Tag Archives: Arthur Schopenhauer

“Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.”

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“Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.”

– Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher

569Image from Flickr by susivinh.

Have you ever purchased a book with the full intention of reading it and absorbing every morsel of value, only to have it stare at you from a pile on the shelf with more than a few other similar books? Me too!

Today, I’d like to encourage you to purchase my new book, The Quotable Coach: Daily Nuggets of Practical Wisdom. My hope is that you will invest the one minute a day (or less) it takes to explore its content.

Please visit the following links and gain 365 nuggets of wisdom to support your personal excellence journey. Thank you!

Ebook: http://amzn.to/1jboDX7 (Amazon.com)

Paperback: https://www.createspace.com/4855547 (My CreateSpace eStore)

Enter the code 42E47C9N for a 10% discount on the paperback book via my store.

If you happen to find the book of value, I would sure appreciate it if you would write a review on Amazon or Goodreads.

“We seldom think of what we have but always of what we lack.”

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“We seldom think of what we have but always of what we lack.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher

What do you think are the relative percentages of our focus on what we lack versus what we have? Are they 90/10, 80/20, 70/30, 60/40 or 50/50? You may notice I stopped at 50/50 – and for the purpose of this post, let’s just say that the odds in general aren’t in most people’s favor.

What is your own ratio?

Regardless of your own score, focusing your attention on what you already have is the key to happiness and living a fulfilling life.

Exercise:

For the next week, use a journal or notebook to record your thoughts on what you have and what you lack. Consider using an alarm (perhaps on your phone) to trigger you to capture these thoughts.

After writing about what you have, ask “what else” and add even more to the list, to shift yourself toward a more full appreciation of the richness and abundance all around you.

Feel free to reply to this message with any insights you may have gained from this exercise.

“We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people.”

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“We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people.”

– Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher

If this quote has some truth in it, is it such a bad thing?

What if you were to take all the greatest qualities of people you most admire to create this initial three-quarters of yourself? Not bad, huh? The last quarter gets to be a completely manifested part of yourself – unencumbered by anything external.

If you add this all together, I’d say you’d have a pretty remarkable you!

Exercise:

Look at yourself today and begin piecing together the “future you” from those remarkable people around you, as well as through the development of your own unique gifts and talents.