Notes from Right Thing. Right Now.

Raw notes

Not only in big moments of responsibility but the little ones
Until we stop debating, we can’t start doing. We keep debating so we don’t have to start doing.
we may define justice as holding the line
Treat them as you would wish to be treated. Not just when it’s convenient or recognized, but especially when it isn’t. Even when it’s not returned. Even when it costs you.

Part I The Me (Personal)

The virtue of a person is measured not by his outstanding efforts but by his everyday behavior. — Blaise Pascal
We preach this gospel not with words but with actions
This won’t always be popular. It won’t always be appreciated.
We should not pretend that this is always going to be easy.
Reciprocity might well be laughable if the shoe was on the other foot.
“Speak the truth as you see it,” Marcus Aurelius reminded himself, “but with kindness. With humility. Without hypocrisy.”
“Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being,” he writes, “remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it, without hesitation.”
We seem only to vie with each other for professional success, not for kindness or civic-mindedness, for fame, not friendship.
Virtue has to be our compass, goodness has to be our goal.
Respect is justice.
How we treat people in ordinary circumstances is one thing. How we treat them when we’re tired, when we’re stressed, when the weight of the world is on our shoulders . . . when someone has just screwed up, just cost us something serious. This is everything.
He was kind to a woman who was repeatedly unkind to him.
In a world of awfulness, of injustice, of cruelty and corruption, ordinary decency stands out.
It says something about the world today that the phrase “I was just doing my job” is more likely to be an excuse for disturbing behavior than to be the explanation of heroic behavior.
You gotta know your weaknesses and make decisions so you can be strong.
we owe it to our master— to the world— to make the most of the skills and abilities that we each have.
When we don’t do our best, when we hold something back, we are cheating ourselves. We are cheating our gifts. We are cheating the potential beneficiaries of us reaching our full potential.
Will you become what you’re meant to be? Will you go where you are most needed?

Part II: The We (Sociopolitical)

“We are all bound together,” she said, “in one great bundle of humanity.”
The Stoics said we should try to see every person we meet as an opportunity for kindness.
We need to become vacuums for the lived experiences of other people— what makes it hard to be them, where they struggle, where they have been mistreated, where their daily lives are different than ours.
“quietly do the next and most necessary thing,”
The Stoics would say that we were put here to work with other people— that the ability to collaborate and connect and compromise is in fact one of the things that makes us human.
Pragmatism without virtue is dangerous and hollow. Virtue without pragmatism is ineffectual and impotent.
They can’t let a hypothetical interfere with an opportunity to help, right here, right now.
Politics, building things, making things happen— it’s dirty, dusty business.
righteousness without skilled organizing, action without strategy was a recipe for letting the cause down.
What will we give? An answer: Enough that it hurts. Enough that it challenges us. Enough that there is sacrifice in it.

Part III: The All (Is One)

deals that made things better, even if only a tiny bit so.
He had destroyed his foe by turning him into a friend.
from a place of strength and generosity
Nothing frustrates evil quite like forgiveness. Nothing befuddles hatred quite like not getting hatred in return.
May we all respond to life’s twists with such quiet class and goodness.
While we cannot change the past, we can— by refusing to deny it— do better in the future.
Anything we give them is not benevolence but atonement.
Over the generations, Stoics grew more open, more community-minded, more decent, more generous.
it’s not a principle until it costs you money.
In the end, you’re measured by how you treat the people closest to you.

Added 2024-09-08.