QUOTES
"It is a rare breed of human who can blend a free spirit, a decisive nature, a deep respect for life, love for adventure, and an uncompromising sense of integrity into personal happiness. Such individuals hear the heartbeat of wholeness."
- Jamie Sams, Earth Medicine
"If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath."
- Amit Ray
STOICS ON LIVING A GOOD LIFE
“Waste no more time arguing what a good person should be. Be One.”
“If it is not right, do not do it, if it is not true, do not say it.”
STOICS ON FINDING HAPPINESS AND APPRECIATING WHAT WE HAVE
“No person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don’t have, and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have.”
– Seneca
True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of humankind are within us and within our reach. A wise person is content with their lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what they have not.”
― Seneca
“Individuals do not simply exist but always decides what their existence will be, what they will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.”
— Viktor Frankl
“Don’t let the force of an impression when it first hits you knock you off your feet; just say to it: Hold on a moment; let me see who you are and what you represent. Let me put you to the test.”
— Epictetus
STOICS ON RESPONDING TO SUFFERING / BAD FORTUNE
“Choose not to be harmed — and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed — and you haven’t been.”
“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more in imagination than in reality.”
– Seneca
“I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent—no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.”
– Seneca
“How does it help…to make troubles heavier by bemoaning them?”
– Seneca
“If a person knows not which port they sail from, no wind is favorable.”
– Seneca
“External things are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now.”
STOICS ON VALUING OUR TIME AND LIVING IN THE PRESENT
“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”
“How many have laid waste to your life when you weren’t aware of what you were losing, how much was wasted in pointless grief, foolish joy, greedy desire, and social amusements—how little of your own was left to you. You will realize you are dying before your time!”
— Seneca
“In your actions, don’t procrastinate. In your conversations, don’t confuse. In your thoughts, don’t wander. In your soul, don’t be passive or aggressive. In your life, don’t be all about business.”
“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it.”
— Seneca
“Two elements must therefore be rooted out once for all, – the fear of future suffering, and the recollection of past suffering; since the latter no longer concerns me, and the former concerns me not yet.”
– Seneca
“You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last.”
— Seneca
“Even though you seize the day, it still will flee; therefore, you must vie with time’s swiftness in the speed of using it, and, as from a torrent that rushes by and will not always flow, you must drink quickly.”
— Seneca
MEDITATION AND BREATH WORK
WHY IT MATTERS
“As you think so shall you become.”
– Bruce Lee
It’s easy to do things when there is no pressure, no one is watching, and there is nothing at stake. But doing something under those circumstances doesn’t really matter does it? The reason you train your body and your mind so hard is to be able to perform at the highest level in the most difficult moments, the one that really count. And as we all know, these moments are always tough, filled with lots of pressure, stress, and anxiety. So what do you do? In addition to all the physical and skill work you do, you also must learn to control your mind and breath so in those critical moments, where you have the chance to rise up and fulfill your destiny, you are calm, focused, with your breath, mind, and emotions under control.
Meditation is the foundation for learning to focus and control the mind as well as how to use your breath to calm down, focus, and perform at the highest level. We encourage all of our athletes to practice meditation in some form, with many using one of the many apps available (e.g., Calm).