Before making a decision...

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[Before making a decision] The first thing to do – don't get worked up. For everything happens according to the nature of all things, and in a short time you'll be nobody and nowhere even as the great emperors Hadrian and Augustus are now. The next thing to do – consider carefully the task at hand for what it is, while remembering that your purpose is to be a good human being. Get straight to doing what nature requires of you, and speak as you see most just and fitting – with kindness, modesty, and sincerity.

Marcus Aurelius

In your actions, don't procrastinate (Marcus Aurelius)

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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.

Marcus Aurelius

Whatever happens to you has been waiting to happen since the beginning of time. The twining strands of fate wove both of them together: your own existence and the things that happen to you (Marcus Aurelius).

 

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More matter with less art (Queen Gertrude in Hamlet)

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.

I'll be on a study break for two weeks but Marcus will be doling out wisdom until Term 2 starts.

Panic on the streets of London, panic on the streets of Birmingham. I wonder to myself - could life ever be sane again? (The Smiths)

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.

What is life (George Harrison)

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Boyle’s Law

There’s no such thing as work life balance. There’s simply life. And you spend part of your life at work.