utter and live it

Those who think they have all the answers, don’t. Those who admit when they don’t know, learn.

Those who figure they can gain something by deception, gain nothing worth having. Those who always act in truth, gain power that transcends their actions.

The person who fantasizes about something for nothing, gets nothing. The person who embraces responsibility and willingly puts forth effort, gets control and influence, richness and fulfillment.

There are those who insist on doing what’s right, even when their good deeds go unnoticed. Those who do what is wrong, even when they are clever, eventually are found out.

If you look hard enough you might find a shortcut. But it probably won’t take you where you truly wish to go.

There are those who live with uncompromising integrity. Those who don’t, surely and eventually wish they did.

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.

The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.