Either you're growing or you're decaying; there's no middle ground. If you're standing still, you're decaying.
Alan ArkinRead
I love working if it's with people who are capable of having a good time. People with a little bit of enjoyment of what they do. If it's enormous pressure, and people feel that their lives are at stake, then it's agony. So I try to pick projects where I feel like I'm going to avoid those traps.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Collaboration and enjoyment in work are essential for a positive experience.
In this quote, Alan Arkin emphasizes the importance of working in a friendly and enjoyable environment. He suggests that when the pressure is too high and the stakes feel overwhelming, it can lead to a painful experience. Therefore, he prefers to engage in projects that cultivate enjoyment and minimize stress, highlighting the significance of choosing the right partnerships in work life.
Themes
CollaborationEnjoymentWorkPressureProjects
In practice
Example use cases
In a team meeting to discuss project assignments, I could share this quote to emphasize the importance of selecting positive collaborations.
More from Alan Arkin
All quotes →I used to watch the world as if it was a performance and I would realize that certain things that people did moved me, and certain things didn't move me, and I tried to analyze, even at that age, six and seven and eight, why I was moved by certain things they did
Alan ArkinRead
If you want to be an actor and you love acting, you can do it whether you're doing something else or not. You can be connected with community theater or make your own little movies. But if you want to be a movie star, you've got a tough road ahead of you.
Alan ArkinRead
Everybody's career has ups and downs. I like to take chances; I don't like to stand still. And I don't give a damn what the market is interested in; I want to try things.
Alan ArkinRead
I don't believe in competitions between artists. This is insane. Who has the authority to say someone is better?
Alan ArkinRead
Every physicist knows that things connect with each other. To isolate things is not the way the universe works - winning best actor is arbitrary.
Alan ArkinRead
Similar quotes
Bring your whole self to work. I don't believe we have a professional self Monday through Friday and a real self the rest of the time. It is all professional and it is all personal.
Sheryl SandbergRead
The best thing about my job, though, is stopping at the end of the day and rejoining the human universe.
Orson Scott CardRead
It is right and necessary that all should have work to do which shall be worth doing and be of itself pleasant to do, and which should be done under such conditions as would make it neither over-wearisome nor over-anxious.
William MorrisRead
I have a job I'm pretty good at. I am in charge of things. I am on committees. People respect me and take my counsel. I want to be strong and professional, but I resent how hard I have to work to be taken seriously, to receive a fraction of the consideration I might otherwise receive.
Roxane GayRead
Our point of view is, lets not be so elitist that we can't honor good, hard, dignified, ennobling work: people working with their hands, building things, putting up solar panels, weatherizing homes, working on organic agriculture, building wind farms. We don't have robots in society, so somebody has to do that work. Lets make sure that the people who can use that work get a chance to do it. I see that as a first step toward bigger and better things.
Van JonesRead
I find that through the sad times, work is what made my continuing, not breaking down, possible. In work, I was always someone else and I subconsciously reveled in that.
Lauren BacallRead