Epictetus Quotes

I'm pretty much done with mindfulness. I'm just going to start paying attention.

We're like a gardener with a hose and our attention is water - we can water flowers or we can water weeds.

Whatever gets your goat gets your attention. Whatever gets your attention gets your time. Whatever gets your time gets you. Whatever gets you becomes your master. Take care, lest a little thing horn in and get your goat

Giving something your time isn't the same as giving it your attention.

You cannot give your full attention to something, and at the same time resist it.

But when we start to focus in on what our own mind is up to, for instance, it is not unusual to quickly go unconscious again, to fall back into an automatic-pilot mode of unawareness. These lapses in awareness are frequently caused by an eddy of dissatisfaction with what we are seeing or feeling in that moment, out of which springs a desire for something to be different, for things to change.

Pay attention to what you're paying attention to.

Those who give too much attention to trifling things become generally incapable of great ones.

We are defined by how we place our attention.

Consciousness is nothing but awareness the composite of all the thing we pay attention to.

You lose your habitual behavior, which allowed you to sort of zone out. You have to be here, you have to be now, you have to be present.

It's amazing how confused and distracted and misdirected so many people are.

Mindfulness has helped me succeed in almost every dimension of my life. By stopping regularly to look inward and become aware of my mental state, I stay connected to the source of my actions and thoughts and can guide them with considerably more intention.

I had tried to get focused on other things. But I always ended up back in the same place, and it wasn't making me happy. I needed to get the focus back.

When I model I pretty much go blank. You can't think too much or it doesn't work.

Sometimes you lose sight of what's going on around you.

I'm tough, I'm pushy, I'm really loud. I used to spend a lot of time thinking about it. But we only have so much brain capacity, so if I'm spending part of my brain thinking about how I'm acting, A, I'm not spending all of my brain doing, and B, I'm not actually in that moment.

Like sheep that get lost nibbling away at the grass because they never look up, we often focus so much on ourselves and our problems that we get lost.

Some people think they are concentrating when they're merely worrying.

Presence is more than just being there.

I was all about my thoughts, my work, my inspiration. I was always in hair.

I can enjoy what I'm engaged in and be fully present rather than planning my answers to questions while someone else is speaking or thinking about my next appointment while my current engagement is still in in progress.

I've got a terrible memory; it's probably because I'm always concentrating on what I'm doing now.

We've lost the ability to immerse ourselves in things.

Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.