Quotes & Sayings About Doing Something On Your Own

When I ask, "How are you?" that is really what I want to know. I am not asking how many items are on your to-do list, nor asking how many items are in your inbox. I want to know how your heart is doing, at this very moment. Tell me. Tell me your heart is joyous, tell me your heart is aching, tell me your heart is sad, tell me your heart craves a human touch. Examine your own heart, explore your soul, and then tell me something about your heart and your soul. — Omid Safi

My work is awfully labored just now. Sometimes it has the most wondrous life of its own, it fairly pulls me along - rather like wind surfing! At other times, it drags and mopes, so that I despair of ever writing another word or drawing another picture. I've found that if one keeps pushing along during the mopes, out will flash the most exhilarating thought or idea - a way of doing something that I had never seen before - and then, one is off again, and hold on to your hat! — Jan Karon

You should focus relentlessly on something you're good at doing, but before that you must think hard about whether it will be valuable in the future. For the startup world, this means you should not necessarily start your own company, even if you are extraordinarily talented. If anything, too many people are starting their own companies today. People who understand the power law will hesitate more than others when it comes to founding a new venture: they know how tremendously successful they could become by joining the very best company while it's growing fast. The power law means that differences between companies will dwarf the differences in roles inside companies. You could have 100% of the equity if you fully fund your own venture, but if it fails you'll have 100% of nothing. Owning just 0.01% of Google, by contrast, is incredibly valuable (more than $35 million as of this writing). — Peter Thiel

You know you are on the right spiritual track when you realize that doing the right thing is not something you should do; rather, it is something you want to do. It is even something you have to do for your own peace, and the well-being of others. — Shannon L. Alder

Speaking as somebody who's been in the drug scene, it's not something you can go on and on doing, you know. It's like drink, or anything, you've got to come to terms with it. You know, like too much food, or too much anything. You've got to get out of it. You're left with yourself all the time, whatever you do
you know, meditation, drugs or anything. But you've got to get down to your own god and your own temple in your head. — John Lennon

I didn't fully process this concept until I was on my way back to the States. A few thousand feet over the Atlantic, I began to unpack this idea I had held, unquestioned, for so long. Was having an adventure really about doing the most daring, bold, energetic thing? Was it about having stories to tell at cocktail parties? Was it about freedom and travel and not being tied down? Or did it have something to do with your own heart and your own courage, in whatever form that came? — Various

I wish I had better news for everyone and you can all read my report on our findings in my upcoming paper, as well as on my Web site once I get it finished. In the end, though, my quest for Atlantis did teach me something. In all our pasts lie our futures. By our own hands and decisions we will be damned and we will be saved. Whatever you do, put forth your best effort even if all you're doing is chasing a never-ending rainbow. You might never reach the end of it, but along the way you'll meet people who will mean the world to you and make memories that will keep you warm on even the coldest nights. (Tory) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

When you're a professional athlete, you get paid millions of dollars for doing something that's not only fun, but also physical and badass. You have fans: pathetic people without their own lives or hopes or dreams that measure their happiness on your weekly performance (this still boggles my mind, but in the best way possible - however, my role as a fan now is quite detached). You get to travel around to different cities and fuck their most beautiful women. You are given license to do pretty much whatever you want all the time, and are forgiven easily and often instantly when caught doing anything illegal. Professional athletes can literally get away with murder. — A.D. Aliwat

There are many, many difficult times, god knows. If a person wants to stand on her own two feet, I recommend undertaking the care and feeding of something. It could be children, or it could be house plants, you know? By doing that you come to understand your own limitations. That's where it starts. — Banana Yoshimoto

Most of us in our thinking are wandering from this to that to the other thing, and are constantly distracted. And Zen is the opposite of that. It's being completely here, fully in the present. And you know when you're completely concentrated, you're not really aware of your own existence. It's rather the same as the sense of sight. If you see your eyes, that is to say if you see spots in front of your eyes, or something on the lens of the eye, then you're not seeing properly. To the degree to which you're seeing properly, you're unaware of your eyes. In the same way, if your clothes fit well, you're unaware of them on your body. And if you're completely concentrated on what you're doing, you're unaware of yourself. — Alan W. Watts

Any time someone puts a lock on something you own against your wishes, and doesn't give you the key, they're not doing it for your benefit. — Cory Doctorow

Even if you're doing something that the studio sends you, or something that's based on a book or story, at the end of it all, you try to make whatever it is your own. This is based on my love of horror movies. Everything is based on something, in some way. — Tim Burton

I'm falling in love with you too, sweetheart. I know you're scared, and I know the shit that dickless douchebag put you through has you doing everything in your power to never go through something like that again, but I'm not him, baby. Don't run from it. Fall with me. Be with me, Ellie. I want to give you every part of myself. I want to be the reason you wake up every day with a smile on your beautiful face. God, Ellie. You own me. You fucking have me by the balls and I don't even care. — N.A. Alcorn

I think there's a lot of threshold weeping. Like, am I doing this? Am I really wearing this out in the world? My daughter is very much like that. She will put clothes on and her clothes just make her beside herself. They make her so sad sometimes. And you do realize you feel betrayed sometimes by your own clothing. You put something on that usually protects you and makes you OK, and sometimes you're just not fit for the world and even your best pants can't overcome that feeling for you. — Heidi Julavits

If we're talented at music, that talent is of god. If something makes our heart sing, that's god's way of telling us its a contribution he wants us to make. Sharing our gifts is what makes us happy. We're most powerful and god's power is most apparent on the earth when we're happy. A course in miracles teaches that we are only truly happy when we're doing god's will. The only thing to be saved from is our own negativity and fear. The crux of salvation in any area is a shift in our sense of purpose. That shift is a miracle, as always we consciously ask for it: 'Dear god, please give my life some sense of purpose. use me as an instrument of your peace. Use my talents and abilities to spread love. I surrender my job to you. Help me to remember that my real job is to love the world back to health. — Marianne Williamson

But when you're beginning, you should try to focus on something you love and your own way of doing things. — Jerry Harrison

One day Mom came to my hospital room and sat down on the edge of the bed, facing me. I could already see tears forming in the corners of her eye. She said she had something to tell me. Whatever she was about to say was hard for her to get out. Her voice was noticeably shaky and her chin quivered as she spoke.
"Noah, I've got to leave and get back to work. And besides, I am helping you too much. You need to be doing more on your own." She couldn't hold it back at all and by the time she finished the second sentence the tears were streaming down her rosy cheeks.
After a few deep breaths, she continued, "But your dad is here, and you know Dad, he's not that helpful." We both laughed at that as she leaned forward on the bed and grabbed my hand. I told her that I understood and that yes, it was probably best because Dad would help but not too much. — Noah Galloway

I am utterly against any kind of guilt. Remember it always: if you start feeling guilty about something around me, then you are doing it on your own, then you are still carrying the voices of your parents, the priests within you; you have not yet heard me, you have not yet listened to me. I want you to be totally free of all guilt. — Rajneesh

You never know that. I don't know it; Robert Lowell doesn't know it; John Berryman didn't know it; and Shakespeare probably didn't know it. There's never any final certainty about what you do. Your opinion of your own work fluctuates wildly. Under the right circumstances you can pick up something that you've written and approve of it; you'll think it's good and that nobody could have done exactly the same thing. Under different circumstances, you'll look at exactly the same poem and say, "My Lord, isn't that boring." The most important thing is to be excited about what you are doing and to be working on something that you think will be the greatest thing that ever was. One of the difficulties in writing poetry is to maintain your sense of excitement and discovery about what you write. — James Dickey

I think trying to write is a religious exercise. You are trying to understand life, and you can only get the illusion of doing it fully by writing. That is, it's the only way I can come to understand things fully. When I create, when I put my own mark on something and form it, I begin to know the whole truth about it, how it was put together. Then you can begin to change things around. You know all this after you have written a lot. You really know. And it has become the most important thing in your life. It has nothing to do with craft, or even art, in a way. It is making sense of life. It is coming to understand yourself. — Peter Taylor

Everything's still there. It happened, it was. But you know, it's bearable somehow. It's--it's bearable."..."Do you know why it's bearable now,...?"..."It's bearable, Jean Louise, because you are your own person now."..."...You were an emotional cripple, getting answers from him, leaning on him, assuming your answers would always be his answers."..."When you happened along and saw him doing something that seemed to you to be the very antithesis of his conscience--your conscience--you literally could not stand it. It made you physically ill. Life became hell on earth for you. You had to kill yourself, or he had to kill you to get you functioning as a separate entity. — Harper Lee

I always think it's just best to just make stuff and to carry on making stuff, even if it's not off your own back, because that's the only way ... especially as a comedy writer, I make short films and then show them to live audience, so if they're laughing you know you're doing something right. — Alice Lowe

External things are not the problem. It's your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now. If the problem is something in your own character, who's stopping you from setting your mind straight? And if it's that you're not doing something you think you should be, why not just do it? - But there are insuperable obstacles. Then it's not a problem. The cause of your inaction lies outside you. - But how can I go on living with that undone? Then depart, with a good conscience, as if you'd done it, embracing the obstacles too. — Marcus Aurelius

Eric Leeds said, "This is a guy who has done some exceedingly generous and thoughtful things for me and other people but then a day later he could turn around and say something so off the wall and so ridiculously stupid and you'd say how do I reconcile these behaviors? People would wonder is he a bad guy who has good days or a good guy who has bad days? I think it's because he has the emotional maturity of a five-year-old. And he never understood the value of doing something thoughtful for somebody on its own merits. He really didn't understand the consequences of him doing something nice for somebody any more than he gave importance to the consequences of him doing something really nasty to somebody. The child doesn't know that yet. You teach your child what works and what doesn't and establish how relationships work. Well, Prince never got that and, to this day, he never has. — Toure

Do let him read the papers. But not while you accusingly tiptoe around the room, or perch much like a silent bird of prey on the edge of your most uncomfortable chair. (He will read them anyway, and he should read them, so let him choose his own good time.) Don't make a big exit. Just go. But kiss him quickly, before you go, otherwise he might think you are angry; he is used to suspecting he is doing something wrong. — Marlene Dietrich

The thing that's hard about it - the thing that makes it so hard when the person you love has been taken from you, not by something evil you could have seen coming but by random, pure chance - is that you find yourself suddenly living through a history other than the one you expected to live, through no fault of your own. I feel . . . it's hard to describe, but I feel weirdly outside of time. Ever since the accident I've had these moments when I felt like a visiting guest in this world, not a permanent resident. Like sometimes I look in a mirror and I feel like I can almost see through the version of me on the other side of the glass. And sometimes I feel like I can see the history I used to be in more clearly than the history I'm in now - the real history is one where Philip and Sean and I are all together, being a family and doing whatever family things people do, and this one's like . . . like a fake version of events that I've been yanked into, where everything's gone wrong. — Dexter Palmer

Seeing a patter doesn't mean you know how to put it all together. Take baby steps: don't focus on the folks whose skills are far beyond your own. When you're new to something-or you haven't tried it in a while-it can feel impossibly hard to get it right. Every misstep feels like a reason to quit. You envy everyone else who seems to know what they're doing. What keeps you going? The belief that one day you'll also be like that: Elegant. Capable. Confident. Experienced. And you can be. All you need now is enthusiasm. A little bravery. And-always-a sense of humor. — Kate Jacobs

I think the bigger the movie is, the harder it is to maintain the idea of an auteur. You're servicing something beyond just your own vision. Whenever there's a lot of money on the line, it is your responsibility to make sure that you're doing your best to have people not lose their money and to actually win by betting on it. — Jon Favreau

On radio, you're in your own little world. Every time I'd be doing a possible no-hitter - I think I've done something like 25 no-hitters and a couple of perfect games - I would always put the date on the tape. Not for me, but for the player, so that 25 or 30 years later when he's playing it for his kids or grandkids, you have that date. — Vin Scully

His hand slid from under his desk and slowly moved up my leg until his fingers grazed my inner thigh. He couldn't just pull something sexy and think that I'd forgive him that easily.I grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly, turning my head ever so slightly toward his. "Stop it.We're not doing this here."
He pulled his hand out of my grip. "Geez, Red. No need to be so touchy.""You were the one being touchy," I whispered. "And now I
need to pay attention to our lecture.""Come on, Red. I thought we were good."One of the girls in front of us turned her head sharply. "Will you two either quit talking or take it
outside? Some of us are trying to listen," she hissed.
"Mind your own damn business," I pushed back.
She huffed and then turned around to face the front again.
"Ouch! Feisty and I like it," John said through a laugh. — Magan Vernon