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“The best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times—although such experiences can also be enjoyable, if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.

Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen. For a child, it could be placing with trembling fingers the last block on a tower she has built, higher than any she has built so far; for a swimmer, it could be trying to beat his own record; for a violinist, mastering an intricate musical passage. For each person there are thousands of opportunities, challenges to expand ourselves.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

“The difficulty comes from our lack of confidence.”
― Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

“Failing is often the best way to learn, and because of that, early failure is a kind of necessary investment.”
― Chip Heath, Switch

“You win when you refuse to fight petty people. Fighting little people reduces you to their size.”
― David J. Schwartz, The Magic of Thinking Big