Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
One can choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances.
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.
Don't aim at success — the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run — in the long run, I say — success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.
Management works in the system; leadership works on the system.
The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.
Live out of your imagination, not your history.
For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment.
Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.
Integrity in the Moment of Choice: Quality of life depends on what happens in the space between stimulus and response.
Between stimulus and response is the freedom to choose.
We are product of neither nature nor nurture; we are a product of choice, because there is always a space between stimulus and response. As we wisely exercise our power to choose based on principles, the space will become larger.
Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness. (p. 100)
Your mind, in order to defend itself starts to give life to inanimate objects. When that happens it solves the problem of stimulus and response because literally if you're by yourself you lose the element of stimulus and response. Somebody asks a question, you give a response. So, when you lose the stimulus and response, what I connected to is that you actually create all the stimulus and response.
Between stimulus and response, there is a space, and when you take time to pray or make a cuppa, you don't have to live in reaction to a situation.
Mindfulness is a pause - the space between stimulus and response: that's where choice lies.
Real freedom is the ability to pause between stimulus and response, and in that pause, choose.
or simply:
