In my experience, this is dead on.
In the depths of Winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
Albert Camus
If you get through a hard time, and really conquer it, then you are 10x stronger on the other side.
The key is to actually go through your winter (not around it), own it, and then flip it.
This Al Camus guy seems interesting. Apparently he was a philosopher, author, and journalist (yes!) from French Algeria.
I should probably read some of his books. 🤔
Back in college, I remember philosophy geeks loved to say, “Well, Kierkegaard said…” and would quote him and act all superior. It was so annoying.
But now I get it, dammit. 🤦🏻♂️ The dude was smart. Here’s one of my favorite quotes.
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
Søren Kierkegaard
It’s the basic trick of life. Take what you’ve learned so far in life and use it to more forward. ➡
I really like this quote because, like with Rumi, it’s practical advice about living a good life. It’s right on the edge between “cool ideas” and basic self-help.
Wait, am I become a philosophy geek? 😱
This Abraham Maslow fellow doesn’t just have a pyramid, he also has a hammer. Here is the popular phrasing of Maslow’s Hammer.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Maybe Maslow
I love this saying. People often “hammer away” at something the wrong way, wasting time and failing to learn a new skill.
It’s easy to make this mistake.
As a software engineer, I’ve seen this 1000 times. “Well, we have a bunch of web servers, and we need a mobile app, so… let’s make our mobile app using web tech!” At first, it seems to make sense. But you end up with a crappy app, lots of extra work, and maybe even some unhappy developers who leave because they care about their career too much. They want to use Xcode because that’s a great tool for making apps.
(But beware, Xcode could become your next hammer. 🤷🏻♂️)
As MacBreak Weekly celebrated the 14th anniversary of the iPhone’s launch, I was reminded of Steve Jobs’ “redemptive arc.”
Here is Jobs addressing a somewhat hostile question at the 1997 WWDC. At the time, Apple was nearly out of money, and Jobs had just returned after previously being kicked out of the company.
George Bernard Shaw said that “your patience when you have nothing” is one of the two things that define you. It’s interesting to look at Steve Jobs when he is down and see the vision and patience that was brewing at the time.
As we have tried to come up with a strategy and a vision for Apple, it started with what incredible benefits can we give to the customer, where can we take the customer. Not starting with ‘let’s sit down with the engineers and figure out what awesome technology we have and then how are we going to market that’.
And I think that’s the right path to take.
It would be four more years until the iPod launched and ten years until the iPhone launched.
The end of Jobs’ answer also reminded me of Teddy Roosevelt.
Some mistakes will be made a long the way. That’s good, because at least some decisions will be made along the way.
Steve Jobs
Ah yes, patience and decisiveness. Like a good game, they are easy to learn and hard to master.
I’ve always been fascinated by contradictions. How can two opposite things be true at the same time? And yet they can. 🤯
That’s why I love this quote.
Honest contradictions are just two parts of a bigger truth.
It’s one among many gems in The Power of Practical Thinking Explained in 50 Sentences. 👍
Mental Break Town 