The problem with taking offense is that it's really hard to figure out what to do with it after you're done using it. Better to just leave it on the table and walk away. Umbrage untaken quietly disappears.
Seth GodinRead
If you're not upsetting anyone, you're not changing the status quo.
Interpretation
Challenging existing norms can lead to meaningful change, even if it causes discomfort.
Seth Godin's quote emphasizes that in order to create real change in society, it is often necessary to disturb the established norms and provoke reactions from others. If one's actions or ideas are not eliciting any opposition or discomfort, it suggests that they are not effectively challenging the status quo, which is crucial for progress and innovation.
In practice
During a team meeting discussing new strategies, one might quote this to encourage bold thinking.
The problem with taking offense is that it's really hard to figure out what to do with it after you're done using it. Better to just leave it on the table and walk away. Umbrage untaken quietly disappears.
Not adding value is the same as taking it away.
Excellence isn’t about meeting the spec, it’s about setting the spec. It defines what the consumer sees as quality right this minute, and tomorrow, if you’re good, you’ll reset that expectation again
Living with doubt ... is almost always more profitable than living with certainty. _x000D_ People don't like doubt, so they pay money and give up opportunities to avoid it. _x000D_ Entrepreneurshi p is largely about living with doubt. If you need reassurance, you're giving up quite a bit to get it. On the other hand, if you can get in the habit of seeking out uncertainty, you'll have developed a great instinct.
The danger of the Web is that you can go from idea to public announcement in under ten minutes.
Art isn't only a painting. Art is anything that is creative, passionate and personal. Art is the unique work of a human being created to touch another. Art is created to have an impact, to change someone else.
Every one of us is called upon, perhaps many times, to start a new life. A frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, loss of a job...And onward full-tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore. To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another--that is surely the basic instinct...Crying out: High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is.
One mighty deed can change the course of things; a lonely thought becomes omnipotent.
Dying is a matter of slapstick and pratfalls. The ageing process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous.
If it's true, why do they leave us to live like this? With the hunger and the killings and the Games?" And suddenly I hate this imaginary underground city of District 13 and those who sit by, watching us die. They're no better than the Capitol.
As I was writing 'The Shock Doctrine', I was covering the Iraq War and profiteering from the war, and I started to see these patterns repeat in the aftermath of natural disasters, like the Asian tsunami and then Hurricane Katrina.
We have the ability to completely change our environment to go... to take on... to inherit, in a certain sense, things far beyond our DNA, and that's inheritable. And we can see evolution in action as our ideas evolve and undergo a kind of Darwinian selection not at the DNA level. And we can go off into space.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.