We seek validation when we don’t believe we are enough.

If one really has a feeling of contribution, one will no longer have any need for recognition from others. Because one will already have the real awareness that “I am of use to someone,” without needing to go out of one’s way to be acknowledged by others. In other words, a person who is obsessed with the desire for recognition does not have any community feeling yet, and has not managed to engage in self-acceptance, confidence in others, or contribution to others.

You are never sorry you took a walk.

The father washes onto the son. He lives inside you as an aspiration, a disappointment, or a fear. Afraid you will never be like him or afraid you will be; he is there in the bones of your emotions. In the voices in your head. In your expectations of yourself. In the shadows of your weakness or strength. No matter how good the relationship, there is a tension between father and son.

Our ego becomes brittle, placing us in a trap. We are too fragile to take criticism. Learning requires an admission that we don’t know things and need to improve, but we feel too insecure to admit this, and so our ideas become set and our skills stagnate. We cover this up with an air of certainty and strong opinions, or moral superiority, but the underlying insecurity cannot be shaken.

in a never ceasing, moveable world, fixed beliefs are the beginning of all unhappiness between human beings.

I think that most people who compete at a high level do have a decent amount of insecurity somewhere. And it’s not that they struggle with it, but they embrace it and they recognize it — maybe they don’t even talk about it. But it’s what makes us get up a little bit earlier, start a little bit earlier, and just pour ourselves into it.