I cannot define myself without you.

You love yourself in terms of what is other. Because it is only in terms of what is other that you have a self at all. —Alan Watts

A person starts to live when he can live outside himself. —Einstein

I like these two quotes, in this order, because they establish that it’s silly to think of yourself on your own. If there were no other people, how could you define yourself as smart or caring or anything? Smart in comparison to whom?

The second I love because it expresses the practice of the first quote. It’s to realize that the beauty in the whole Universe is expressed through our interactions with others. If there were no eyes in the world, there would be no way for the Universe to express itself.

“I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.” —Einstein

And then Einstein takes it further. You’ve never really experienced the past and the future never comes. You live in the eternal now, even if you choose to use this moment to obsess over the future or the past, it’s a choice you’re making about how to spend your present, because this now is all there will ever be.

Priorities

I think about money and life this way and about death this way too. I’ve found no better motivation than to realize that now is the only thing that will ever exist.

A paycheck will never bring you closer to a deep appreciation of this moment, so go find out what that thing is for you and do it.

I’m convinced that expressing what you love and finding someone that you love because of what they express is why we go on. At the very least, it’s why I go on.