This world of polluted attention creates the opportunity to sell silence back to us, at a profit. - Oliver Burkeman

Being alive is just happenstance, and not one more day of it is guaranteed.

perfectionism, at bottom, is a fear-driven striving to avoid the experience of failure at all costs. At its extremes, it is an exhausting and permanently stressful way to live.

give a moment's thought is a friendship in name only. "Attention is the beginning of devotion," writes the poet Mary Oliver, pointing to the fact that distraction and care are incompatible with each other: you can't truly love a partner or a child, dedicate yourself to a career or to a cause — or just savor the pleasure of a stroll in the park — except to the extent that you can hold your attention on the object of your devotion to begin with.