VinceOfSELA

25 from SouthEast Los Angeles. Tried and tired.

[wilsonpatricks-deactivated20191]

How do you know this? That’s what I do.

[thronescastdaily]

“I hate the word ‘lucky.’ It cheapens a lot of hard work. Living in an apartment without any heat and paying for dinners with dimes- I don’t think I felt myself lucky back then. Doing plays for fifty bucks and trying to be true to myself as an artist and turning down commercials where they wanted a leprechaun. Saying I was lucky negates the hard work I put in and spits on that guy who’s freezing his ass off back in Brooklyn. So I won’t say I’m lucky.“ 

[comewithmetothestars]

British Politics

[vincelok]

Part of us always knows that we're just a doctors visit away or a phone call away from being starkly reminded with the fact of our own mortality, or of those closest to us. I'm sure many of you in this room have experienced this in some form. You must know how uncanny it is to suddenly be thrown out of the normal course of your life and just be given the full time job of not dying, or caring for someone who is. The one thing people tend to realize, at moments like this, is that they wasted a lot of time when life was normal. It's not just what they did with their time, it's not just that they spent too much time working, or compulsively checking emails. It's that they cared about the wrong things. They regret what they cared about. Their attention was bound up in petty concerns, year after year, when life was normal. And this is a paradox of course because we all know this epiphany is coming. Don't you know this is coming? Don't you know that theres gonna come a day when you'll be sick or someone close to you will die, and you'll look back on the kinds of things that captured your attention, and you'll think what was I doing? You know this and yet, if you're like most people, you will spend most of your time in life tacitly presuming you'll live forever. It's like watching a bad movie for a fourth time, or bickering with your spouse. These things only make sense, in light of eternity.

Sam Harris "Death and the Present Moment" speech

[vincelok]

I had the house to myself, or so I thought

My roommates are on the other side of the country for a week and I wasn’t expecting any visitors. I know they left keys with a cousin who is babysitting their kids, but a second cousin had the other set of keys and just walked in on me studying. Of all the sleezy summer activities, I felt instantly happy for having been caught studying.

[heroinwasmyhero]

When you finally work up the nerve to inhale powder up your nose or stick a needle through your arm, that’s when you know you’ve gone too far. You’ve taken the road you promised yourself you’d never go down. That’s okay. Just make sure to eventually promise yourself you’ll find your way back. You’ll thank yourself later. Drugs will never feel better than finally learning to respect yourself enough to move on and keep fighting.

(via heroinwasmyhero)

[saverio-valenti-blog]

Remember and remind yourself of a phrase favored by Epictetus: “persist and resist.” Persist in your efforts. Resist giving in to distraction, discouragement, or disorder.

Ryan Holiday 

Follow my Tumblr blog.

(via saverio-valenti)

[anamorphosis-and-isolate]

Demand not that things happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do, and you will go on well.

Epictetus, The Discourses (via anamorphosis-and-isolate)

[alllways]

Refrain from trying to win other people’s approval and admiration. You are taking a higher road. Don’t long for others to see you as sophisticated, unique, or wise. In fact, be suspicious if you appear to others as someone special. Be on your guard against a false sense of self-importance.

Epictetus (via alllways)

[lomasdope]

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.

Epictetus (via lomasdope)

[senecasredoubt]

He is free who lives as he wishes to live; who is neither subject to compulsion nor to hindrance, nor to force; whose movements to action are not impeded, whose desires attain their purpose, and who does not fall into that which he would avoid. Who, then, chooses to live in error? No man. Who chooses to live deceived, liable to mistake, unjust, unrestrained, discontented, mean? No man. Not one then of the bad lives as he wishes; nor is he, then, free. And who chooses to live in sorrow, fear, envy, pity, desiring and failing in his desires, attempting to avoid something and falling into it? Not one. Do we then find any of the bad free from sorrow, free from fear, who does not fall into that which he would avoid, and does not obtain that which he wishes? Not one; nor then do we find any bad man free.

Epictetus, Discourses - Book 4, Chapter 1 (via senecasredoubt)

[senecasredoubt]

Remember that you are an actor in a play of such a kind as the playwright may choose. If your part is short, it is short; if long, it is long. If the playwright wishes you to act the part of a beggar, see that you act the part naturally; if the part of one who limps, or of a magistrate, of a private person, play it. To select the part belongs to another. But your duty is to act well the part that is given to you.

Epictetus, The Enchiridion (translated by George Long)

[movemequotes]

It’s so simple really: If you say you’re going to do something, do it. If you start something, finish it.

Epictetus, www.twitter.com/movemequotes (via movemequotes)

[senecasredoubt]

When you see another man in the possession of power, set against this the fact that you have not the want of power; when you see another rich, see what you possess in place of riches: for if you possess nothing in place of them, you are miserable; but if you have not the want of riches, know that you possess more than this man possesses and what is worth much more.

Epictetus, Discourses (Book 4, Chapter 9)

[horrorgorewhore]

[vincelok]

It feels like a job that can't just be replaced by a computer.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8MEMms5xGQk User Ellellevlog on YouTube

[niqabisinparis]

Motivation is overrated. No amount of motivation would’ve gotten me through hours of my accounting textbook. No “vision” is enough to keep me awake til the crack of dawn on an essay that I don’t even know if the professor will check. Discipline is what determines how far you go. On those days when your cute little list of #goals and vision of yourself 5 years from now aren’t enough, discipline will pull you out of bed and get you to work. I wish I knew this in high school because I thought I couldn’t work without motivation. I wasted so much time trying to find purpose before I realized that working now, albeit blindly, will ensure that I could chase any purpose I discover in the future. Sure, motivation is crucial, but it’s not consistent. It’s not reliable. You can only rely on yourself and your grit. 

[busymarina]

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