First, we must do our own personal work, then we tend the necessary work of our family, then our community, then the world.
Interpretation
Personal growth is essential before helping others on larger scales.
This quote by Laozi emphasizes the importance of self-improvement as the foundation for contributing to the well-being of others. It suggests a progression of responsibility that starts with individual development, moves to family obligations, extends to community needs, and finally encompasses the global society, highlighting the interconnectedness of personal and collective growth.
In practice
Using this quote as a guiding principle in a workshop on personal development.
If you understand others you are smart._x000D_ If you understand yourself you are illuminated._x000D_ If you overcome others you are powerful._x000D_ If you overcome yourself you have strength._x000D_ If you know how to be satisfied you are rich._x000D_ If you can act with vigor, you have a will._x000D_ If you don't lose your objectives you can be long-lasting._x000D_ If you die without loss, you are eternal.
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.
A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.
Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.
In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it.
Rule your mind with serenity rather than with force and manipulation.
Delusion means mortality. And awareness means Buddhahood.
Scientific culture created a framework within which individual mobility was possible without threatening hierarchical work-force allocation. On the contrary, meritocracy reinforced hierarchy. Finally, meritocracy as an operation and scientific culture as an ideology created veils that hindered perception of the underlying operations of historical capitalism.
The gods envy us. They envy us because weβre mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because weβre doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.
The whole life is a succession of dreams. My ambition is to be a conscious dreamer, that is all.
She felt like a fictional character who'd escaped the book in which her creator had carefully and kindly trapped her, taken a pair of scissors to her outline and leaped, free.
We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.
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