bad moon rising

The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.

I am not good. I am not virtuous. I am not sympathetic. I am not generous. I am merely and above all a creature of intense passionate feeling. I feel—everything. It is my genius. It burns me like fire.

We need a revolution in the way we think about failure. Instead of giving up or being so threatened by our mistakes that we cover them up, we should see them as learning opportunities. This is not just about performance, but also equanimity. Only when we recognise our own fallibility are we liberated to seek out new ways to improve, rather than being held back by the paranoia and defensiveness that governs so much of working life.

I learned not to trust people; I learned not to believe what they say but to watch what they do; I learned to suspect that anyone and everyone is capable of ‘living a lie’. I came to believe that other people - even when you think you know them well - are ultimately unknowable.