i read this quote by Obama the other day. He was asked about the presidency and the incoveniences that come with it (long ours, loss of privacy, inability to go out in public regularly, threats for him and family).
He started off the response talking about the difficulties openly and honestly, and then said this:
“But the point is that what I found at a very young age was that if you can only think about yourself — ‘How much money can I make? What can I buy? How nice is my house? What kind of fancy car do I have?’ — that over the long term, I think you get bored,” he told the audience of mostly students.
“I think if you’re only thinking about yourself, your life becomes diminished, and the way to live a full life is to think about what can I do for others, how can I be a part of this larger project of making a better world,” he said.
Obama said with all the challenges facing the world now, the younger generation has an abundance of opportunities to make a difference.
“It would be a tragedy if all of you who are so talented and energetic — if you let that go to waste, if you just stood back and watched the world pass you by,” he said.
“Better to jump in, get involved — and it does mean that sometimes you’ll get criticized and sometimes you’ll fail and sometimes you’ll be disappointed — but you’ll have a great adventure. And at the end of your life, hopefully you’ll be able to look back and say, ‘I made a difference.’”
Not that I mind. I quite enjoy playing the bass.
how to be tough without being mean
“Most importantly, Pau Gasol figured out that being tough doesn’t necessarily mean being a banger. For him, it means being resilient, playing smart, and never giving up. It means using his superior speed, quickness, footwork, and intellect to gain an advantage over his opponents. It means working hard, remaining aggressive, and sometimes demanding the ball. And every now and then, it means getting in his opponents’ faces and daring them to try that again. He may have faltered a year ago, but in the 2009 Playoffs, and in the Finals most of all, he figured these things out, and he executed them to perfection.”
is the only way to be tough, to be someone that gets into a fight, “defends himself”, shouts at the opposition, bullies his way to the top?
what we see in the working world, the academic world, the social world, is that somehow he who makes the most noise wins. and being tough is about being the one that shouts or struts about the loudest — intimidating others, and puffing themself up.
so i like this quote about how pau gasol, labeled soft/quiet/weak, managed to toughen himself up to bring another championship to LA.
Maybe being tough is more about being resilient, smarter, more efficient. I think i posted something about this previously, but it’s nice to see in this case, the modern tough guy wins out against the noisier tough guys (the celtics — KG i’m looking at you!).
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As for the Magic, they are a sweet team. Dwight Howard is a class act. Hope you either win a championship after Kobe retires. Or else you move to LA where you belong.