| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: replied, "By setting himself to live the noblest life himself."
CXLIV
I am free, I am a friend of God, ready to render Him willing
obedience. Of all else I may set store by nothing--neither by
mine own body, nor possessions, nor office, nor good report, nor,
in a word, aught else beside. For it is not His Will, that I
should so set store by these things. Had it been His pleasure, He
would have placed my Good therein. But now He hath not done so:
therefore I cannot transgress one jot of His commands. In
everything hold fast to that which is thy Good--but to all else
(as far as is given thee) within the measure of Reason only,
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: a piece of timber.
"So far, so good," said he to himself; "when the scaling ladder is
up, the soldier follows, I suppose. I can only humbly thank them
for giving my embrasure the preference. There he comes! I hear
his feet scuffling."
He could hear plainly enough some one working himself into the
mouth of the embrasure: but the plague was, that it was so dark
that he could not see his hand between him and the sky, much less
his foe at two yards off. However, he made a pretty fair guess as
to the whereabouts, and, rising softly, discharged such a blow
downwards as would have split a yule log. A volley of sparks flew
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: reach the work of my high calling - the artist's.
I am, as you may gather from this, wonderfully better: this harsh,
grey, glum, doleful climate has done me good. You cannot fancy how
sad a climate it is. When the thermometer stays all day below 10
degrees, it is really cold; and when the wind blows, O commend me
to the result. Pleasure in life is all delete; there is no red
spot left, fires do not radiate, you burn your hands all the time
on what seem to be cold stones. It is odd, zero is like summer
heat to us now; and we like, when the thermometer outside is really
low, a room at about 48 degrees: 60 degrees we find oppressive.
Yet the natives keep their holes at 90 degrees or even 100 degrees.
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