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Author: [[Jeff Olson, John David Mann]] Full Title: The Slight Edge Category: #books

1. The Beach Bum and the Millionaire   “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson (attrib.) did not go to a mountaintop, did not experience enlightenment, did not have a near-death experience that showed me the truth of universal brotherhood. (Although I did go through some pretty terrible failures that at the time sure felt like near-death experiences.) The only reason I’ve made the transformation from there to here is that, somewhere along the way, I’ve had the good fortune of being exposed to the slight edge. When I arrived in New Mexico, I had resolved that I was going to forever leave behind the land of mediocrity and start inhabiting the world of high achievement. Except that it wasn’t. I didn’t know it yet, but just working harder doesn’t do it. If it did, then everyone who works hard would have made it. No, this time I needed to sit down and start carefully, methodically, systematically sorting through the mixed up pieces of my shattered life. There had to be some logic here, and I had to find it. That’s what I’d been doing. And that’s what so many people do, living their entire lives like this, oscillating between failure and survival, striving toward success and maybe even reaching the level of success, but then invariably turning back and heading downward again. We do this in our finances, in our health, in our relationships, and in our lives as a whole. Why? Well, you could say it’s because we sabotage ourselves, for all kinds of reasons. Our father was mean to us, so now we’re mean to ourselves. We’re conflicted, because society sends us mixed messages.

AI Summary

The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson, John David Mann presents wisdom from the contemplative traditions.

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