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What was the duty of the teacher if not to inspire? - Bharati Mukherjee
Marcus Aurelius is a source for great leadership lessons throughout Meditations.
Term 1 has ended at school (finally) and this passage acts as an excellent place to pause for thought:
Be like a rocky promontory against which the restless surf continually pounds; it stands fast while the churning sea is lulled to sleep at its feet. I hear you say, "How unlucky that this should happen to me!" Not at all! Say instead, "How lucky that I am not broken by what has happened and am not afraid of what is about to happen. The same blow might have struck anyone, but not many would have absorbed it without capitulation or complaint.
Seth Godin makes a great point about surprise and uncertainty:
Until just recently, a solar eclipse wasn’t a tourist event. It was the cause of real panic.
Two reasons that are worth considering:It was a surprise. They were not predicted.
They were unexplained. No one had any idea what was going on.
Eliminate surprise and explain the circumstances and panic starts to fade.
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It’s honest when we acknowledge that just about everything is out of our control. We can work to influence it, we can practice accepting it, but any time we’re engaging with others or with the future, we’re not completely in charge.
Control is elusive. If we accept the parts that are out of our hands, we can focus on the elements where we have leverage and influence instead.
I love this from Seth Godin:
Learning is about becoming incompetent on our way to getting better.