Quote from Gay & Katie Hendricks:
…we aren’t responsibility for creating all the bad things that happen to us. But we can claim responsibility for the bad things that happen and learn a lot about ourselves by doing so. It all depends on whether you think of responsibility as something you are or as something you do. For us, the onlyuseful way of thinking about responsibility is as something we do. We use an operational definition of responsibility, not a theoretical one: Responsibility is an action you take, not a quality that can be assigned. A judge and jury can assign responsibility to a criminal for an act, but that criminal’s life will not begin to change until he or she makes a conscious choice to take responsibility…
The key point is this: There is tremendous healing power in taking responsibility for something right now in the present, but no healing value in looking back to the past to blame yourself or anyone else.
Simimal Quotes:
As long as you think that the cause of your problem is “out there”—as long as you think that anyone or anything is responsible for your suffering—the situation is hopeless. It means that you are forever in the role of victim, that you’re suffering in paradise.
Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece.
The choice to experience life as a genuinely powerful person librates a huge amount of creative energy, and most people are unwilling to enjoy that amount of energy.
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
If you really want to break from the pack, you have to risk being perceived to be as eccentric as these people. You have to think exception-ally—a LOT!
It is the act of forgiveness that opens up the only possible way to think creatively about the future at all.
We must dare to think 'unthinkable' thoughts. We must learn to explore all the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world. We must learn to welcome and not to fear the voices of dissent. We must dare to think about 'unthinkable things' because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless.
In your training, do not be in a hurry, for it takes a minimum of ten years to master the basics and advance to the first rung. Never think of yourself as an all-knowing, perfected master; you must continue to train daily with your friends and students and progress together in the Art of Peace.
What we think or what we know or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.
Whatever you habitually think yourself to be, that you are. You must form, now, a greater and better habit; you must form a conception of yourself as a being of limitless power, and habitually think that you are that being. It is the habitual, not the periodical thought that decides your destiny.
Slow down and remember this: Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of mental laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.
