Frame of mind

This very much sums it up for me.

"Outliers are those who have been given opportunities -- and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them." Malcolm Gladwell

Whether or not I agree with how the author defines the success of outliers...to me, the latter part of the above statement is the key. Even if the opportunity presents itself to me or I am the one who create the opportunity, the question is can I handle it? Do I have the strength and presence of mind to grasp and use it?

Illusory detachment

So much for reminding self to disengage or detach from certain situation or things, and the truth is...

"There is only attachment; there is no such thing as detachment. The mind invents detachment as a reaction to the pain of attachment. When you react to attachment by becoming "detached", you are attracted to something else. So that whole process is one of attachment. You are attached to your wife or your husband, to your children, to ideas, to tradition, to authority, and so on; and your reaction to that attachment is detachment. The cultivation of detachment is the outcome of sorrow, pain. You want to escape from the pain of attachment, and your escape is to find something to which you think you can be attached. So there is only attachment, and it is a stupid mind that cultivates detachment. All the books say, "Be detached," but what is the truth of the matter? If you observe your own mind, you will see an extraordinary thing -- that through cultivating detachment, your mind is becoming attached to something else." J. Krishnamurti

I miss the mountains

"...in The Age of Missing Information, Bill McKibben...compares what he learns from a week in the mountains to what he learns from watching a week's worth of cable television. On the mountaintop, McKibben experiences himself as small yet connected to something large and awe-inspiring. He comes down from the mountain calm and clear-thinking. Watching cable for a week, he hears over and over that he has unmet needs, that he is grossly inadequate, yet he still is the center of the universe, deserving of everything he wants. McKibben ended the week feeling unfocused, agitated, and alone."

~Mary Pipher's Writing to Change the World

The importance of a degree

“Most of my friends, and most of my friends’ children, also have degrees. That doesn’t mean that they’ve managed to find the kind of job they wanted. Not at all. They went to university because someone, at a time when universities were important, said that, in order to rise in the world, you had to have a degree. And thus the world was deprived of some excellent gardeners, bakers, antique dealers, sculptors, and writers. Perhaps this is the moment to review the situation. Doctors, engineers, scientists, and lawyers need to go to university, but does everyone?”

~ Paulo Coelho’s Like the Flowing River