You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.
David Foster WallaceRead
You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.
Interpretation
What this quote means
We have the power to choose what is significant in our lives.
In this quote, David Foster Wallace emphasizes the importance of personal agency in determining what we value in life. He suggests that individuals have the freedom to choose their beliefs and what they give importance to, thereby shaping their own meaning and purpose, whether it be worship, relationships, or pursuits.
Themes
ChoiceMeaningValuesAgencyDecide
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about personal growth and responsibility.
More from David Foster Wallace
All quotes →Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence.
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It seems important to find ways of reminding ourselves that most 'familiarity' is meditated and delusive.
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Under fun's new administration, writing fiction becomes a way to go deep inside yourself and illuminate precisely the stuff you don't want to see or let anyone else see, and this stuff usually turns out (paradoxically) to be precisely the stuff all writers and readers share and respond to, feel.
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Acceptance is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.
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Bliss - a-second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious - lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (Tax Returns, Televised Golf) and, in waves, a boredom like you’ve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it’s like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom.
David Foster WallaceRead
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