When things are tough, or not happening as quickly as you’d hoped, don’t lose heart or motivation. Remember:

“No great thing is created suddenly.”

- Quote by Epictetus

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
– Jim Ryun

“Humble people don’t think less of themselves, they just thing about themselves less.”
- Norman Vincent Peale

“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.”
– John Wayne

“I have orders to be awakened at any time in the case of a national emergency, even if I’m in a cabinet meeting.”
- Ronald Reagan (Former US President)

The West Wing is/was one of my all time favorite TV shows and there never ceases to be great dialogue that is also great advice for everyday life.

This is a particularly potent one for me:

In #32 Noël, Leo tells Josh the following story (Josh refers to it when talking to Leo in “Bartlet for America”):

“This guy’s walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can’t get out.
“A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, ‘Hey you. Can you help me out?’ The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.
“Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, ‘Father, I’m down in this hole can you help me out?’ The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on
“Then a friend walks by, ‘Hey, Joe, it’s me can you help me out?’ And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, ‘Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here.’ The friend says, ‘Yeah, but I’ve been down here before and I know the way out.’”

I recently read an article in the Economist magazine regarding the internet debacles of late: specifically the failure of Amazon’s cloud servers, and the hacking of Sony’s network.

In commenting that the more we become familiar with something, the more “off-guard” and unprepared we are for when things turn bad, the article offered a healthy reminder:

“…It often pays to be paranoid.”

Seems like good advice!

“A man’s doubts and fears are his worst enemies”.

William Wrigley Jr.

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

~Epictetus

If only it were so easy!

“You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair.”

You are, quite simply, who you choose to be.