Doing your best work will thus require you to constantly be on the verge of failing.

“success” isn’t the problem. Nice things aren’t the problem. Stability isn’t the problem. And even being a hotshot isn’t the problem. Trying to grow and improve our health, our income, our relationships, and our lifestyle isn’t a trap. But … Struggling to escape discomfort, risk, and rejection “once and for all” ... Driving ourselves like a dirty m

At first, when you push beyond your perceived capability your mind won’t shut the fuck up about it. It wants you to stop so it sends you into a spin cycle of panic and doubt, which only amplifies your self-torture. But when you persist past that to the point that pain fully saturates the mind, you become single-pointed. The external world zeroes ou

teacher, Pema Chödrön, once said that the biggest problem she sees with people’s meditation practice is that they quit just when things are starting to get interesting. Which is to say, they quit as soon as things aren’t easy anymore, as soon as it gets painful, or boring, or agitating. They quit as soon as they see something in their minds that sc