The title was inspired by some words I saw on the pavement near the Flatiron building a few weeks ago. I didn’t write down who wrote it, though it clearly made an impact. My life—and I’m guessing dozens, if not hundreds or even thousands, of others—wouldn’t be the same without them.
Some quotes that have been on my mind lately:
“The world is a very malleable place. If you know what you want, and you go for it with maximum energy and drive and passion, the world will often reconfigure itself around you much more quickly and easily than you would think.”
Marc Andreessen
“Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. You can change it. You can influence it. You can build your own things that other people can use. The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually… if you push in, something will pop out the other side—that you can change, you can mould it—that’s maybe the most important thing, is to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it.”
Steve Jobs
“The abstract idea that Hitler is evil and needs to be stopped has the very physical effect of bombs being dropped by the allies under instruction from Churchill onto Berlin. All those abstract things cause real world – physical effects. And so it is with your own free will. It is an abstract idea: and this idea that you are free to choose means you will choose one thing over another. We don’t need to talk about atoms or ions, nerves or [neurons] or even brains. Just abstract minds. And the idea that you are free to choose.”
Brett Hall (via Elliot Hershberg)
You matter, and you can choose to believe it. You can choose to do something. You can choose to turn down the volume of your self-doubt, the voice of your inner critic. If you’re not used to choosing it, it probably won’t feel like the easy choice.
See also, fingerprints.