6 Quotes by Alex Lickerman

Victory may not be promised to any of us, but possessing an undefeated mind means behaving as though it is, as though to win we only need wage an all-out struggle and work harder than everyone else, trying everything we can, and when that fails trying everything we think we can’t, in full understanding that we have no one on whom we can rely for victory but ourselves.

But our determination is what creates the path – our determination to make use of adversity rather than escape it.

Something about disconnecting from one’s sense of self even briefly, about glimpsing oneself as belonging to a greater whole, seems profoundly and persistently comforting to most people who experience it.

From a Buddhist perspective, however, this means neither denying our problems exist nor denying they make us suffer. Rather, it means learning to use suffering as a springboard for creating benefit.

And if we continue asking why, like the child we once were, trying to excavate down to our most rudimentary ambition – a time-worn exercise – we’ll eventually find all reasons lead to the same place, to the one core reason for living we’d sought all along, the core reason against which we measure the value of everything we do: to be happy.

If our lives are so busy, so filled with errands and responsibilities and passions that we feel we have no emotional capacity or time to take compassionate action when confronted with the opportunity to do so, we need to consider reordering our life priorities.