The Future of the Universe

I came across a great Bud­dhist quote while read­ing Mihaly Csikszentmihali’s Find­ing Flow last night.

“Act as if the future of the uni­verse depended on what you did, while laugh­ing at your­self for think­ing that what­ever you do makes any difference.”

Being in a sales role, this quote seemed to really res­onate with my day to day work life. I make call after call on cus­tomer after cus­tomer, and I hear a lot of the word “No.” There is always a temp­ta­tion lose hope, give up, or waste time doing some­thing less chal­leng­ing. Still suc­cess is con­tin­gent on being deter­mined and resilient — mak­ing that extra call, going the extra mile, and push­ing for­ward as if the uni­verse depended on it. What keeps me sane is push­ing like hell, and then look­ing back at all of those “No” responses and laughing.

Amazon.com: Find­ing Flow: The Psy­chol­ogy of Engage­ment with Every­day Life: Books: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi