truth. It is in our truth that we acquire everything we are seeking. Our truth brings intimacy to one of two places…where it already exists and where it’s needed most. Honor both.” ~Andrew Wyze & Matt Gottesman

“I used to be in awe of relationships that stood the test of time, but now, it’s the connections that have genuine happiness within them that are gold to me. Years mean nothing when the journey to bring you to where you are has been miserable and low vibrational.” ~Billy Chapata

“If you’re looking for something serious & they aren’t, then no, it’s not worth it to hang out with them. You will get attached & continue to be available & intimate with them. They get what they want, which is a dating simulation without any of the emotional responsibility.” ~@gaialect

“When people are hurting, our first instinct is to change their feelings. What often helps them more is validating their feelings. Sharing your perspective is less comforting than showing you understand their feelings. Emotions need to be recognized before they’re regulated.” ~Adam Grant 

“To whom this may concern; your soul is running out of shelf space for all the things you’ve bottled up over time and not addressing your pain is only going to add more weight to what weighs you down already. Eventually, I hope you learn to pour out; you deserve to feel lighter.” ~Billy Chapata

“Dear Lord, Today, develop my character so I not only get to the places I prayed for, but also stay there. Help me to resist letting my sense of being behind; open doors not meant for me. And when opportunities come, give me confidence, so I don’t talk myself out of them. Amen.” ~Pastor West

“It’s not trivial how different life is when you are present. Conversations are richer, memories become more vivid, relationships grow deeper, your sense of self strengthens, you notice more beauty. When you get out of your head and into the moment, the world opens up to you.” ~@isabelunraveled

“Downplaying your achievements is not the antidote to appearing arrogant. Humility is acknowledging your weaknesses, not denying your strengths. Generosity is elevating others, not diminishing yourself. Owning your success doesn’t make you a narcissist—it makes you a role model.” ~Adam Grant

 “Surround yourself with relentless humans. People who plan in decades, but live in moments. Train like savages, but create like artists. Obsess in work, relax in life. People who know this is finite, and choose to play infinite games. Find people going up mountains. Climb together.” ~Zach Pogrob (@mattgottesman) 

“Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.” ~Rick Warren

“Most mental upside comes from the thrill of anticipation - actual experiences tend to fall flat, and your mind quickly moves on to anticipating the next event. That’s how dopamine works. If walking on the moon left astronauts underwhelmed, what does it say about our own earthly goals and expectations?” ~Morgan Housel

“There aren’t many iron laws of money. But here’s one, and perhaps the most important: If expectations grow faster than income you’ll never be happy with your money. One of the most important financial skills is getting the goalpost to stop moving. It’s also one of the hardest.” ~Morgan Housel, Getting the Goalpost to Stop Moving

“It is when we attempt to avoid suffering by withdrawing from anything that might involve hurt, when we try to spare ourselves the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love, and goodness, that we drift into a life of emptiness, in which there may be almost no pain, but the dark sensation of meaninglessness and abandonment is all the greater.” ~Pope Benedict

“In a world that entices us to browse through the lives of others to help us better determine how we feel about ourselves, and to, in turn, feel the need to be constantly visible, for visibility these days seems to somehow equate to success. Do not be afraid to disappear, from it, from us, for a while, and see what comes to you in the silence.” ~Michaela Coel

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best, if he wins, knows the thrill of high achievement and if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” ~Theodore Roosevelt

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”

“An education of the most serviceable kind is a handmade affair. It is a live thing, a shelter being built to sustain a person through his or her life. The most resilient educations don’t model opinions; they don’t defend territory, and they don’t deliver rhetoric. They equip someone to expand himself or herself, using the references he or she has acquired to lead to new ground. One book, one thought, one insight, one epiphany suggests another. What a school can hope to do is make introductions, and from the material of talent and inclination form abilities. None of this is easy or simple….Klimenko’s interest in intellectual diversity, and his devotion to the nurturing of thought and questioning is rare and valuable and inspiring. To thrive, it needs companion traits of stamina and resolve, attributes with which Klimenko handsomely represents Hackley.” ~Alec Wilkinson, Hackley ‘70 

The Final Rep:

“Do not confuse effort with results. Just because you put in the effort does not mean you’ll get the desired result. A lot of effort gets undone long before results are felt. Going to the gym is undone if you eat poorly. Focusing only on work gets undone by the inevitable health and relationship issues that come from under-investment. When we try to speed up the outcome, our lack of patience undoes the result. Results are accumulated in drops but lost in buckets. Make sure you’re not undoing the things you’re trying to accomplish.” ~Shane Parrish, Brain Food: Setting and Achieving Goals, No. 503 - December 18th, 2022

The [Mental] Stretch: 

“This time around, I trust myself | Please everybody else but myself | All else fails, I was myself | Out done fear, out done myself | This year, you better one yourself (and I’m trippin’ and fallin’) | Masks on the babies, mask on an opp | Wear masks in the neighborhood stores you shot | But a mask won’t hide who you are inside | Look around, the realities carved in the lies | Wipe my ego, dodge my pride (and I’m trippin’ and fallin’) | Look myself in the mirror Amityville, I ain’t seen nothin’ scarier | I fought like a pit bull terrier, blood I shed could fill up aquariums | Tell my angels, ‘Carry ‘em’ (and I’m trippin’ and fallin’) | Every emotion been deprived | Even my strong points couldn’t survive | If I didn’t learn to love myself, forgive myself a hundred times, dawg... | I love when you count me out... ~Kendrick Lamar, Count Me Out